September 24, 2015

How to feel better? It's all about unconditional trust. A Happy Hour Conversation with Don Deacy

51 minutes

How to feel better? It's all about unconditional trust... with Don Deacy

This week I'm speaking to Don Deacy. Don's a three principles coach and also a therapist with many years of experience in all kinds of healing modalities such Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine and Bowen Therapy.

After a lifetime of studying various martial arts at a superficial level Don started studying the martial art of Aikido in 1992 and teaching it in 1997. His passion for this martial art and his desire to understand 'chi', or as the Japanese call it 'ki', led to studying and qualifying in various healing modalities such as Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine and Bowen Therapy.

Initially practicing these therapies as a hobby they quickly became a passion alongside Aikido. In 2008, with the help of his wonderful wife, Don came to see that raising a family, teaching a martial art, running a part time therapy practice and working full time was just too much and something had to give way. So with the support of his wife and family Don took the decision to leave the world of paid employment and set up a full time practice as a therapist.

Whilst working as a professional therapist Don came to clearly see the psychological dimension of illness. Feeling ill equipped to address this need he started searching for a solution. In 2011 Don was fortunate enough to come across Jamie Smart and was exposed to Three Principles understanding as uncovered by Sydney Banks. Jamie's wonderful work enabled Don to embrace this understanding and he began coaching using the Three Principles as part of his practice in 2012.

In 2013 Don completed the Three Principles Trainer’s Training (3PTT) programme run by Cathy Casey and Dr Mark Howard. As a result of Jamie's work, the excellent 3PTT and the many wonderful teachers he was exposed to over that period Don's professional direction has been profoundly changed. Coaching and teaching the Three Principles has become his primary activity and significantly influencing all the other aspects of his work.

Today we're going to be talking about the desire to feel better versus the unconditional trust that we already are perfectly OK, perfectly happy!

What you'll learn in this show:

Don and I chatted again after the show and he'd expanded further on some questions I asked during the show. And his answers actually make a great summary of some of the great things you'll learn during the show!

"What do I mean by grounding? Grounding is balance. An ease of movement and interaction with the world. From grounding comes the ability to flow, to extend our senses, to ride the waves, to take the knocks and keep our equilibrium."

"What do I mean by spiritual? Spiritual is beyond the world of form as we see it in the moment. A connection to a far greater wisdom than our personal intellect. From the spiritual comes possibility, new understanding, hope and wonder that guides us and teaches us.

"What do I mean by form? We can be conscious/aware of form but we can only be conscious of the the possibility within the formless. As soon as we try to be conscious of the formless we are in effect creating form.What comes to mind is a metaphor. The telescope. When we look through a telescope we see what we are looking at and that is in effect form. Now, there is much more out there than what we are looking at . What we see is what I would refer to as form. What we don't see is what I would refer to as formless. So it is possible to view form and formless as separate but that would be misleading. Form is born from the formless, as is enriched by it, like when we focus a telescope. Form is in effect our awareness which is an element of consciousness. Form is like truth in that it is time specific. The formless is infinite, it is the home of hope, of insight, of wonder, of possibility. The form is present and the home of the intellect. We can move a telescope and we can focus in and out but we must be aware that there is always more to see and what we are looking at we can always see differently.

Form is the experience of life and the formless is the possibility of life. [mmmm, I love that! Lian]

Form is our understanding in the moment, this is fixed and it has to be to allow us to navigate. As the saying goes, the map is not the territory, so the formless allows us to create new maps and indeed will demand that we do so. As a telescope on earth will allow us to see the universe in a certain way and depending on the location to varying degrees of clarity, the hubble telescope which is in space not only allows us to see the universe in much more detail is has demanded that we rethink everything we thought we knew about the universe!! So perhaps a shift in consciousness is like moving our telescope higher and higher into space. This must by its very nature change what we think we know about form."

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