Song Of The Day: I Wanna Make The World Turn Around / Steve Miller
Word Of The Day: Lamprophony / Speaking in clear, loud voice.

Oh, I enjoyed this post which was passed on to me.

But beyond that bit of fun, tonight was a wonderful evening for other reasons. My daughter and I picked up Roshi from the airport, and then my wife met us for dinner. We spoke with Roshi about the tough time we had earlier this week, relationship stuff, and then after dinner we went to his hotel room and he worked with us by having us speak to each other from the other person's perspective. First he spoke to me, and asked to speak to Stuart's controller. The voice of the controller checked in, and then Roshi asked my controller if he could speak to the voice of Marci, my wife. Then, with me speaking as Marci -as the voice of my wife- he dialogued with me. I told him what it was like to be Marci, how I felt about being married to Stuart, how I felt being a mother, and then I spoke about the challenges in marriage. This went on for about 20 minutes or so. It was totally cool. I really did feel like I dropped into a very Marci space, and could even feel the emotionality in my body of what she goes through, what her experience is like as mom, wife, social worker, dancer, meditation practitioner, and more. It really opened up new spaces. Then Roshi asked Marci (my real wife, in the room, who had been listening to the whole thing attentively) if she had any questions for me. She asked this voice -the voice of Marci from within me- all sorts of questions. We really made contact. Once we had all dialogued with this voice, we flipped, and Roshi asked Marci (my actual wife) to speak to her controller. He checked in with her controller, and then asked the controller if he could speak to the voice of Stuart. He then repeated the whole process with her, moving through all the spaces and feelings of that voice of Stuart in her. This process over the course of an hour or more really opened up these perspectives in us. It was amazing how well we really got each other's voices 99% "right". We both felt seen, heard, felt, and deeply understood by the other in a way that we haven't in a long, long time. At the end of it, we were both connected and re-established in a loving glow, feeling incredibly grateful and amazed at our relationship and where the other one was at. It simultaneously dramatically increased our grasp of the other person's experience, and also really loosened our identification with what we were personally going through. We walked out smiling and laughing, a hundred times lighter and brighter. This process of accessing different voices is at the heart of Roshi's Big Mind Process. It's incredible. I highly recommend checking it out in person, but if you can't, I recommend buying his DVD on the web site. We are back in our happy, grateful home, re-acquainted with our shared intent to make this marriage a mutual Bodhisattva's vow to work for the awakening of all beings, everywhere.