Phillip Coupal - Juicy Heart
Today…
Grateful that BEAUTY exists and that I am able to see and experience BEAUTY.
Gratitude Day 2 at the Awaken Studio Toronto
http://www.awakenstudiotoronto.com
Although it seems that there is sadness in so many parts of the world.
My search for BEAUTY helps me in my struggle against depression. Actively seeking out BEAUTY helps to keep me alive.
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh
Gratitude Day 1 at the Awaken Studio Toronto
http://www.awakenstudiotoronto.com
Monday August 11 – Day 1
When will you ever be over that… ?
Early last December I was out with a friend. We were in the Gay Village here in Toronto, having a coffee in the late afternoon. We got to talking about relationship and that brought me to speaking about some of what goes on in me and passes through me when I let myself dwell in the pain of rejection and heart ache that I am able to feel in the dissolution of a relationship.
As our conversation developed, I was a bit surprised as I spoke, that the friend that I was with, asked rather abruptly… “When will you ever be over that? … What will it take for you to move on?… It has been so long will you ever be over this?…”
The particular relationship, that I will speak of here, is not what one might expect. This is not about the severing of a relationship between two human beings but the dissolution of the relationship between myself, a human being, and a corporation.
These questions about the way I process my pain and grief around my separation, left me to wonder and ponder what was going on in me that I could not get over what had happened. This left me to analyze what really did happen and why I should feel so hurt by a business, a corporation.
First, I drew little distinction between the corporation and the human beings that were steering the ship, driving the organization. In my experience, the voices on the phone, the fingers typing the emails were human and not corporate.
Second, I had given, over several years, a lot of my energy, passion, skill and devotion to this company. I had given my human LIFE force to this corporate organization. Again it never felt like I was involved with a company but with a group of people. I felt I was involved with other human beings. I felt that all was friendly and that I could be vulnerable and continue to operate in my human way, rather than in the defenses of a hard-shelled corporate and very inhumane manner.
Last, I look at what really happened. All of it was business and I simply could not see that the humans I was dealing with could disengage from their money driven pursuit to get to a heart driven pursuit. The humans and the corporate zombies could not be separated. My defenses as a human were compromised and I simply had to close up and wall myself off from the corporate onslaught.
In the face of the dissolution of our once tender relationship, I had to defend myself in the most silent ways. I was threatened, by the other – my former partner, with all of the corporate defenses. These including law suits, the forfeiture of my daily income and finally the threat of unending bullying and threatening if I ever spoke or wrote of the experience that I had with this small and ultimately very predatory and dangerous corporation.
This is the crux of the whole experience for me. That these PEOPLE, fellow HUMAN BEINGS, could not act like the human beings that they looked like; however, instead stayed in their corporate, financial and money driven pursuit. This organization that spoke of spirit, this organization that spoke of heart, this organization that spoke of human integrity and human healing was ultimately unable to operate from a heart centered model and shifted to, what was for me, a rather vicious and hurtful, greedy corporate model.
I wonder to this day what happened to the humans that were involved in the operations of this business. These humans had touched me, showed themselves to me in truly human forms. Part of the hurt and the great sense of fracture in this very painful separation is that the humans disappeared and were replaced by vacuous and dangerous zombie like human forms that were simply robots of American Corporate culture.
So, back to the question, “when will I be over this”? I don’t think I ever will.
The experience, this rather ugly corporate divorce, has ingrained in me a wariness and deep felt skepticism of corporate culture. The experience has taught me that indeed, corporations are NOT human. This wariness and skepticism has me super vigilant as I work to operate in a heart centered world rather than in a corporate and money centered world.
Everyday this scar that is in me, poses to me the question and offers me the challenge… “Can you live your HUMAN life, and carry on your HUMAN business in life, from a HEART centered model?”
I have determined in my musings and in my stumbling through life that it is my greatest pleasure and my wildest dream to live my life fully from my heart. It is my profound desire to treat each and every being that I encounter in the most humane, kindly, compassionate and loving way that is within me. -♥-
Here I am everyday bringing forward, my very human SWEET JUICY HEART.
BE well! and Blessed BE! Glad to have a FAERIE name that fits.
SWEET JUICY HEART – http://www.phillipcoupal.ca
Tuesday evenings Join in a Naked Yoga Practice welcoming all men.
The sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings from 8-9:30 at Awaken Studio (270 Carlaw Ave Unit 102).
Gregory Saliba will be leading the session that covers December 2013 to February 2014 We will be welcoming Andy Sinclair back in the session that starts up again in February.
Drop-ins are welcome. Please make sure to contact Phillip and let him know that you will be attending. The space is limited and we want everyone to be satisfied, peaceful and content. This is a quiet, warm and private space to make discoveries and deepen our yoga practice. There is a washroom onsite.
This yoga experience will focus on gentle and safe exploration through an alignment-based Hatha practice. All who manifest male in the world are welcome.
Please check the webiste for current information: Naked Yoga for Men at the Awaken Studio
Naked Yoga for Men – Awaken Studio Toronto
http://www.phillipcoupal.ca/Naked-Yoga-for-men-Awaken-Studio-Toronto
Today World AIDS Day. December 1, 2013
Waking up to feeling like the MISFIT that I am. Realizing and knowing that I don’t really fit in, I don’t really belong and I never have. Even in the groups and organizations that I felt like I belonged to and was a part of for so long I realize now that I was simply too different to fit in.
For a long time I felt that being so different was a problem. Being so different made me an outcast and undesirable. Something is different today. Something inside of me has changed. Something is different and I am finally, after cresting past middle age, realizing that all the stuff that makes me so different and such a MISFIT is actually what makes me myself. I don’t have to be a victim of this MISFIT, QUEERNESS.
Today I feel powerful and I can actually let all that QUEER ENERGY and all that sense of not belonging feed my POWER and my SENSE OF SELF. This is the place where I can make that QUEER MISFIT, into a BEING that is FIERCE and BOLD and full of the wholesome richness of life and love. I do not have to be afraid, ashamed or guilty that I am so different. I can bring that BIG, BOLD and FIERCE, QUEER out into the world and some good and kind and gracious LOVE into the community that I am a part of.
I finally able, at this point in my life, to look at myself and feel good about what I have done and what I am doing. What is that you ask? What are you doing?
What I am doing with my life these days is creating a space, a community that welcomes and embraces all that is diversity in men who LOVE men. The Awaken Studio is that physical place. A space and place for men to come together and be a part of. A part of what we can create together, a part of what we each put in and a part of what we will each take away. An urban space and downtown place welcoming all of the energy of not belonging. An open, welcoming and hospitable place where men can bring their queer energy. This queer spirit can be focused and channeled and sculpted into creating community,events and gatherings for all men who love men.
Check out the Queer Heart Talking Circle, a gathering for all queers and all men who are willing to dedicated themselves and create a safe, welcoming and honouring environment. A gathering where men who love men can come together and share their Queer Heart and LOVING Gay Spirit.
For more information about the Queer Heart Talking Circle gatherings contact Phillip and the Awaken Studio at: phillip@phillipcoupal.ca
Queer Heart Talking Circle – Awaken Studio – Toronto MORE? phillip@phillipcoupal.ca
Celebrating FREEDOM.
An introspection one year after setting myself free. Freeing myself from a business model and a business liaison that was, from my experience, unsupportive to me and the community that I represented, confrontational and blind to working and creating business from a heart centered model.
Today, as I was breathing and enjoying the freshness of my early morning walk, I pondered what this FREEDOM has meant for me. One year later and I am no longer shackled by the constraint of a larger body, domineering, bullying and demanding. In my business I have been able to open to a heart centered, more compassionate and gracious model of carrying on my LIFE work. In this freedom I have had to look to see where I go to exercise discipline and to remain on course towards my goals.
These goals very simple and include:
This personal and business FREEDOM has not had it’s fair share of challenges. The greatest of these is the sense of isolation I feel when I look around. I sometimes find it very difficult to see others who are living their passion and their heart from a business model that I am able to identify with. I have been working on opening my vision farther and farther, seeking out others who can operate their business and live their lives, opening their heart and offering to the world with, FEARLESSNESS, LOVE and COMPASSION.
As part of my work this summer. I will be building, nurturing and creating a project that I will call the “Awakening Tree“. This will be tree in which one can place their personal wishes for what they would like to “AWAKEN” in their life. This project is inspired by the YOKO ONO HOPE TREE and the Guggenheim in Venice. For more information about the “AWAKEN TREE PROJECT” contact me at phillip@phillipcoupal.ca . Watch for more blogs about this project.
Celebrating my First Birthday and my Emancipation at http://www.phillipcoupal.ca
As I approach the final anniversary in May, I am again reminded of the power that emanates from within.
Last night at dinner, with a wonderful group of men, I was asked about how things in my life, were going. Yes there was the usual surface gratitude. And then, when I checked for a moment, inside, I was overcome with a greater sense of deeper gratitude and power, an internal and much more earthy gratitude. I was aware of a deep and rich sense of gratitude and power that radiated directly from my source.
This reminder brought up a great well of very lovely, juicy and fertile energy. My greater sense reminding me that this richness resides within me and flows from my source. The source of life, the within. This within, the place where I am nothing but myself: a beautiful and meaningful, radiant, blissful being.
I am filled with gratitude and pleasure as I realize that the past year has exercised, strengthened and enlarged this great pool of within and the personal strength that comes from my, within. My life source has been enriched by the experience of being made irrelevant and being cast aside.
The within in me, is the source of all of my life and my energy. A year ago I would have never thought or even imagined that I might have within me the power to move ahead and become more myself than I have ever been.I am so very grateful to have been able to access and utilize and pump out from this well, this source, that accesses the within. The power within me to overcome those that would have me be powerless and without strength or individuality.
Today when I am utilizing this life force, when I am accessing and actively flowing from the source, I am letting myself come out to play and create and bring meaning to my world. I am full of relevance and fortitude and I even have power. I am anything but “IRRELEVANT” I am powerful and full of meaning.
A note to those that might feel bullied, coerced, forced to be something that they are not, shamed and dominated, made to feel powerless. Your LIFE source, the power within you, to be you, is within and is full of the brilliant radiance that is you. When you can let this source energy flow and be in the brilliance of exactly who, you are, you will have full and resolute power.
To those that have been bullied, please never take on the words, coercion, ridicule, shame or domination of those bullies. Please reach inside and bring out your brilliance, especially in the face of those who wish to wield power in a brutal and careless manner. The world can only be a better place if each and every human being, could live from the BRILLIANT RADIANCE that comes from source and resides in each of us, in the within.
LOVE ~ Phillip
Living LIFE as a RADIANT BABY ~ Accessing the Bliss Body www.phillipcoupal.ca
Living LIFE as a RADIANT BABY accessing the Bliss Body
http://www.phillipcoupal.ca
What is growing in your garden?
Living with shame can be toxic… dry… frozen. A life full of regret, anxiety and fear.
Living without shame can be verdant… juicy… hot. A life full of joy, peace and love.
I believe that when we drop the layers of shame that we carry in our lives we can live more fully and freely. We will have more time and energy to express the verdant nature of our selves and true heart.
When you want to have a conversation about how you can create a detox from shame, let me know I would be glad to have this conversation with you.
Phillip Coupal – Counselling + Coaching + Bodywork
Living life with less shame and more love.
http://www.phillipcoupal.ca
The RITES of SPRING
Celebrating freedom and fertility. There is something immensely exciting about the spring and about the transformation that takes place in this time of opening – coming OUT.
The Awaken Studio is a year old over this weekend. The move took place over the Easter Weekend in 2012. This event brings up a lot of emotion and many thoughts. Most of all it brings up the triumph of my own internal Rite of Spring. The word that I would like to write and I constantly put back into the box is EMANCIPATION. In my own journey, opening the studio and beginning on a path to my own personal and professional fruition has been like being on a path to, through and into FREEDOM.
This new-found place of FREEDOM is a place that is full of many new-found elements: Strength, Confidence and Balance. This place of FREEDOM constantly relies on: Graciousness, Kindness and Generosity. This place of FREEDOM grows into: LOVE, ECSTASY and PLEASURE.
This weekend and particularly today… Good Friday in the Christian tradition… a day of Celebration and Service in my tradition. Today there will be 20 men at the Touch Exchange event taking place at the Awaken Studio. This I Celebrate. This is a Triumph to me. This is all a blessing of the earth and the universe and this blessing humbles me.
Joy to the World ~ I hope that today the world will feel full in the EMANCIPATION of the earth in the RITES of SPRING.
LOVE and JOY and PEACE to all
Celebrating the Awaken Studio and Emancipation
http://www.phillipcoupal.ca
Awaken Studio
270 Carlaw Avenue, Unit 102
Toronto, Ontario Canada
http://www.phillipcoupal.ca
Holi – a festival of abandon.
References to this event are often made as playing Holi. This festival of colour and a celebration of the riot that happens as Spring takes over the world holds a place dear in my heart.
I love the idea of playing with abandon and letting oneself get into the muck of what is. Playing in all this colour and the riotous quality of what one has no control over can be exhilarating and freeing. The story of Krishna playing with the milk maids as a lowly goat heard is inspiring… The thought that good can transcend evil and that everything will be okay as long as we remain faithful is a source of strength. God to me is the divine nature and internal source that we all have in our own individual self.
Here is a description of the background of the festival:
Originally known as the ‘Holika Festival’, this ancient Indian festival has been part of the nation’s tradition for over centuries already. It is celebrated on the last full moon day of Phalguna, a month in the Lunar Calendar which falls between February and March. It marks the beginning of the spring season where colors spring to life to beautify the surroundings even more. Furthermore, it is the day when the Hindus pay homage to their legends.
According to Hindu beliefs, Holika is a devil who has the gift of immortality. He was defeated by Vishnu, the main Vedic god of preservation and the universe. It is this story of good triumphing over evil which is the main cause for the Holi Festival. It constantly reminds the people that everything will be okay as long as they remain faithful to their gods.
However, it is not only the religious anecdote in which the whole celebration is based. The act of wetting people with scented water and subsequently dumping them with bright powder colors came from the Hindu belief that the god Krishna is fond of playing pranks on little girls. He loves dumping them with water and bright colors.
Play with Abandon
http://www.phillipcoupal.ca
Healing through play… smiling helps and the JOY of life to be found in the act of Celebration.
phillip coupal - sweet juicy heart 