Connexus Services

Find out more at www.embracingyourwholeness.com At Connexus, we operate from five core beliefs about creating the change we seek, change that is deep, sustainable and permanent. 1. Change must occur simultaneously in mind, heart, and body. If change only happens in one area of our being (even if they are well-intentioned changes), it inherently causes imbalance in our system. Such imbalance cannot be sustained for long. Everything about the work of Connexus is about integration. We have dedicated ourselves and our offerings to the understanding and exploration of our three Parts as humans: The Mind (thoughts, beliefs, values, psychology, ego, language, stories, etc.) The Heart (feelings, emotions, behaviors, attachments, etc.) The Body (reflexes, neurobiology, chemistry, nutrition, chronic illness) Our on-going struggles in life are the result of our Parts being misaligned and out of balance with each other, when one part is privileged over another, or when one part has habitually dominated the others. For example, there is a deeply valued approach in our culture that if we just “put our minds to something”, we can accomplish it. This inherently promotes an imbalance as it privileges the mind over the other systems. While this may work extremely well in certain situations, when it comes to seeking change in our personal and interpersonal lives, it is all too likely to recreate the very problem we are trying to resolve. In so many ways, we have been both taught or allowed to believe that an imbalanced relationship between our Parts is normal. Only by deepening and exploring our experiences in all three Parts can we begin working in closer alignment with ourselves. The changes we have longed to make real in our lives then begin to emerge. Old habits begin falling away. New feelings and sensations emerge as if on their own. And the effort of change as we have known it is filled with ease and confidence. It is from this primary principle of Connexus that our tagline, Embracing Your Wholeness, emerges. 2. Change requires a new capacity to be built first. Without a new capacity in place, the stress of any change or transformation will not be tolerated by the body/mind/heart system. One easy way to understand this principle is that any change, even if it is a positive change, creates stress in some Part of us. Many of our change attempts in the past have only served to “max out” our tolerance for stress, leaving us feeling overwhelmed (or just making excuses as to why we shouldn’t stick with the change). So we don’t stick with the new, and go back to the old. Therefore, if we are going to set off a mini-explosion of stress our system has never been able to tolerate previously, we must build a new container able to withstand the explosion. This is a process we call “resourcing”. 3. Change cannot happen in isolation. In order for true change to take place, we must feel and trust that we are connected in meaningful ways with those around us (friends, family, community, co-workers). We live in a society that in many ways promotes as normal a sense of deep disconnectedness. As a result, so many of us are conflicted and feel insecure about the depth of connection we have with others, and we perpetuate these insecurities in the stories we carry out in our thoughts, feelings, and actions. We cycle through feelings of self-shame or resentment of others, returning over and over again to old strategies in our attempt to resolve these overwhelming feelings. Only when we can feel seen, heard, and safe do our experiences begin to shift and change. This is a relational process that must be in place to support our change. We must know and feel that we are not alone. We must feel connected to ourselves, to others, and to our world, and know with a confidence felt in all of our Parts that we belong to something greater than us. 4. Change is always organic. We reject any one-size-fits all approach. We believe that all people and their groups are built for growth and expansion, and that any one formula or prescription for this goes against our very nature. The most needed change can rarely be pre-defined. Our mechanisms (mind, heart, and body systems) we use for assessing problems and determining their solutions are inevitably built on old and undesired experiences, the very experiences and ways of relating to our problem that we are trying to get away from. Our conscious mind gets wired around what we have known, and is therefore limited and ineffective at identifying—much less solving—what the problems are. How then can we use our conscious mind to identity the way forward into what we don’t know? Rather than focusing on a new what (e.g. “My goal is….”, “My objective is….”), at Connexus we emphasize focusing on a new how (“I will practice in a new way”), trusting that the new what will emerge only when the new how has taken root. 5. Change always involves fear. Even when change is good and beneficial, fear is always felt, whether we acknowledge it or not. Many times, this fear can be painful in any or all of our body, our heart, and our mind. These fears, when unprepared for and unacknowledged, keep driving us back to our old methods. The phrase “Loving Our Fear” summarizes for us simply, yet so powerfully, what we at Connexus are all about. It presumes (and accepts!) that we all have the capacity for incredible fear, but that our capacity for even greater and more powerful love is within us as well. In fact, it is our birthright to know the confidence of love inside of ourselves, able to hold and contain, and then to melt, any fear that may arise. We are often misunderstood when our clients hear us refer to love. To us, love is not a feeling, a thought, a belief, or a set of behaviors. Love cannot be defined by a set of expectations, rules, or procedures. It is neither an action, nor is it a choice. It is not something we can control nor manipulate. Love is both us, and not us. It is ours to use and tap into, but it is not ours to own. In fact, love within us can only be described by what it is not. Love defies any definition. To attempt to define it is to immediately limit what it is, and so we would therefore lose our connection to love itself. At Connexus, we use the word love to refer to the most powerful force and energy that we are connected to. Many may use other terms for this energy: Life-force, God/Goddess, The Universe, Nature, etc. It doesn’t matter what word you may identify with best. We choose the word love, because it frames for us both that it is active, and that we all posses it. We recognize we will never define what love is, yet we accept it as being what empowers to embrace our fear. And in embracing our fear, we ultimately know that we are embracing our wholeness.