Hi Chris and Trinity

Thank-you for an amazing 4 days. I went through so much and have come away with a sense of what it means to surrender completely. I also have a connection with who I really am and I feel a stronger person. I have had lots of realisations both there and since returning. I feel I have taken a huge leap forward on my spiritual path and really opened up my heart.

I have noticed that I carry around a lot of fear with me and am letting go day-to-day fear and worry.
I loved the group and made some lovely connections with people. It definitely was worth going to Scotland and am sure I will keep that connection. I still have a lot of unanswered questions !

love to you both
Anya

Thank you Anya for sharing

Way of the Heart in Scotland proved to be a deeply moving course for me too and was an absolute delight to work with everyone who joined us there.

It is awesome to see a group from a multitude of different backgrounds and experience join together and harmonise so rapidly. Huge credit to Chris for tuning into the individual energies as well as the collective harmonic of the group and flowing with whatever arose in the moment. For me it was four days of constant divine synchronicities.

I am constantly amazed at the poetry in motion that surrender to the moment and flow with the universal life energy brings.

I offer my heart and extend my deepest gratitute to you all for opening so readily and being YOU!

In Love and Light
Trinity

At last I have got around to doing my first post.

Firstly, thanks to Chris and Trinity for 4 wonderful days in Findhorn. It was such a lovely group of people so very comfortable for letting go, so I'd like to thank the group for that!

I would like to share my experiences of both of the Open Hand courses as I think they're different to the others I have read on here, but I feel I may not be alone in these experiences.

The first part of Open hand I did with my husband in Nairn in November. On the first day I released a lot of anger (Chris magnanimously took the brunt of it). After the end of the second day me and Darren were on cloud 9, full of energy and noticing synchronicity everywhere. As soon as we read about part two in Findhorn we signed up straight away.

The 'Way of the Heart' was at a place called Shambala, it was a mansion set in beautifully peaceful Findhorn, yet the place felt to me like being in juvenile prison. I think Chris and Trinity did an amazing job of keeping such a lovely energy going in such a strictly religious feeling place.

As I'd just done two long haul flights in 5 days (with work) I felt quite tired throughout the 4 days, but still enjoyed them and the people we were with. When I got back home though I felt as if nothing much had changed, I didn't feel any different. I did come away with a determination to give up my job, I've had that desire for awhile. Then things started to happen........

In the following nights I started to have more of the fearful dreams that I'd experienced while at Findhorn. I wake with a feeling of fear in my stomach and can't remember what I have dreamt which is very unusual for me. In the day I find I'm impatient, feel stressed and I mean I feel it. In the past I know I've been stressed but have never actually 'felt' it. It doesn't feel good. I am currently off work as I just can't face it and feel like I did when I suffered from Chronic Fatigue many years ago. I realise this is my body's way of telling me to quit my stupid job, but still have that feeling of responsibility for things like mortgage payments and food bills.

Luckily I have training in naturopthic nutrition so I am resting, eating simple meals and doing various naturopathic techniques to aid my body's emotional detox, as that's how it feels. The only way I know of to rid the body of fear is to do urine packs to the kidneys, but if anyone else has any other thoughts, I'd like to hear them.

Last night my dream contained the numbers 4 (a lot) and 1, then I weirdly woke up at 4.14am.

I know my path is gonna take considerably longer than other peoples but at least I'm on it I suppose.

Oh and did anyone witness the beauty of the lunar eclipse? I do think that may have something to do with how I feel too as I always feel drawn to the moon.

Roll on the equinox!

With much love,

Debra (and Darren says 'hi' too) xx

Hi Debra,

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences of both courses here. You know I often think that people come to 'spiritual courses' expecting always to go home on 'cloud nine' so its perfect to hear the other side of the coin too.

I think there is a stereotypical view that we’re meant to rapidly, effortlessly and painlessly reach some kind of blissful nirvana and then have everything in our lives just fall magically into place without us have to do anything but click our fingers!

As you have seen, at Openhand we help people delve deep into their physical, emotional, mental and energetic bodies AND we help them see past that to their inherent inviolable essence - the absolute - which is beyond all such experience.

On "Way of the Heart", the purpose was to connect with the soul (that which arises from the absolute) and build the experience of that within our bodies. From there, we see how when we are flowing with the soul, the universe synchronistically and magically shapes around us (I believe you tasted that to quite a large degree after the first course).

But where does this magic lead us to? It is not some distant and perfect Shambala. No we are not all heading for some mystical 'lah lah land'! As we covered on the course, guidance leads us to confront our attachments - where we have a perceived need or conditioning for a desired outcome. These are what constrict the true energy of the soul from radiating its full glory.

So for example it has lead you to confront your fears; giving up that job which clearly doesn't serve you and what that means. How will the mortgage get paid and the food bills? It is EXACTLY in these moments that the soul is inviting us to summon the courage to overcome those fears - it often feels just like walking on broken glass!

When you unfold the courage to walk in the face of those fears and be awesomely okay with what that might mean for your life, then the fears themselves can dissolve and you will over time become the soul itself (your direct experience of absolute).

You will be complete and whole without need at all. When you can be this amidst the chaos, confusion and fears of our world then you are truly living in nirvana, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW AND FULLY PRESENT...

"Serenity is not freedom from the storm
but peace within it."

When you are being this, you will be guided on a pathway which serves all your REAL needs - but not ILLUSIONARY REALITIES which have been founded on fears and perceived wants and desires. No, the soul will directly confront and shatter any fabrications built on sand (assuming we have the courage to follow it!).

So what is standing in the way of this absolute liberation? It is the sum total of all the fears you currently hold within yourself both from this life and previous ones. Any TRUE path of self discovery will lead you to expose these.

When you connect deeply with the soul (as we all did on "Way of the Heart"), then you are pouring a high vibrational energy of great purity into your lower and denser physical, mental and emotional bodies (the personality). Just as when you pour water into thick oil, the denser oil rises to the top, so it is when you pour the energy of the soul into the personality.

One of the things that tends to come up is past life karma - I did say frequently that our energy attunement exercises were specifically designed to do this (which is probably the cause of your dreams). I noticed from our exchanges your passionate interest in all things 'gothic'. For example spending time with the punk rock band "The Dammed", painting your flat completely black - you even wore a "Dracula" tea shirt on the last day of the first course!

It is clear that there is quite a lot of darkness associated with your past which is being reflected in the present incarnation. This need come as no surprise for any of us, take a look at human history over the last 2000 years! The likelihood is that few have been spared man's inhumanity to man and are carrying that karma with them. It influences all our behaviour until we release it.

When you start confronting this karma, you will most certainly experience and feel it in your body - like fear in the stomach. But the only way out is through - what you resist persists.

You may not have been aware of this but someone else on the course also went through a quite gruesome past life regression. With our help, they have had the courage to explore this, understand how it is influencing them in this lifetime and release it. The effects have been wonderfully magical - a complete change in their beingness, now radiaiting much more light and feeling at peace.

Right now, it seems to me you are being confronted with a choice - either follow the path the soul is guiding you on or not. You may prefer not to uncover that darkness and in truth, many turn away from going there - it is too uncomfortable and challenging for them.

Alternatively, if you use the process "Openhand Way" which we taught on the course for confronting fear and attachment; and then walk the path of the soul - AT WHAT EVER APPARENT PERSONAL COST TO YOURSELF - then you will be helped in ways you never dreamed of...

"Come to the edge" he said,
"We can't, we are afraid" they said,
"Come to the edge"
"We can't, we will fall"
"Come to the edge"
and they came
and he pushed them
and they flew.
Guillaume Appollinaire

If you truly want to fly, you have to first untie the ballast!

With love and best wishes

Chris
(PS: if you'd like help releasing the ties, please don't hesitate to contact me)

During the course I talked to Chris and Trinity about my physical problems and some body work with Trinity was suggested. Well it was an incredible healing experience.

I had such an amazing massage yeasterday, experiencing total surrendering and felt at one with god which is a bit strange as I don't know for certain what that even means. I even felt the presence of 3 spirit guides.To use one of Chris words it was awesome.

For 20 years i have been to alternative therapists to help with my constant headaches, neck problems and many "accidents" to my head and neck. With mostly little success. What was different this time was my connection with the soul and somehow I could look "wisely" at my body with no fear and know it was OK to release the pain and even welcome it.

At the Way of the Heart course in Finhorn I had a very strong image of a past life memory. I felt as if I had been beheaded and "saw" my head on the ground separate from my body. It was very frightening at first but feel it explained some of my problems in this life time. I even have been heard saying to people in recent years "I wish I could have a new head!"

I feel it is a spiritual journey I have started.
Thank-you Chris for showing me how I can surrender and thank-you Trinity for giving me a massage with your special healing hands.
Love Anya

Thanks for your reply Chris, how do I follow that! Seriously lots of food for thought there, thanks.

I have felt for a few years now that I was half way onto some spiritual path and half of me yearned for everything to stay the same.

I now feel unable to simple ignore the pulling I have to my 'path', annoyingly. It would be far easier to live in ignorance and continue to live a shallow life but alas someone or something (er maybe my higher self calling) has decided that that is not the life for me anymore.

I do find it frustrating, painful and annoying at times, but I look forward to having one to one sessions with Chris to try and bring some more clarity and happiness into my life.

Thanks for sharing your experiences too Anya (it was very lovely to meet you by the way!)

Oh and I have started to wear long heavy flowing skirts with laced up 'old fashioned' boots. I think I may have been Laura Ingles (Little House on the Prairie) in a previous life!

Hi Anya,

It was wonderful to reconnect with you again.

We store emotional memories as compressions in our energy field just like eddy currents in a fast flowing mountain stream. The memories are commonly from this lifetime, although we might find frequently that unresolved karmic issue from previous incarnations may manifest.

These compressions (which are similar to blockages in a polluted canal) can encourage disharmony in our lives such as that which you have experienced. The massage and 'healing' I carry out stimulates those areas where blockages have occurred raising internal awareness within the body's cellular memory. In this way, blockages are released, rejuvenation begins and vitality is increasingly restored.

It's warming to read that the experiential nature of the workshops and follow up work are flowing well for you. Thanks for sharing.

In Love and Light
Trin

Little House on the Prairie! Ahhhh, those were the days! They knew how to live the good 'ol life... we could learn a thing or two from them Laura Ingalls skipping gleefully through the long grass, I can see it now

In view of the last few comments, it felt important to say a little bit more about dealing with karma - or at least how I deal with karma (I wouldn't dream for a minute there was only one way!).

It seems a careful balance is necessary between dealing with it and yet not becoming all consumed by it. I notice frequently that people speak of a 'karmic debt', that somehow in past lives they have carried out 'bad' actions and therefore have something they must suffer in this lifetime. Some also consider that if we store up 'good' actions then we'll have a 'good' life in the future.

In my experience, this is not at all how karma works. On its journey of full awakening the soul gets to discover more and more the taste of absolute completeness. It does this by immersing itself in a story - a life time - where various opportunities are created for it to realise aspects of its inherent divine beingness.

The best way to taste this fully is to first live without that experience and then discover it - the best way to know hot is to first know cold etc etc. So the best way to know inner completeness is to first experience a sense of lack and unfulfilment. We search the physical world for something that we think will make us complete and whole; a partner for example or a house, the ideal job or a yacht on the ocean!

In other words we develop attachments to things and these attachments cause us to undertake repetitive behaviours which become programmed in our brains as neural pathways.

So a true inner feeling of completeness that we might feel when we find a partner becomes an attachment to having a partner - we think it is the partner that makes us feel complete. All kinds of conditioned behaviours (fixed neural pathways) then develop around this relationship to ensure it keeps delivering on the completeness we want it to.

For example we start behaving in a particular way in order to please our partner, to make them love us more or to prevent them from leaving for example. All such programs distort the original light - that the soul is already whole and complete the way it is.

If we - as the soul - in a particular incarnation manage to realise this, then the attachment is released and the distorted neural pathway can be dissolved over time by always following our higher truth.

In other words the universe will keep presenting circumstances where we have previously given in to a distorted neural pathway/conditioned behaviour and invite us instead to express our highest truth - making a different choice coming from a place of completeness instead.

However, if we don't manage to see the attachment and dissolve the distortion, then this and our other attachments will 'draw us' back to another incarnation and recreate the chance to discover it all over again! We have no choice but to do this because we cannot evolve further without first clearing the attachments.

This then is our karma. It is not a 'debt' but an invitation to be more of what we really are. So in the relationship example, a person needing to give up their attachment to being in relationship, might find that none of their relationships ever work out because of their neediness. The universe might be inviting them to be absolutely and awesomely okay with being alone.

This may sound like a really difficult thing to do but if we are prepared to surrender to the truth, in my experience an amazing gift tends to unfold from within the distortion. For example in a period where I spent several years alone, a much deeper connection to spirit unfolded which was even more magical than being in relationship with a physical partner.

One key thing to bare in mind is that once the attachment and distortion have been released, then the situation can completely change - so you might suddenly meet your soul mate (as happened to me) simply because you were not looking. Furthermore, because you are not needy of them, you can be completely and utterly authentic in everything you do with them. You don't end up doing things against your own nature just to please them.

This actually results in true harmonious living - each unconditionally accepting the other as they are.

Confronting our karma in this way does require courage. We have to confront our fears - such as living alone for example - and this is not an easy thing to do. Many would rather not deal with it and instead prefer to accept some comfortable compromise, living a 'half-life' governed by our wants and perceived needs.

In my experience though we are simply delaying the pain because it is certain that if we don't confront the truth, we'll keep being presented with the same patterns in this lifetime and if not, the next one!

Therefore it pays to confront our fears and deal with our karma.

Chris

Thanks so much for your posting on this and for your words last week. I found it really insightful (finally). As my understanding of all the lives I have lived becomes clearer, the whole thing about past karma and karmic debt is becoming far clearer too. It always amazes me how simple these things are (once I can see it!), and yet how we build up complications and distractions around it so the truth becomes a muddy puddle rather than a real reflection of who we are. We can only really be in truth once the puddle (and ourselves) has become still and the mud (the distractions and distortions) settles to the bottom.

My story and a certain pattern of distortion from lives back has never been more obvious. Time to maybe stop splashing in the puddle so I can be still and take a good look at my real self and the choice I need to make to free myself...

Thanks again,

Its really uplifting watching people tackle past life karma. It takes courage to stand still for a while in the daily drama and to explore the inner self. However if we can do this, the release can feel nothing short of miraculous (as people have demonstrated above).

In my view it was never more important that embrace this inner journey. Why so?

Stand still for a moment in the daily rush of life and take an objective look at society. Try to see the truth within media spin and hype. Attempt to step out of governmental 'big brother' controlling. Connect the patterns underlying all events.

The more I do this, the more inescapable my inner feelings are that we have built our current structures on unsound footings. We are increasingly reliant on imports of food and energy. Many people and businesses are saddled with huge mortgages and debt. As we have seen many times in our past, global business is prone to roller coaster rides seemingly dependent on the whims and machinations of the super-powerful few.

It only takes a few jitters in sentiment within the stock market to send ripples of dis-ease throughout the industrialised world and in our increasing inter dependency, we are more exposed than ever.

What can cause these jitters? As we have seen, it could be anything from a slide in the dollar, to international terrorism, war in the middle east, interrupted energy supplies, global warming or an act of mother nature.

We have configured our society so that we are all dependent on the 'system'. Governments and businesses like it this way because its more easy to collect taxes and profits. The trouble is, it only takes a slight wobble at the base for the whole deck of cards to come tumbling down.

Many evolved people today who meditate and contemplate deeply are now all too often saying the same thing. We seem to be headed for some sort of catastrophe on a global scale. Although I don't believe in predicting the future, because it is always open to change, I am increasingly guided that the inner journey offers the best road to 'salvation'.

If we open our eyes and look within, then in my observation, each of us is guided on a pathway. This pathway frequently seems at odds with what society would have us do. To me it often feels like heading in the opposite direction to a stampede of lemmings! It may take strength and conviction in one's own truth but, I know which path I would rather follow!

So the message I would like to put forward is that it truly pays to be guided in life by our inner being - our soul - and to trust in its leadership however contrary to popular opinion, conditioned beliefs and stereotypical views it seems to be.

If we do so, we are sure to confront our karma - our attachments. Releasing karma is likely to be difficult and painful. However in an increasingly uncertain world, I believe I would rather deal with it in this lifetime rather than in future ones!

Chris

Hi Trinity,

When I was younger it used to be my favourite show, I'm sure all the tears watching it did me the world of good.

I used to envy the simple way they lived even when they sometimes showed the harder side of it.

I was in love with Charles Ingles, to me he was the perfect man, hehe! Even though Darren is soooo not practical and couldn't fell a tree if he tried, lol, he certainly has the same heart, compassion and loyalty that I desired all those years ago. I think that is the best gift I have ever been given in life and I try to appreciate it every day!

Thanks Chris for more wisdom. Re karma, I'm glad we don't have a debt to pay as we're often told, but if there was, then I've paid it ten fold so it can bugger off!

Hi Debra
I know exactly what you mean! Ahhh.....
xxx