Do you remember the moment you really touched the heart of another?

"What we are most afraid to show is often precisely what sets the connection free." 

— from the SAS curriculum

Thinking back over our lives to the sincere moments of human connection can really open our hearts. The moments that had more to do with being truly together than gaining something material.

I imagine if you're reading this, you can bring three or four to mind straight away. This goes beyond the practice room. A conversation on a doorstep with someone you might not see again. Someone's face when they realised you had them. A child recognising the real care you are showing them. A silence that held more than anything either of you said at a moment of real-life tragedy.

It is moments like this that I am grateful that I have been in a practice of human connection. Meeting what is truly within me with mindfulness, skill and continual feedback on how I show up. 

At the International TC Festival in the Netherlands this month, one question kept coming back to me in different forms. People wanted to know what actually develops in a person who keeps practising Transformational Connection over time. It is a good question, because TC can be powerful the first time we try it, and that does not tell you where it goes.

Here is what I have watched happen, in myself and in people who have practised over the last fifteen years. Five things.

1. You feel it while it is happening, not on the way home (or even a week later!)

The tightening in the chest. A wave of grief, or unexpected joy. The small wish to look away, or say not now. It is easy to move past these within a second of noticing them.

In TC you learn to give these subtle cues trust and space. These messengers often take us into profound possibilities and connections. They also bring a sense of self acceptance when we allow them more fully. This is also a ground where healing tends to happen, and where much of what makes other people feel close to us occurs.

2. You lead, or show up, from who you intuitively are

The first time I went deep into this practice, I was so moved that my body froze and I could barely breathe. In front of fourteen people.

I suddenly realised I was no longer working out how to be, and let something inside guide me. A freeze was allowed to be present and available to me and those around me. It was terrifying and, yet, so what I didn’t know I needed. 

The moment could let my body speak, something in me steadied, the room softened, and we dropped into a shared presence that none of us could have arranged. 

This moment changed the trajectory of my life!

Have you noticed that when you finally say the truest thing, people tend to soften rather than pull away? Almost every time. We keep expecting the opposite, and it keeps not happening.

What we find, over years of this, is that what is already in us is enough, and more than that, our being draws others onto their own path.

3. Connection becomes something you see and discover, not something that sometimes happens to you.

Connection is always present, and is actually always available. It is easy to believe this, but when we have the capacity to experience this it is something else. 

You can increasingly learn to feel the quality of what is alive between you and another person, and you can let it take you on mystical journeys. 

Intimacy is not something that merely happens, or a scarce resource that you enjoy while it lasts. 

This is the shift that surprises people most. Not that connection just gets better, but that it becomes somewhere they know how to go.

4. You can see the pattern while you are still inside it

I have never met anyone without a pattern in intimacy. Ways we have learned to withdraw, to control, to go vague. 

I came to see how I can withdraw, was humbled seeing the cost of how I can rescue others, and my child-like way of meeting my needs passive-aggressively. Finding that out was not easy at first, and I am so glad I took that step.  

What most changes is that you can see your patterns in real time and work with it while it is live. That is a real gift to the people close to you, and in the process it transforms you at the same time.

5. Something deeper can be trusted to guide you

This is the most important one.

I remember sitting with a woman who went quiet for a long time, then looked up with a tear in her eye. "It is real. All those spiritual books I have read, it is here all the time."

Underneath our usual personality and our strategies there is something quieter that can be seen, felt, and followed. The more we sense it, the more it guides us in the right way, makes us kinder without effort, clarifies our destiny, and brings a great deal of aliveness.

Reading those five, which one registered most in your body?

That reaction is usually more revealing than any explanation I could give you.

Where this is actually developed

The SAS is our flagship advanced facilitator training in Transformational Connection and Surrendered Leadership.

It is where these five capacities are actually developed: in the body, in real contact with other people, over 6 months, alongside a group committed to the same depth. The next one begins September 3rd in Amsterdam.

There are no requirements for joining, other than a conversation with the course leader first, so we can both feel whether it is a good fit and you can ask whatever you want to ask. It also helps to be willing to be changed by the practice rather than informed by it.

The simplest next step

A free call this Friday.

Friday, 28 August, 7pm to 8.30pm CEST, online. I will talk through what the SAS actually involves and answer whatever you want to ask. You are very welcome to come and just listen.

Register here (free, no card needed) 

If you would rather talk one to one, you can book a free SAS exploration call here. 

You do not arrive knowing how. You arrive willing.

Sean

P.S. The call is this Friday, 28 August, 7pm to 8.30pm CEST. If some part of you is thinking "I am not sure I am the kind of person who does this", bring that to the call rather than deciding on your own. And if you cannot make Friday and would still like to talk, just send me an email at sean@transformationalconnection.com