​Please see Valerie's Message about what is possible when we Partner with Presence and Home page has what people experienced.

For info on how we create group Presence, read items 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10.  Items 11-13 talk about resistance and out to get out of triggering and negativity.  Under the About tab are numerous helpful articles on how to live truer to Self, get out of funky moods and have happier relationships.

Before attending a group, please read the whole page as it will help us all be on the same page.  :  )  

1) Logistics    

2) Food 

3) Directions 

4) Guiding Philosophy 

5) What Happens in Group 

6) Guidelines 

7) Physical Touch 

8) Meals out after Group 

9) Private Presence Groups

10) How to Create Group Presence

11) Resistance and the Pain-body 

12) Working with Negative Feelings ​

13) Tips for Getting out of Reactivity 

​

1) Logistics 

You are asked to please arrive 5 to 10 minutes early to go to the restroom and get settled in your seat.  If you arrive after meditation begins, please remove your coat and shoes before entering the room and quickly and quietly find a seat. When you arrive, if there isn't a chair or back jack out, please get one for yourself.

If you must leave early, please do so as quickly and quietly as possible (put on your coat and shoes after you leave the room).After group ends, please put your chair away and throw away your trash.  We'd sure appreciate 5 to 10 minutes of your help to put the room back in order after the group ends.

​2) Food

Please only bring water or non-staining drinks (no red drinks) in a container with a secure lid. Please bring a ready-to-eat snack or lunch as indicated. Feel free to bring extra to share.  For the 3 hour groups, we'll have a 10 minute break to use facilities and you can eat any snack you brought.  

Please don't eat during the group, but only on break, unless you are diabetic or for some other important reason.  If you must eat during the group when we are not on break, please be as quiet as possible.​ Six hour or longer events, we'll have a 45 minute break and folks are asked to bring a lunch so we can stay in Presence and practice resting in our natural being and enjoy fun ways of relating.

3) Directions to Group

4) Guiding Philosophy​

The greatest thing you can do in this group is commune with your true nature and let it express through you. 

Usually, a group listens to the wisdom of one teacher.  In our group, the ONE expresses wisdom through all the group members. 

In the group, you will learn how to establish realization of yourself as awareness or true nature. You will learn how to support strong group presence, a skill that enhances all of your life. Focusing presence on a public speaker, friend, co-worker or family member, helps them access a higher and clearer knowing.

Holding presence in meetings or during a disagreement with a loved one, greatly improves the quality of the interaction. Working in group helps us have greater compassion with ourselves and others as we learn how to move around in the world of presence and share from direct realization. ​

The group is also about the joy of just resting together in presence, sharing authentic relating and enjoying healing and restoring touch. Communing with presence helps us to be greater conduits of peace, truth and love in our daily lives. 

In Level 2, you will learn how to work with individual and group presence to clear conditioning and pain-body reactions. We learn how to hold conditioning and allow it to dissolve into presence. I have been awestruck by the healing and amazing transformations that happen to diseases, life situations and relationships. 

This group is about being something very different than what society told us we should live for. So it really helps to have other kindred spirits to support the shift from identifying ourselves as our mind-constructs, personality, or ego identity, into living as authentic presence.

5) What Happens in Group 

Presence Groups may start with a short talk and a guided meditation to help us into the realization of ourselves as more than thoughts, feelings, body and mind.  We learn how to hold group presence which helps everyone else in the group.

We sometimes commune eyes open (please read Happy Eye-Gazing), to have the amazing opportunity to be received as our Presence (essence) and receive others as Presence.  This supports us to rest in our authentic nature while relating to others. We see all the ways we think we are responsible for other's happiness and the ways we try to control in order to take care of others or get something from others.  ​

You may see yourself wanting to smile to reassure the other person and other subtle things we do that move us out of authenticity. In the groups, we learn how to discern ego’s desire to distract, influence, get attention and validation or get control, from the impulses of authentic nature.  

We learn to let true nature or presence express through us. Discussions have a valuable place and can happen after group. However, during group, our focus is communing in and transmitting what we are directly receiving, experiencing and know in the current moment. 

There is a period of time for individuals to hold any illness, injury or emotional pain within a strong field of group presence. When people meet suffering directly while being held in strong group presence, it helps physical illness or emotional issues quickly release. The person often receives clear knowing and resolution that is higher and cleaner than our normal consciousness can access. This work helps people connect to wisdom or knowing that often can't be reached in discussions from our intellectual center or personality's viewpoint. 

​Sometimes, a person may hold a decision they are struggling with like should they end a relationship or try a particular cure for cancer. Sometimes no content is shared. Someone might say, I’m struggling with a decision,” and then the group holds presence for them. The person often receives inspired and clear understanding about the issue. Other people without knowing what the issue is, sometimes receive a message from Presence to share that is very illuminating for the person who had the issue. 

Sometimes, we work with collective themes like:         

• Anger or anxiety that comes up while driving, waiting in line or being late.
  
• Territorial, competitive and self-loathing and inferiority/superiority patterns.​
  
• Addictions (food, shopping, sex, TV, etc.)​
  
• Eons of conditioning to be afraid to live as our true self. ​​
  

Level 3 of this work is exploring how to work with presence. ​ 

• How does Presence want to express thorough us? 
  
• How can we ease human suffering and bring more love and peace into our worlds?
  
• What ways of interacting with others are longing to be experienced?
  
• What ways of socializing want to be created that nourish and enliven us and help us live authentically? 
  
• What healing modalities, new inventions and humanitarian projects want to be birthed through us? 
  
• What information or transmission does greater intelligence have for us to receive? ​​
  

We may be called to focus Presence on a local forest fire, flood or community or global crisis. Sometimes a fire is necessary to restore ecological balance. Sometimes a war is necessary to further evolution. It is almost impossible for humans to see the big picture and what is for the highest good. So, it is imperative to do this work under the guidance of Presence when IT indicates focusing is for the highest good. It is important that a group can open beyond their personal agendas, beliefs, needs and desires to hear the guidance of Higher Intelligence. 

We sometimes end with a group nurture experience that leaves people high and happy or we might spend time sending out peace to our lives, neighborhoods and the world. Sometimes we create an improv voice symphony out of words from someone's heart (Bobby McFarrin-like), or we move into dancing or some other expression of the truth, joy or love of the moment. In day-long workshops people are supported to create the interactions that they truly want that nourish body, spirit, heart and soul. ​

6) Group Guidelines 

Remember, we have all been effectively conditioned to believe we are the persona our parents and society trained us to be. So when you have the floor to express, give yourself as much time as you need to connect with your deeper self before you speak. We will hold space for you to communicate in words or silence until you are complete. Please give your full support and attention to every speaker, even if you don't agree with what they are saying. 

A group holding Presence, helps a speaker access deeper truth. Allow at least 5 seconds of silence after someone finishes, to receive all the layers of their communication (not just the words). Let's try to share from a deeper place than the ego's desire to be in control or be noticed or validated. 

If an urge comes up to speak and you are unsure if it is truth or ego, try waiting. If truth is asking you to speak, it will keep nudging you. Please don't advise other people or try to help them. We are going deeper than "problem solving" and "advice-giving," but turning people inward, to be informed by the truth of their own being. 

If discomfort surfaces, you are invited to just be with it and gently explore. Sometimes a contraction can be a defense thatcuts us off from life and others. It often comes up when we are close to getting free from the tyranny of ego. When we are just gently present with fear or negative reactions, it often clears and an expansion follows. At any time, you can ask to work with Valerie, or she may ask to work with you if she senses you are at a place to make an important connection or shift. 

If you feel the energy go down or feel we are off-track, you can hold the group in Presence. Notice what happens. It may shift the energy or others may take your cue and join in. Holding presence helps lift the energy in any type of group, even corporate meetings. 

If Valerie is working with someone, hold them both within your loving awareness and the intention that the highest realization and good happens. Send supportive, "non-outcome attached" energy. This means, just wishing the best happens which may not look like love or peace. Sometimes a person goes through anger or grief and it doesn't mean anything is wrong. It can be the perfect catalyst for their illumination. A person working with an issue is helping us all to work through that issue, so give them your undivided attention and support. 

7) Physical Touch 

Sometimes there is some honoring, healing, safe touch in the group, from everyone giving a light shoulder rub in the circle, to fun group-nurturing experiences. These are set up to be very safe, especially for women. If you feel sexual, romantic or erotic energy toward someone, move that energy into your heart or higher up, and be sensitive to let your touch serve the other person's needs. In many countries, touch among community-members is seen as healthy, healing and it restores our sense of belonging and humanity. In this group, touch also helps the body to feel safe to embody the truth of your being. 

In the circle blessing, if you don't wish to be touched, just tell the person behind you to not touch, just bless you energetically. You are encouraged to work through fears or blocks about touch, but you are also supported to alter anything that is happening so it serves what you need. Take care of yourself and you will be supporting others to do the same. 

8) Meals out after the group 

Please feel free to initiate a group meal out after group ends. Use this time to honor what your true self really wants inyour interactions with others.  Use this time as a training ground to learn how to bring our authentic and full self into social encounters (versus safe or habitual verbality).  Consider a place with a big tables (Golden Lotus) and wide variety of food like American or Chinese. (Indian food doesn't work for everyone). 

9) Closed Presence Groups ​

These are ongoing meetings, usually 2-3 hours long, limited to about 15-20 of the same people.  We work with presence to release conditioning and forge a deep relationship with Presence. We may meet for 4 to 6 weeks, every other week or some other format. Please contact Valerie if you are interested in a group or if you have a home to offer for a weekly, bi-monthly group or a day-long or a weekend workshop. 

If you come regularly to a private group, please spend at least an hour a week (can be in a few minute increments), holding the group in presence to strengthen the field. While in your home, feel yourself holding the group in presence (see more directions under #10).

If you find yourself in a contraction or bad feeling, imagine yourself sitting in the group and their presence holding you. Then, go beyond imagination into truly feeling as if you are sitting in the circle receiving the love and presence of the group. Let us know if you have anything to report. The deeper we go, the more we experience telepathy. We are all one, so of course, we can feel our “other selves.” ; ) ​

10) How to Create Group Presence

To hold group presence which creates a strong portal for higher energies to join us, we start with connecting with the truth of our being and then expand to include the people on either side of us.  We continue expanding our sense of self to include more and more people until we are holding the whole group within love and peace and the group is held within a strong sphere of Presence.  Also, a few times during the group, we invite higher energies of Presence, Spirit, nature, or your whatever your highest connection is to join us in the circle. We end up feeling like we are one large being with many heads and hands. ; ) We can often feel Presence circling the group and feel which mouth it will speak out of! 

If you find yourself lost in thought, return your attention to holding the whole group to help anchor you to the present. If you are someone who holds group presence easily, then do so most of the group, especially when there is emotional pain in the group as this will help others greatly. It's like until there was the invention of the light bulb, the power of electricity couldn't be seen or harnessed. So if you are someone who can go out into universes of expansion, it is more helpful if you bring yourself back to holding the circle which focuses Presence into a strong container and brings a stronger wattage of Presence and higher intelligence on-line.

If you come to a weekly group, please spend some time each week, holding the group within presence to strengthen the field. You can imagine you are sitting in the group and love and presence surrounds the whole group. You don't need to see particular faces. If this is difficult for you, imagine the whole circle becomes very small and is resting in your heart. Then you can hold awareness on your heart or send love to the group in your heart. In time, you will feel as if you are really connecting with the group and people will start sharing that they felt Presence being beamed to them.  ;  ) 

Here is guidance on how to create group presence.  Put your focus on your heart and feel that place in you that wants to see more love in the world.  Feel how much you love the special people or perhaps animals in your life.  Let yourself connect deeper with the love you feel for someone or an animal in your life... Then easily let that love expand in your heart...  Let the energy of love keep expanding to fill your chest.  Then let it expand to include the space in front of you....and now behind you as your sense of self expands beyond your body.  Then in an easy and harmonious way, let your energy expand to gently and easily include the people on either side of you so that they are being held inside of the love that you are... and then include the next two people on either side of you and continue until you are holding the whole group within the love and the Presence that you are. 

Then, invite whatever are the highest energies for you into the circle, be it love, peace, Spirit, Presence, God, other beings, or infinite intelligence.   

Focusing for others 

Whenever you can, hold the whole group within loving presence. If a member is having difficulty, hold group presence without sending energy directly to them. This way the person doesn't have energy imposed on them that they may not want, but their being can take what they need from the group field. 

It is very important to honor people's choices. If I think of allness as anything, it is a great big, unconditional field that allows everything to be. So we can choose to live in love and peace while allowing those playing out different realities to live as they chose in their world. 

11) Resistance and the Pain-body"

Painbody" is a term coined by Eckhart Tolle for that aspect in us that feeds on negative emotions. It will cause us to identify with negative thoughts so we generate the strong, negative emotions it loves to feed on. Many schools of thought allude to this as the "hungry ghost," dark entities," or call it conditioning (our programming). 

Don't underestimate how effectively we were conditioned to feel wrong, disloyal or afraid to go outside of our programming. Many of us were taught we were bad to follow our inner knowing, instead of how our parents or teachers wanted us to be. Be prepared if strong resistance comes up just before coming to the group or during the group in the form of tiredness, a bad mood, or not wanting to come. The ego would rather you be miserable than be free, so remember a strong, sudden feeling of dread to not attend group (or anything that supports you to live in truth) can be the ego wanting to keep its hold on you. My suggestion is to come to group anyway. If you still feel that way after the group, it may mean the groups are not for you.

Please don't feel bad about yourself, if you happen to feel nervous or distant before or during the group, come anyway. We are ALL dealing with the same resistance, fears and ego-contractions. Be gentle with yourself and us, as we are truly going where few have ever gone before. You can pray that if it is for your highest good, that you find yourself at the group on time.

Remember emotions can shift in a heartbeat, so don't let your thoughts or emotions tell you who you are or limit what you can have in life. One man in a group shared with me he felt separate from everyone in the group. We interacted for a few minutes and he said the sense of separation was gone. He later reported feeling one with people for several days wherever he went. So know that feelings are transitory and constantly changing and it is helpful to hold them in group presence to help them release. 

Accepting them without identifying with them or repressing them, allows them to release. 

12) Working with Negative Feelings

IMMEDIATELY stop thinking the thoughts in your head. Don't try and stop the thoughts, but stop riding the "story train" and put distance between you and thought by bringing your focus to anywhere but your thoughts. Focus on your heart or part of your body you can best connect with and feel the presence and life in there. Then as you can, expand the feeling of Presence throughout your body until you are aware of yourself predominantly as presence or energy. Stay focused on yourself as awareness or the intangible experience of “youness.” 

If that isn't working, bring your attention to staying in the room you are sitting in. Be aware of the carpet and the clock and objects that bring you pleasure and stay rooted here and now and away from riding thought-trains.  If that doesn't help, try punching your fists or moving around, walking or dancing or lifting weights.

Once you are established in presence, then find just a little bit of the contraction that was disturbing. If it is fear, then feel a little bit of the sensation in your body. Don't think about the story, just meet the sensation as it is showing up in the body, but keep most of your awareness on yourself as a field of presence holding the sensation. It is like Presence is the parent that holds fear's hand, until fear remembers the truth of what it is.

You may receive realizations, such as remembering how as a child, you formed a belief that crystallized into this emotional pattern. Receive the information, but immediately dip back into the direct experience of it as sensation, don't start riding thought-trains. This will also be a practice we do in the group. We will be developing individual and group presence through guided meditation and using eye-gazing to access and anchor us into presence, so please read Happy Eye-Gazing link. 

13) Tips for getting out of reactivity

When you contract into fear, anxiety or anger read item 12) and also try one of these processes below: 

a) Become aware of your full energetic field that expands out past your body. Eckhart calls it the inner body, I call it the"energy body" as my experience is that it extends beyond the physical body. Hold your attention on that and breathe deeply into your diaphragm (by your navel). This is the place you breathe through when you are naturally breathing deep. If you are too triggered to do that, then: 

b) Hold your attention on your feet and put your attention on feeling your feet. Then move up and include as quickly as youcan: legs, thighs, stomach, torso, heart, back, arms, neck, head and then feel your whole inner field at once. Once you are more aware of yourself as presence and are more centered, bring in a little bit of the triggered feeling (fear, anger) and hold it within presence (like a parent holding a scared child). Stay more identified with yourself AS presence, more than as the negative emotion. This technique will be the foundation of our pain-body work.  See more in item 12).

c) Try focusing on your heart. Connect with it. Remind yourself of why you want to live in presence and not reaction. Remind yourself of your desire to live in love or be free or whatever is your strongest reason to not be stuck in egoic reaction. Feel the emotional desire and commitment in that intention. Let that intention expand throughout your being. 

d) Notice what is at peace right now. See if you can find one little dot of presence or peace or love inside and stay focused onit and invite it to spread out and fill all aspects of you up that aren't in distress. Once those areas are full and strong, see what happens if you let that love, peace or Presence touch the boundary of distress.  Don't force anything just let Presence or love be an invitation the distress parts can melt into... work with what works best for you. 

e) Become aware of the story in your head. What is it telling you? Can you be 100% sure it is right? Can you see how it is not true? See the story trying to perpetuate itself by stirring you up and feeding off of your emotional energy. You are radiant being and vibrant awareness. You are what the story is running through. Let your awareness expand to realize and feel the expansiveness of being that you are.

Right here, right now, you ARE OK. Notice how stories of what might happen in the future are not happening now. If you focus on your being, and forge your allegiance to presence, then the illusionary stories will melt and you will find yourself living as this expansiveness and living less in virtual-reality "hell-realms." I recommend Byron Katie's book "Loving What Is." She uses thought to disarm thought. 

• Is it true? 

• Can I be 100% sure it is true? 
  

• How do I feel about myself and treat others when I believe this thought?
  

• Who would I be without this thought? How would I see the other person or the situation without this thought?​
  

Turn the thought around every possible way. "My boss should treat me with respect" can become, he shouldn't treat me with respect (he is who he is and probably won't change), I should treat him with respect, I should treat myself with respect, I can be OK no matter how he treats me, etc. You come to a place where you don't need others to change to be happy. This is called "freedom!" ; )

f) Be VERY compassionate and gentle with yourself. Other people given the same circumstances would have much worse reactions. It is OK to feel angry or afraid. Being on earth is often very hard. It is natural for us to get upset.

A great way to get unstuck is to accept that you are stuck or made or angry.  Try out saying to yourself, "yes, I am angry and that is OK," or I love and accept myself even though I am afraid."

​g) Learn to relax around emotions. Don't indulge any thoughts putting you down for feelings that arise in you. Let painful emotions be a signal that it is time to focus on Presence. You can try feeling the "you" that is awareness or Presence. I put my focus on that as my true identity, not thoughts and emotions. When you remember the totality of being that you are, emotions or thoughts become tiny twigs floating on the surface of a deep and cam lake. When we forget the totality that we are, then the twig is like a bog redwood tree, blocking us from seeing anything else.

h) Remember nothing lasts forever! Everything changes. All the times we thought we were in big trouble, and then a month or year later, we are having a great life. Remind yourself when you are plagued with a bad mood, that "this too will pass." Sometimes just remembering some terrible incidents in your life that no longer affect you, can shift you from a bad mood.

i) Get out into nature. It may be no coincidence that Buddha woke up under the Buddha tree and Jesus spent 40 days in the desert. Many monks lived in caves or the forest.  It is very possible being in nature contributed to their awakening.

Nature holds the template of wholeness, completeness and love. You can sit in your backyard with your back against a tree and bare feet in the grass or on a big rock or hug a tree or sit with a plant in your home and just be with it.  I ask nature to help me realize my true nature and it helps. If I can get myself out in nature I feel so much better within 30 minutes.