Field Notes
by Dr. Avraham Cohen, PhD, RCC-ACS, CCC

I will focus on two aspects of human communication in this Field Note: Content- the words and their collective meaning Process- All the non-verbal aspects of human communication. I will describe these two aspects with my major focus being on what I am calling the process aspect of communication. This is the non-verbal dimensions that include Read Field Note

If you are like me and I would suggest most other people (that you know), you may find, at least at times, taking up a practice and staying with it to be difficult. Presumably we get into a practice (whatever it is) because we are interested and feel that it offers something of value for us. But somehow, one way or another, we often enough find ourselves not doing the practice. Some familiar practice examples of this are diet, exercise programs, meditation, and the whole range of life and skill building practices that we are keen to adopt. Read Field Note

This Field Note is about educating and expanding intimacy in relationship and, by extension, your very sense of being: being alive, being real, being authentic, and being present. I will underline the importance of developing our capacity for feeling strong feelings, expressing them in a coherent and clear way, to be able to hear the strong feelings of others and understand them, and to enjoy the liberation into empowerment and wellbeing that such ability provides. Read Field Note

Welcome to my first Field Note for 2023. My very great good wishes to all of you for the coming year. May you discover yourself increasingly and experience ever deepening understanding of life—your life, and life as a whole. And perhaps, just as importantly, increasing discovery as to what you do not know, clues about what you may indeed never know, and how to live fully into the valuable experience of not knowing. Read Field Note

What I am offering you in this Field Note is a way of engaging the world: at least your personal and known world, and your creative and imaginal experience of life—your life. In the example that I am sharing with you here, the content is the dream that I shared with you last month (October Field Note, about eight paragraphs from the beginning, under the heading, “My Dream as I Recall It at This Moment”) in relation to my personal inner work on my own with that dream. Read Field Note

The purpose of this field note is to expand on the possibility of working on your own in your inner world, and hopefully to expand the horizon of generative and creative possibilities for your consciousness and ways of being, and which may imaginatively influence everything in your life. I have chosen to include this Field Note at this time, as I believe it shows a great deal about the philosophy and practices of inner work. While this particular piece of inner work is based on a dream, it is applicable to all life experiences. Read Field Note

I have been reflecting for decades on the role of the unconscious in our experience of being human, namely that which falls outside of our awareness, and my recognition that the unconscious plays an enormous part in our daily life. Indeed, it is a good thing that much of our daily lives is supported to run smoothly by that which is no longer in our awareness. Imagine having to figure out how to open up a tube of toothpaste every time you are about to brush your teeth! Or, even more dramatically, how to walk every time you are about to change locations. Read Field Note

The current Field Note arises out of some thoughts I have had over time and particularly arising from last month’s Field Note. I realized that there was a further conundrum that challenges all of us, and it goes something like the following: “Okay, I have done substantial inner work, and I am aware of and understand many of my egoic selves and their relationships. That is, how these have formed initially as a perceived survival, love-getting effort, which for very young children is an autonomic survival response to challenging situations that are encountered and that over time constitute and grow reified identities. Read Field Note

As most of us have realized, our parents are not very open to being rehabilitated, especially by us, their children. Why am I talking about rehabilitating our parents? Why am I even thinking about such a project? Perhaps you are thinking that I have I run out of juicy topics to address in my Field Note? Not at all! This is entirely for our benefit; us their children. Read Field Note

There is an ancient and well-kept secret to support well-being, which some few seem to know and many do not. The practice itself is quite easy to name and, for most of us, is extremely difficult to practice. In order to truly be a master of this art, the first requirement is that one must be able to see that every statement, action, and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date. That is, the majority of people in our world say and do what they say and do from their own set of wants, perceived needs, longings, hopes, as well as fears, worries, and defenses and attempts to survive. Read Field Note