Miss Me!

I’ve been telling everyone on my weekends to stop trying to 'get beyond' their unwanted behaviours, to stop having an agenda to get rid of their most seemingly shameful characters and less attractive aspects of themselves, but to welcome them and love them as if they’re never going away. The actions we take to ‘heal’ them can often come from a place of wanting those parts of ourselves to leave and never come back. It’s ironic because we spend so much time hoping no one will ever abandon us but then abandon our own selves whenever we decide that these uncomfortable feelings are ‘not ok for us to feel’ and so take steps to eradicate them. It can be a thin line between healing and self-rejection. I have such non-acceptance of the needy, 'terrified of being unwanted' part of me, the one that’s so fearful around being abandoned and often gets into an instant trauma reaction whenever I interpret or translate something my partner has innocently said as meaning “you don’t care if I’m around or not, you are ambivalent to me”. The belief or story I then tell myself that 'I don’t matter', 'I am irrelevant', 'I am not wanted' rushes up and feels so painful in me - so true in that moment - that I launch into a strategy of indirectly pressuring her to say something to cancel it out. I project on to her that ’she doesn't love me enough' when that particular pain and fear rushes up in me and end up creating that very reaction of her taking distance from my whining, needing space from me wishing that she was somehow different from how she is. I get threatened by her independence sometimes. When I do this I end up trying to use her to feel more secure, often tiring her out in a very unsexy way and worse, delivering her the very feeling of being unwanted that I’m desperately trying to avoid instead of simply owning my pain and asking for support.

When this happened yesterday I felt so ashamed and frustrated with this part of me that the idea, that I keep recommending to my workshoppers, of welcoming it and accepting it felt far, far away. Annoyingly, it’s the very time when this character needs me the most, when he’s most activated and in pain and has made a terrible mess that is the absolute hardest time for me to be accepting of him and caring, instead of shaming and rejecting him.

Now that the surge of pain has died down I see how upsetting it must feel to be told by me "I wish you were more like this" - and for her to feel abandoned for just being herself in that moment. Ouch! When I’m not responsibly showing up to say 'I’m triggered' but instead trying to argue with her about how she expressed something to me, I am basically attempting to use her for something 'Jamie needs' instead of loving her for who she is - and then on top of that drawing her into an hour long exchange where she feels she needs to defend and explain herself leaving her both unmet and even more tired…I wish I had reigned it in quicker when it arose in me.

She rightly challenges me with ‘why would you not want me to be content having a great time without you?’ I of course, in my truth, do want that for her. Is there a base level fear that if she has a great time without me it will speed my inevitable abandonment? Why do I need to feel needed? Even though I’ve made big steps of healing in this and my batting average of not unconsciously slipping into this mode has got better, when I get triggered, sometimes with alarmingly little provocation, it can still take me up to an hour or more to be responsible, and a lot of damage can be done in that time. If I notice the same man 'liking' three of her facebook posts in a row, suddenly I am worried that I’m doomed, trawling for trouble in the self-deception that I’m trying to keep ‘Jamie’ safe - so self sabotaging!

There’s a 15 yr old Jamie who lives in me still carrying the dejection of walking home alone from the pub that he was too young to be allowed into when all his friends were inside having fun not needing him or remembering him as he trudged home to spend Saturday night by himself - and there’s an even earlier Jamie who felt this loneliness at being left behind and unwanted in his childhood. It likely goes back even further, but the self-caring truth is that this little terrified lad that lives in me needs the adult ‘me' to actively create the reality he needs, be willing to feel his feelings with him, and while asking for support from others, to be vulnerable and not expect anyone else to deliver the feeling of ‘core nourishment’ for him. It’s too much responsibility to hand over the job of ‘make sure I never feel insecure’ to someone else. Even with my full life of kids and workshops and friendships and creating art when I'm apart from her, at the time that I slip up I almost feel like I’ve made zero progress in this. So once again I’m practicing self forgiveness and requesting hers.

‘If only neediness and begging were attractive qualities.’ Woody Allen

www.jamiecatto.com

Hunting Myself Like A Loving Lion

I've been noticing more than usual, in the recent days, how much I unconsciously make up stories and 'what if's', invent worrying possibilities in my mind that really make me anxious and are clearly not actually happening in my 'real' world. Even when I'm given all kinds of signals and evidence that these mental fictions are certainly not happening my mind still gravitates towards compelling, unwanted, stressful scenarios, visions of exactly what I dread. I can spend huge chunks of my day doing this. Does my mind think it's preparing me for danger? Protecting me in some way? All this imagining really does is hurt me and distract me from the gifts that are all around me in those moments, making me physically uncomfortable, missing the precious ‘Now’, and re-living what it must have felt like as a child when I was so confused and powerless (which I'm not any more).

If I can notice myself, slow my breathing, become affectionately curious with what my unruly mind is doing (again and again) then there’s a chance to free myself.

Pema Chodron has suggested today "For one day, refrain from something you habitually do to escape. Pick something concrete...make a commitment to yourself to gently work with refraining from this habit. Do this with the intention that it will put you in touch with the underlying anxiety or uncertainty that you've been avoiding." So today I'm going to amp up my loving awareness on this habit. I'm going to observe, without drama or self-judgement, myself create these self-harming thoughts and hunt them all gently like a loving but vigilant Lion.

Join me online tomorrow evening, Monday 12th Oct to explore this deeper ONLINE from anywhere in the World - http://jamiecatto.com/workshops/events/jamie-catto-online-evenings-bulletproof-12-october-2015/

www.jamiecatto.com/workshops

Is There Something Wrong With Me?

When we feel a wonderful connection with someone and then they unexpectedly back off, it’s so easy to get insecure and think ‘is it me?’ or ‘what’s wrong with me?’ Don’t worry! You are a deep, powerful person, capable of very intense and real realms and not everyone can handle this, not everyone wants to go so deep, it can bring up too much vulnerability or edginess for them. This is no reflection on you, apart from a compliment, and yes, it can be lonely being so fucking cool! Don’t worry, don’t make yourself ‘less’. Just be you and eventually the right people who are at your level do stick around. Also observe (lovingly and without judgement or impatience) your neediness, your lack, your worry, other sensations which don’t feel good for you. Observe them, appreciate and forgive them, give yourself patience and spaciousness. The child in you is very young and sometimes insecure. It is the same for me, for you, for all of us. Sometimes we reject these parts of ourselves but that is self-abandoning. It’s this self-abandoning that is more important to focus on than the perceived rejection from others. We can’t know what they need in their lives right now, but we do know what WE need - our loving awareness and presence, not judging and doubting ourselves. These uncomfortable, insecure places are part of all of us. Everyone. Most people hide from this stuff, escape, turn to addictions, numb themselves, but we are turning TOWARDS this stuff and this is a healing not just for you and for me but for everyone who comes into contact with us.

Carry on. I believe in you.

www.jamiecatto.com

Good Bad Karma

KARMA: let's not, in our self-slave-driving way mistake the lessons and illuminations Life is sending us for 'punishment' or 'payback'. This is far from what I understand by the laws of cause and effect or 'karma', Life wants to show us the things we're missing, or suppressing, or escaping. If we continue to take actions which demonstrate that we're in denial or rejection of those illuminations then Life has no choice but to turn up the volume so that we hear it. This can feel like punishment because after we've avoided looking at something enough times we might get a bonk on the head to wake us up. But this is just Life taking necessary measures to reach us. It's benevolent. None of us deserve punishment or condemnation for our past ignorance. Please let this in. Let's not add self-harming blame ideas to the already challenging lessons Life is sending us.

www.jamiecatto.com

Superhero Training for Creative Types

One of the limiting habits we have formed as a species is to always try and move towards comfort and push away discomfort. We feel a pain and we take a pill to make it go away, but as long as we are always trying to escape the uncomfortable we are missing half of the treasure of life. It’s when we are uncomfortable that we have to reach out to others, it cultivates intimacy and trust. When we are in pain our compassion for others who are experiencing pain too is deeply felt, unlike the rest of the time where we’re buzzing around in self-involved busyness. It’s when we are forced into the uncomfortable that we have huge realisations about ourselves. If we are open to life’s lessons we become illuminated by the hell we put ourselves through. The Dark Night Of The Soul is one of the most growing experiences many of us ever have. If it weren’t for the heinous panic attacks I suffered in my late teens and the suicidal state I got myself into I would never have sought out information and techniques to pull myself out of the misery I felt I had been sentenced to and begin the Warrior’s journey which led me to be the humble genius you now see before you... …and there is a big clue about our suffering. From the point of view of always running from discomfort and grasping after comfort, these challenging experiences are hellish and need to be resisted, but when I realise that my journey through this hell-realm and the tools I’ve learned on how to survive have taught me to be a skilful and empathic helper for those who are experiencing similar things to me, I notice that the hardest times of my life have been like a kind of super-hero training, sculpting me and giving me gifts which are useful for others in need. It’s almost as if, in our suffering, we are sent down into the darkest mines alone, but when we return to the surface we notice that we have in our hand a jewel that is of use to the next person down the line struggling in a similar fashion.

We’ve become so used to pushing away the chaos of our edgier feelings and feel so wary of approaching the edges of our comfort zones that whenever something or someone catapults there involuntarily we resist, we judge those people, fight them, manipulate them, condemn them, anything to keep life within the narrow confines of our perceived safety. We need the artists and musicians to go to those dark and scary places on our behalf so that we can sit in rows in the dark cinema and sob along with what’s happening on the screen. We don’t want to hang off a cliff by one arm sobbing desperately but we’re happy for Brad Pitt to do it up on the screen and we sit in the safety of Screen 2 in Finchley and have a watered-down, vicarious experience of that intensity the actor has immersed himself in. This is a vital offering we artists and creators bring, to go to such extreme places in ourselves and transform them into music and film and art for those less comfortable with their edges to have a gentler, more manageable version, and then when the credits roll go and have some dinner. The musicians and artists tend to experience life with higher peaks and lower troughs, that’s why so may of us suffer from depression and get carried away by our elation. The artists and musicians are brave and dare to go more willingly to those edges of emotion, and we provide an essential service to anyone else who needs to feel those parts of themselves more safely. Our adulation and worship of musicians and actors is a symptom of how accustomed we have become to disowning our intense feelings. We pay these artists huge sums of money to go there for us and create songs and films and other artistic expressions which allow us to get in touch with the visceral, messy parts of ourselves under controlled circumstances, risk free.

How have the challenges you’ve survived trained you? What were the unexchangeable gifts?

www.jamiecatto.com

You're The Boss

Are you comfortable with everyone being there to serve your idea? Some of us carry fear about looking arrogant or believe that if we are the leader or boss of a project that we might come across as an ego-maniac by having the last word on all decisions. It can feel edgy to own the leadership and allow all the geniuses around you be there for you, to receive what everyone’s bringing without shame. These deserving issues can be a huge trap and keep us small. Let them serve you and your idea. It’s safe to receive. If you don’t think so or you have an uncomfortable block arising when you consider this, then it’s time to do some dissolving before you take another step. Where did this sheepishness come from? Who planted it in you years ago? Is it someone else’s baggage? If so, put it down, because great art, though collaborative, is NOT democratic. No Masterpiece ever came out of a committee with everyone having their say and arriving at an average, watered-down version of what everyone wants. Your project is about your vision, it’s about a team effort for everyone to help you manifest what’s being birthed in you. Yes, we listen to input, and we might even give some of our team decision-making power in areas of the project that we trust them in, but the final word, and there can only be one final word, must come from you. Make sure everyone’s on board with this before you set off down the road. A huge part of success is the ability to delegate. How many people’s genius can you harness?

Great Art is collaborative but not democratic. It’s OK to be the boss.

www.jamiecatto.com

You are a dick-head

‘What people think’ is a vastly overrated issue to concern oneself with yet it is an often paralysing force, stopping people from daring to live their dream or even speak in public. The folks I’ve coached who are afraid of speaking in public seem to all suffer from the same problem; they’re not ok with the idea that anyone would think or see them as a total fool. For me, I already know that me being a total numpty, constantly failing, spilling the wine, saying the wrong thing, is a GIVEN. If you are ok with the basic, self-evident truth that ‘of course you’re a fool, who isn’t??’ then you are free! Public speaking will be the least of the gifts and relaxation that flows into your life. You, yes YOU, are an utter nincompoop. Stop imagining it’s a priority to hide that fact and we can all relax and thrive with each other.

www.jamiecatto.com

Yes! More!

I've been going through some intense transition waves of late, really big mofos, and I've been doing something that's really helped and illuminated me in darkest bits. 1. When the big waves come, and they are feelings of strong loss and grief I've first said Yes Yes Yes and felt them deeply but also removed the usual labels of Grief and Loss and considered what is this feeling if I take off those words and just experience it as a nameless new sensation? Something shifts.

2. I get a bit fascinated while watching both the feelings and also 'the one who is feeling them' lovingly, being fully with the exact moment with whatever is being felt, like a wine taster savouring every atom.

3. Experimenting with a new label. What if I call this Love? What if it's one of the 10 000 names of God, the 10 000 unique flavours of raw love? What does it feel like now? Better…even…beautiful in a weird way?

4. Be proud of my willingness to allow this and experience it as self-care and something nourishing. Feeling steadfast.

www.jamiecatto.com

The Path Of The Holy Banana

I’ve said many times that on my workshops and in all my dealings in life my Mission is to create an army of 'walking permission-slips’, a legion of likeminded souls who, just by being Ourselves, present, authentic, often vulnerable, become catalysts for everyone who comes into contact with us to lighten-up, evolve playfully, and be exactly as they are without needing to exhaust themselves wearing masks. When we meet people like this, who are comfortable to be seen and heard just as they are without hiding behind roles or being an ‘appropriate’ version of themselves, we ourselves become more relaxed and more authentic. Our freedom to be seen in our mess, in our eccentricity, in our fallibility, creates a permission in everyone we meet to lighten-up around all the sides of themselves that they believe aren’t welcome -and when that happens, the Intimacy level shoots through the roof and the ensuing relief which expands though each of our central nervous systems is palpable. This wonderful, playful, often foolish path is what we call The Path Of The Holy Banana. What happens to the other fruit when you place them near the Banana? They RIPEN.

Join us, and let’s be create a revolution of visibility, authenticity and playfulness. It’s available. We’re on a Mission to make self-reflection hip for just a moment, just long enough to save us, and the amount of energy we’ll inherit that has been wasted on the masks and roles will be enough to solve any Global crisis.

Workshops all over the UK and beyond at www.jamiecatto.com/workshops

www.jamiecatto.com

Don't Be My Baby

I wonder when we started replacing the word ‘Lover’ with ‘Baby’. When you take a step back from it, it’s a bit weird, no? “Be my baby”, “Baby, I need you”, “Baby you make me feel so….” - is it because babies can’t leave you? Or is it because babies are so cute? I’m confused. Is it a symptom of how, before we wake up to conscious relating, we all unconsciously yearn to be Mothered or Fathered by our lover? Or do we need our partner to be as helpless as a baby so we can be needed?

I don’t want you to be my baby.

www.jamiecatto.com/workshops Intimacy workshops coming up in UK

Get Rid Of The Corrupt Government and Corporate Powers Overnight

OK, I’ve never been political but here are a few things that I’m sure we can collectively agree on: 1. The current Power and Money system doesn’t work. It’s almost banal to say 'it’s destroying the planet’ because it’s just stating the obvious. Even if we accept that some people are going to be financially richer than others, the current gap between rich and poor, and the amount of money and resources held by a tiny amount of companies and individuals is OUT OF CONTROL. When you add to that the biggest companies wield so much control over governments by leveraging the economy that they can avoid contributing anything like their fair share of taxes, and that the fixation on making more and more money has resulted in nearly all current wars, dispossessed cultures, no regulations on hurting creatures or the environment, and while there are billions and billions of accumulated pounds squirrelled away which are not being used for anyone’s good - the current financial system has PROVED itself not to work. It hasn’t created a good standard of living for all, it’s destroying our one planet, the children are poorly educated, the elders are not cared for and our addiction to a ‘money lifestyle’ makes us all turn a blind eye to our government being involved in ongoing, horrific attrocities in far away countries. The current Power and Money system doesn’t work.

2. Our current treatment of the natural planet and its creatures is barbaric. The food industry’s treatment of millions and millions of feeling cows, pigs, chickens, fish (Kurt Cobain said they don’t have any feelings but I’m not certain), numerous other animals in factory farms in this country is unacceptable. Linda McCartney said if abattoirs had glass walls we’d all be vegetarians. It’s another thing we collectively turn a blind eye to. Maybe future generations are going to be dismayed that at this late date 2015, with all our knowledge and consciousness that we would still allow this treatment of animals which DO feel pain and fear. The fact that we still accept that cosmetics in our high streets are tested on animals too, so so cruelly, is also macabre when you don’t look away from it.

3. The level of corruption and sociopathic partnership between our government and destructive corporate forces is frightening, and no amount of marching in the streets, protests or petitions seems to do much about it.

Well, there is an overnight solution to all this that none of these agents of greed would ever see coming, and that is to vote GREEN. The crazily corrupt governments of Conservative and Labour would be gone in one 24 hour period of voting solidarity. If everyone who’s been going on marches and protesting and signing petitions, or even just watching and agreeing, collectively decided to vote GREEN next week, we could solve the impossible problem of this entrenched corruption in one glorious, victorious sweep.

The corporations have not considered the GREEN party worth buying yet, they’ve been too insignificant a player to bother with. It could be the most genius David and Goliath moment in modern history, unforeseen by the amoral powers that be, for all of us who are so sick of the current death-peddling power structures, who feel disempowered by how entrenched the corruption is, as if it’s just beyond changing because they own the media and the run the army and are already so advanced in their monopoly of resources, for one killer blow to be struck, simply, peacefully, within the systems ‘rules’ by just voting GREEN next week.

The other two parties have convinced everyone of the incorrect paradigm that a vote for GREEN is a vote wasted and that it’s only important to make sure either Conservative don’t get in so vote Labour. But Labour have proved themselves to be almost as bad, still perpetuating the country’s enslavement to ‘ideas of money’, numbers changing on screens and percentages announced by banks. They’ve proved themselves to be no less corporate slaves than the Tories. They did little or nothing to address the above issues when they had power, but just feathered their own nests and talked the same nonsense we’ve always expected from politicians. They were no different from the Conservatives really.

The GREEN party are not entrenched in that World. They were never invited. They have never been taken seriously, and whatever else their policies are, the above possibility is just too compelling for me to ignore. A GREEN GOVERNMENT CAN ONLY BE BETTER THAN WHAT WE HAVE BY MILES AND MILES. The prize of ousting the current murderous, war-mongering, arrogant thieves is too precious to NOT vote Green, isn’t it? If there are other policies of the Green Party which we feel need adjusting we can do that as we go, whatever we’d like to change about those policies, none of them outweigh what we could achieve with the above idea.

And THAT is why I’m voting GREEN and URGE you to tell everyone else to too! Let’s get rid of this system of horror and build the new together, peacefully, collectively and efficiently starting next week.

www.jamiecatto.com

The Marriage of Soul and Ego - A Bit Of A Pickle

This dilemma has been central for me recently. Although there may be a realm where ‘we are all one’ and there is no duality, just a big Ommmming Oneness everywhere, when we incarnate as a human on Earth we enter a realm of duality, two-ness. As this Earth plane is the realm of EXPERIENCE, we come into separate human bodies and there’s Me and You, there’s hot and cold (which define each other) and ON and OFF and this duality allows us to have experiences. There needs to be at least two things to have an experience, the experiencer (Me) and the pizza I’m enjoying, or Me and Music, or Me and You. It’s this separation from a uniform Oneness into individuality that makes living and experiencing all the wonderful and terrible things a human life has to offer possible. But although we fully invest and identify with this human that we are living through, this guy called Jamie who lives here with his wants and loves and hopes and fears, and all his thinking and thinking, we also retain the part of us that is still in the Oneness realm and that part of us isn’t tied up in the drama of the individual human Jamie. That part is watching the human Jamie ego, but not sucked into all the dramas and pros and cons and daily triggers. That part is the witnessing presence that lives in us too, alongside the busy human part.

So there’s another form of duality that each of us lives with. We are both the human ego having a dramatic time AND a watching, observing presence which simultaneously travels along, hopefully loving not judging, spacious, unaddicted - and when we listen deeply from that place, much better wisdom and creativity and intimacy and unmanipulative choices are available to us. This isn’t a blog about how we usually crowd out that observing loving presence with all our loud, controlling thinking and busyness. That’s a given.

My dilemma is about living bravely, yet safely with both those aspects of us.

My ego craves safety. Due to the wounding and traumas of my life so far I’ve learnt that it is my responsibility to provide as safe and nourishing environment for myself, the human, to thrive in. And this includes not putting myself in situations where I’m constantly in a state of trigger and alarm. I can ‘work on’ my wounds and triggers and aspire to be less reactive and more trusting in Life, but we all carry one or more wounded ‘inner-children’ in us and to live a thriving, juicy, empowered life, those reactive characters that live in us need some looking after. As I often say, we are each of us a wise guru in charge of a mental patient. In a changeable world, setting boundaries which are right for us is part of a self-loving lifestyle.

At the same time, the part of us that is just the observing presence, which some people feel is closer to their ‘Soul’ or ‘Higher Self’, is not interested in safety, and, if anything, is always pushing up against the next limitation, the next edge of our comfort zone and tends to disregard the human Jamie’s attempts to set up a safe life. The Soul seems interested in learning, and in dissolving the boundaries that the little ego is setting up so that it can experience what’s on the other side of the boundary and feel itself fully. It’s on a mission for wholeness and that can’t include pushing anything away. This is a fascinating, healing and illuminating journey, though not for the faint hearted (as if we have a choice!).

And there’s my dilemma; how does one responsibly set up a life where the wounds are cared for, the environment is conducive for the human to thrive and not live in perpetual trigger-zones while at the same time not constantly pushing away the brave Soul's journey to expand our limited, conditioned notions of safety, which Life is going to inevitably keep bring to us, ignoring our comfort zones and boundaries?

I, the human, want to feel safe in the World because I exist in a limited plane with life and death and I need to be true to my nature.

I, the Soul, want to dissolve all boundaries indiscriminately because I live in a limitless plane and need to be true to my nature.

I, the human, don’t want to hide from my edges but need clear boundaries in this changeable World so that I can navigate this great adventure to its fullest potential.

I, the Soul, am not interested in the human’s idea of what those boundaries are. I claim to see a bigger picture. Trust me.

How do we both honour the human’s needs and priorities while also honouring the Soul’s?

A ship is safe in harbour, but that’s not what ships are for. – Grace Hopper (Rear Admiral, USN)

www.jamiecatto.com/workshops

Enslaving The Cock

I was looking at my penis today, applying some oil and care, and it struck me very sadly how much I have enslaved my cock and my sexuality in my life. I have treated it as if its job was to deliver me certain things, things which are beyond its intended offering and function.Using my cock to please women and ‘be a great lover’ and deliver lots of pleasure and satisfaction so I can feel sexually powerful or even just adequate, is a form of enslavement of the cock, and I’ve been feeling some sadness around that today, some regret. The pressure to ‘deliver’. Of course, all the beautiful connected sex is not in the same realm, but the times I’ve used sex, either with a woman or by myself, to fill a gap, avoid space or edgy feelings, avoid loneliness, make me feel powerful, make me feel lovable or special, to prop me up…..that was not what my glorious cock was born for. I want to apologise to my penis and all cocks of the World for the unconscious ways we have sent them on ‘missions’ they were never trained for. It’s not the cock’s job to get it’s man a sense of well-being, sexual prowess, pride, safety from rejection, safety from humiliation, self-worth, inclusion or any of the other things I’ve leant on it for over the course of my life. Let’s stop enslaving the cock, or the vagina. I’m treating my cock with much more care now. I’m no longer using it as a tool of my unconsciousness, of a tool of my avoidance and escape of emotional and ancestral wounding, as a tool of compensation for the spaces and edges in my masculinity. So a new journey of deeply respecting my cock in a much more aware and focused way begins. Will you join me? Men and women? To no longer enslave our penises and vaginas to ‘get our needs met’, to escape, to fill gaps, to prop us up or ‘get’ us anything? Can we love each other’s sexual parts with that respect and care too? To keep the love and sex as a celebration of this moment only, this intimacy, here and now…..let’s not blame culture, let’s build our new culture as of now, no longer unconsciously prostituting our sexuality to fulfil roles and needs it wasn’t meant for. Together.

If we don't care for our fragile sexuality in this way, how can we ever be trusted with our boundaries? Won't they always be at the mercy of the next 'need' that has to be fulfilled? Safety in relationships, both with others, and with ourselves comes from trust. We will be able to manifest that kind of conscious environment within which we can thrive by dissolving the parts of our sexuality that we've enslaved. Please share your experiences in this…

www.jamiecatto.com/workshops

Milk The Drama

In my life, pretty much ALL my concerns and hopes and expectations of how someone else might behave, have got me in a pickle - being sure I know 'what others need to let go of' is usually a self-destructive minefield of powerlessness and disappointment - I do better to meet that wrenching exasperation in the body and dissolve it where it really is lodged. Whoever else is involved in the most recent drama of reactivity and upset - the events and characters that triggered all these reactions in us are most likely never going to fall in line and be helpful, only our own inner presence and attention to how we feel in it. The reactivity that erupts is feelable - and with total willingness it can dissolve, if we take space from ‘what just happened' for a bit, park the events and who did what for a second, and turn our attention and fascination towards what’s erupting or contracting in our body. This is a Taoist model where they deliberately, daily, dissolve all edgy, blocked, tight, or numb feelings by feeling it to it’s fullest willingly, fascinatedly, and when we apply it to big 'let-go's' we can reclaim all the energy that's knotted up and transform it into illumination and self care.

It’s the difference between allowing Life’s unexpected challenges and difficult people to collapse us and send us into disempowerment OR use what’s going on to access and dissolve deep buried traumatised reactivity that lives in us and then harvest it's treasure. Empowered.

We can’t often control what happens but we can, at least, with practice, control that choice at the crossroads. This is where we can participate in our own liberation.

It’s hardcore self-activism.

Being ‘right’ is the biggest trap to distract us from this.

www.jamiecatto.com

So Selfish

It seems like all my coaching sessions, mentoring and workshops' insights keep leading towards a single concept: SELF CARE.Am I staying in a situation that doesn't serve me? Self Care. Am I not being met in my relationship? Self Care. Am I giving myself the chance to live the dream doing what inspires and fulfils me? Self Care. Do I beat myself up with my expectations of how far I should have come by now? Self Care. Am I lonely? Self Care. Am I running to addictions and escapes to not feel my uncomfortable feelings? Self Care. Am I relying on external events and people to feel good inside? Self Care.

We've confused Self Care with Selfishness and abandoned ourselves and our needs. Time to end the suffering sacrifice people! You doing what feels good, is good for everyone. Your Truth is your Compass. Just try it for a bit.

Life is Infinite but a Human Life is 75/80 years - and you're probably about half way through or more. Don't wait.

www.jamiecatto.com

Join Me In The Mess

One key purpose of the Facebook groups I've set up ('Bad Parents of The World, Unite!', 'Sanctuary For Terror', 'Being With My Rage') is to de-stigmatise the shame of the raw, edgy, culturally-pushed-away sides of our lives and experiences. The 'shame' or 'resistance' people feel to share their most vulnerable experiences is one of the great diseases of our culture. We've all supported the wrong idea that it's not ok to be simply yourself having the challenging experiences you're having and be seen in it. This hiding, this 'I couldn't let anyone know the truth' belief is a core reason our culture is so screwed up, fake, and shame-ridden. It's the opposite of the intimate life we all really want. It's collective loneliness and the hiding and shame has the ripple effect of less and less people feeling safe, feeling met, feeling part of the human race, deserving of love and support. When we speak freely about the parts of ourselves that usually get skipped or hidden, we become walking permission slips for everyone else to come out of their painful, lonely hiding and join in. The stigma and this unhealthy, un-self-loving practice of hiding and faking begins to dissolve. But only by EXAMPLE.

My groups are there to offer a 'no big deal' attitude to the fear and drama of 'if anyone knew the truth about me then.....'. There are many other closed groups available for those who want that perceived safety - but my ones are exploring something which is, to me, more to the core of what's needed for all of us and I support and welcome and am grateful to all those who join me on this visible journey, bravely being the first to be seen in all their mess, so that others can have more comfort with theirs. In the 70s it was a taboo to get divorced and sharing experiences of unhappy marriages was a taboo too - it would only have happened in closed groups. Now, these days it's no longer a taboo and people are getting the support they need. But it took brave people earlier on, to be seen, that gave everyone else the comfort. Let's be braver and participate in the un-stigmatising of our basic truths and needs.

Please be a walking permission slip with me - lots of people need the example of your permission to dare to be free themselves and receive the support they need.

www.jamiecatto.com

Can You Be In Two Places At Once?

There's a notion that there's a perfection to how Life plays out for each of us, that there's some perfectly crafted Soul's curriculum being benevolently offered to Us alongside the simultaneous pain and suffering that the human creature in us experiences. Although that model does include it all being 'perfect' from one perspective, to use that idea of 'it's all perfect' to avoid fully feeling the human discomfort, as an anaesthetic to the very raw and vividly felt waves we feel as humans when something hurts or disappoints us, to 'run upstairs' proclaiming "it's all perfect, it was meant to be...tra la la..." is inefficient. A powerful challenge is to fully feel the human going ouch while AT THE SAME TIME fully experience the Witness in us that's not sucked into the drama but just watching, going "ah...interesting..." and scribbling an important note in it's file.

I'm here to FEEL with all my emotions and nerve endings and waves and tremors and bliss-outs and melt-downs. So when it gets shaky I can be the first to meet myself and go "stay with it brother, keep breathing"...

www.jamiecatto.com

Don't Fall In Love With A Warrior

Don’t Fall In Love With A Warrior As his love will cast such blazing illumination upon you

That the darkest edges of your resistance will be etched too vividly for you to ever ignore again.

You will be faced with yourself in his reflection, and fixed with his gaze.

His care will trigger weeping for all the unloved places that had ’til now been left unheld

And you will be faced with your grief and your rage

And there will be a melting.

But though he’ll never save you from your pain

He will sit beside you, matching your breath

Supporting you invisibly until dawn rises again

Until your ribs ache with the opening

Revealing new spaces for your heart to reinhabit.

He will call you back to yourself from the caves where you’ve hid

Hid your power from the world, and from your self,

He’ll plant a question in your soul

And demand an answer.

Are you ready to love yourself so deeply and be matched in that love?

He’ll burn all your maps of the past

Dissolving the paths that led us here

To fix upon the only moment where love resides

Will you surrender to his fingertips?

Even when you fear the echoes of your past urging you to escape?

For he’ll touch your cheek so lightly that your memories of violence will rise so they may fade.

Can you feel safe and powerful without being needed?

As he is complete unto himself and knows how to hold himself on his own lonely nights.

Can you be held without being grasped?

Can you be led without domination?

Can you be an equal?

When he points to the horizon can you see what he imagines just beyond sight?

Will you join him on a journey

Deep into your raw and aching hearts

To discover treasure and Union and surrender?

He will penetrate you to your core

Eyes locked

Nodding so slowly as he

Sees you

Held firm.

For he’s discovered your hiding places

And remains undaunted Patient.

He’s seen your crown that you pretended was a veil

He’s seen the wounds around your neck transforming into jewels

And will never let them take you again

To that fire.

He waits at the base of the tower

Open handed

Ready to ride.

www.jamiecatto.com

I'm SO disappointed!

Disappointment is all about sticking too rigidly to a model, an idea we have of 'how it should be' - or how someone else 'should' be. But we don't know others' paths, it's all so complex. Some souls are here to experiment with deceit, some with cowardice, some with loneliness - it's all so complex. All we can do is leave analysis of 'why' behind us as there's no formula that fits everyone. If you want to shift this feeling, question your own expectations - see if you can even accept behaviours and events that make no sense to you - see if you can get more comfortable with not knowing. It’s only our expectations that hurt us in these times. And our expectations are our own responsibility, even when they seem totally natural and understandable. We can be surprised, even shocked, but always knowing it's our fixed model that’s hurting us.

www.jamiecatto.com

How To Be Safe From Abandonment Forever.

It's a painful truth that I have ruined every one of my long term relationships, including my marriage, by trying to hand over the job of 'never letting me feel insecure or abandoned' onto my partner as if they'd made a silent agreement that it was now their job to comfort me, be present with me and stay with me and certainly never trigger me into insecurity by placing their love and attention elsewhere. I now realise that it had always been my very definition of 'abandonment', which was based in the idea of 'someone else abandoning me', that was the root of my repeated stuckness and pain here. While this was my idea of abandonment, 'never being left by someone else', then my sense of well-being was always at the mercy of whichever external person I'd assigned my 'not being abandoned' responsibility to. If they chose to leave me then I suffered horribly.

But I now see that the very act of assigning the job of 'being with me' to someone else was always me abandoning myself. It's no one else's job or responsibility to be dependable in that area, only mine. If I try and get someone else to do it they will inevitably be inconsistent and my misguided expectation of their consistency is what will hurt me.

It makes people feel weighed down when we try and foist this job, which is not theirs, upon them. It makes them feel claustrophobic and ironically usually creates the very rejection that we're trying so desperately to avoid.

It also makes us cultivate the bad habit of absolving ourselves of a primary life challenge: To love ourselves, to be present with ourselves even when we feel depressed or lonely or insecure. To not escape our feelings and experiences in those moments is not as impossibly traumatic as we may imagine.

This is the time to soothe ourselves, talk to ourselves, remind ourselves that we, the steadfast adult, are still here, and are never leaving. This is the time to remind ourselves that we have always been here and survived every tough time, all the challenging emotional periods. We are here and always will be no matter what anyone else does or wherever anyone else goes.

I abandon myself when I try and get another person to do that job for me. Breaking that habit saves me from ever feeling abandoned again.

Next time that emptiness or insecurity arises in us let's not anaesthetise ourselves by immediately running to the distracting comfort of another, or Facebook or food or drugs. Let's become our own best friends or even parents, dependable, steadfast and safe.

What do you need to remind yourself in those moments?

All Workshops and Talks at: www.jamiecatto.com