A newsletter about the Lion/Unicorn theory of relationships developed by Mark Waller

Issue #6, Jan 18th

Only Awareness

Many of you are familiar with a little exercise I do with my clients. The instructions are simple if not mystifying. You might try the exercise as you read this. As you sit there, imagine that you have no name. Possibly you have amnesia and cannot remember a name or ever having one. Along with the imagined loss of personal identity, imagine that you have no past. Certainly someone with amnesia would not remember a past.. Finally, imagine that you have no future. I don't mean in the sense that you are going to die. I mean that you have no expectations of a future or any concern for one.

The mind cannot hold all of these three things for very long. Initially you might even feel that you cannot do the exercise. But if you continue to pretend there will be little windows in the internal mental struggle where you will momentarily fall into that state of "not knowing."

You will notice that this is also a state of nothing - no thing. This eerie silence is at first unnerving to many. And often a client will look at me after having slipped into that nothing place and express fear. This is natural since our entire lives are built around the assumption of a "me" with a past and a future and all of the familiar feelings that go with it. Others express a sense of loneliness. Looking into a void can get lonely. At this point, I urge people to go a little deeper. Stay with the experiment to see what else might be there.

I will often instruct the person to tell me what "state" they are in when they slip out of the familiar and into the unknown. Without exception the person will eventually say "peace." More often than not they will say "peace?" Peace with a question mark means the feeling is so unfamiliar that they don't quite trust themselves to give the right answer. But, yes, that is the state. When everything is stripped away there is only peace, or I should say "awareness" of peace.

As we sit there pretending we realize that we are not pretending. The only thing that is ultimately provable is that "awareness." We know for instance that what we experience as the "world" is the firing of neurons and the shadow of electricity in the brain. We really have no experience directly. All is an interpretation. This is a scientific fact.

So what are we sure of? This is where I want to refer to my teacher for the answer. Her name is Katie Davis. She and her husband Sundance Burke publish a newsletter every month. This month Sundance talks about awareness in his article "What Do I Know."

So here is my recommendation for a unique and eye opening experience. Do the exercise above. Try it several times and then click on the link and read "What Do I Know." Send me an e-mail and tell me about your experience. Click here.

A special note: Katie and Sundance may be in the area later this spring. If you would like to listen to them teach, please let me know.

Mark Waller Ph.D. LMFT

The Lion and the Unicorn Come out of the Closet

One thing I consistently forget to mention is how the Lion/Unicorn theory applies to relationships more broadly. The Dance of the Lion and the Unicorn was written within the framework of marriage. But it also applies to other types of intimate partnerships.

For instance people living together who are unmarried invariably are in a Lion/Unicorn coupling.

But more to the point, all of the gay and lesbian couples I have worked with have matched up as Lions and Unicorns.

What is even more interesting is that I have worked with several couples who are the product of arranged marriages in India. They also match up as Lions and Unicorns. Go figure! I guess their parents intuitively know the pattern and duplicate it.

For back issues of this newsletter go to my website at www.markwaller.com

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To order your copy of the Dance of the Lion and the Unicorn click here

The Messenger: A Guide to Life's Adventures

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