July 13, 2009
Eduardo: Hello, I’m talking with Peggy Tobin about her experiences in life and in Waking Down in Mutuality. Peggy, how are you doing this evening?
Peggy: I’m good! I’m glad to talk to you.
Eduardo: I really want to thank you for taking the time and being with me on this interview today, I really appreciate it.
Peggy: My pleasure.
Eduardo: Could tell us about your background, Peggy, where you grew up, your education, cultural background, anything along that line, briefly.
Peggy: Sure, so I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I was one of five children and I went to Catholic school through high school and went to Loyola University in New Orleans for three years. I had this very Irish-Catholic background. We had nuns and priests from Ireland come over to our parish. I don’t know why, I don’t know how they found us, we got them straight out of Ireland and they were kind of mean.
Eduardo: A little rough around the edges, huh?
Peggy: Mean and strict. And my mother was a true believer, so one of the impacts of my life has been having a very heavy Catholic imprint early. My mother was very into it and she started us early praying and being “good” children.
Eduardo: I’m familiar with Catholic upbringing.
Peggy: Yes, it’s something to be in recovery from.
Eduardo: How have you handled that? Have you completed your Catholic 12 step program?
Peggy: You know, I think I have! I think it’s taken me all of my adult life. When I was at Loyola I had a wonderful teacher who taught Chinese and Japanese history, world history and Zen. He was really interesting. It was in a world history class where we were learning the myths of other cultures that I got outside of my Catholic culture. The Chinese have a myth that their king was a god and born of a virgin and there was a bird somehow involved also, like the Holy Spirit. Just learning that about the other cultures was really the first time I could get outside of my own culture and say, “oh, well I see that’s a myth so what about all the stuff I was taught? That’s a myth too”.
Eduardo: It starts to unravel?
Peggy: It starts to unravel, but then some of the deep stuff, the deep things took a while.
Eduardo: What’s been your experience of faith in terms of that Catholic upbringing?
Peggy: Well, when I got to Seattle to go to the University of Washington that was the first time I was really in a non- Catholic environment. And what I noticed about the people who were not raised Catholic, they recognized me as Catholic somehow. They would ask me “Are you Catholic?” and I didn’t know if I had it stamped on my forehead or something. I didn’t question the existence of God, I questioned the interpretation of what that meant, and the beliefs I still had about that. The fact that I knew people who hadn’t studied any kind of religion, had no religious background, was very foreign to me. It was very foreign that they did not appreciate some sort of sacredness about life.
Eduardo: Moving through that, moving out of the nest, realizing there are other paths, and other cultures in the world; how was that transition for you?
Peggy: Well in retrospect, I can see how challenging it was in a particular way – I did feel lost. But I don’t know that I would’ve used that word then. Some of what I’ve read recently in the Integral literature has been helpful in this regard. They will talk about it in terms of development. It’s like you get to a level of (cognitive) development and then suddenly you have to abandon your spiritual path because it’s not rational. They (the Church) offer you nothing else. They’re only offering you “Well you have to believe this because this is what the church says.” And then you don’t have any other options; there was no where else to go. Now, I didn’t think all of that at the time. I just knew that this was the 70’s, and before that there was the whole civil rights and women’s rights movements, and I was done being told by men in robes how I should behave and what I should do and how I should think.
Eduardo: Patriarchy no longer had a sway over you?
Peggy: Right. I was in rebellion against that and left and never looked back. But it still lived in me – in terms of a spiritual longing or knowing, or something that resonated. But I didn’t have a different way; it took me years and years and years to find a different way to express or interpret that.
Eduardo:Peggy, would you share some of your spiritual journey prior to finding Waking Down?
Peggy: Well, let’s see, I had done a lot of meditation off and on through the 80’s and that was the only sort of spiritual path that I explored. I did a lot of psychological work too. But for a spiritual path I was only exploring simple meditation because I didn’t want any “extra” spirituality around it. The Tibetans had too many bells and whistles and I thought they were like the Catholics of the East. And I didn’t want to take on somebody else’s belief system. So I did simple Vipassana meditation off and on for many years. As we got towards the late 90’s, and we were heading towards the millennium, I was actually pretty unhappy with my life. And I realized I really wanted to focus on a spiritual path. I had sort of dabbled but I hadn’t focused on anything in particular, and so I found something called the Diamond Approach. I started that work in 1999 and did that for six years and it was wonderful. I got a lot out of that. I started to have these experiences of Being. You begin to oscillate into them. You work with an individual teacher and in large and small group sessions. The method is very slow and involves a lot of self-inquiry. They give you questions to ask. It’s not just “Who am I?” They give you a teaching about a topic and then they have you do monologues and ask each other questions where you have 15 minutes to just explore what your own experience with whatever the topic is.
Eduardo: Ahh, I see.
Peggy: And after being in that for the six years, I felt done. Something was missing for me, and at the time I would’ve languaged it as community. That’s what I thought, but really we were this group – we were a group of about 30 to 35 people, and all of the work we did was individual. It was all internal work on ourselves. So you’d be in a group, a triad of three people and you’d take turns asking each other questions but there was nothing inter-relational about it.
There’d be a deep presence when the group was together, but there was no group really outside of that work. And I did get to know some of the people, and I’m still friends with some of the people I met there, and I feel like I have really deep friendships with them. But there was something about it that stopped. It’s like I wanted more. Plus there was a very hierarchical structure and our particular teacher had some limitations that were difficult to deal with.
And so I was mostly feeling like I wanted something more in terms of relationship. I couldn’t really articulate what I was looking for but I was really feeling that need. I had read a book – I think it was about the same time I found the Diamond Approach. It was an interview book, “Dialogues With Emerging Spiritual Teachers”, and Saniel was one of them. In fact, his interview was the longest one. Byron Katie was in there, Eckhart Tolle was in there, and I really liked what Saniel said. It was a lot about his journey and his whole thing about treating people as equals – not as equals exactly, but with respect and mutuality. Teachers listening to what the students have to say, and not just saying ,“well, that’s just your stuff and you go deal with it”, that kind of thing.
But at the time I first read the book it was clear that he was in California and I was in Seattle, and so that didn’t seem like an option to me. But in 2005 when I started looking again, I found Krishna Gauci online. He was doing a one day event in Portland. And I asked if this was appropriate for someone who had never been to anything; he said yes, so I went. And the thing that was – well there were many things that surprised me about that day – but what I remember so clearly, how he was so welcoming to each individual. The Waking Down teachers really want to hear who you are, where you’re from, and what’s going on with you. And there were about 11 or 12 of us there, and some people were down, some people were fine, some people were really good. There was a variety of people and I was really struck by how genuinely welcoming he was to each person.
Eduardo: Sounds like this felt authentic and real to you.
Peggy: Totally. And in those days when I had to speak in public, I would just cry and shake – my whole body would shake. And when it got to me, I was really happy to be there, but I was also really kind of shocked by how welcoming he was. That was a very new experience for me. And then he said some other things during that day that were very surprising for me, and that just kind of drew me in. And it just was very clear that I wanted more of this. And I could feel the transmission.
Eduardo: At the time were you conscious of it as a transmission?
Peggy: I would have just felt it as energy. And I could feel the vibration of something very different in this room and how it was affecting me. So, I mean, he talked about it as transmission so I assumed that’s what it was. Maybe that’s not what it was.
Eduardo: How much time went by between that first meeting and when you awakened?
Peggy: I went to the first meeting with Krishna in September 2005. And then a 4-day event in Portland in December 2005. That’s where I met Hillary. and June, Ron, and Krishna were also teaching there. I was in Hillary’s group that weekend, and I just felt completely drawn to her from the beginning, because she sits there and looks at you with such immense compassion. I had my second birth in February of 2006.
Eduardo: Right.
Peggy: I had realized through a lot of the psychological work that I’d done, that I had significant mother issues; mother recognition/abandonment issues. So when I met Hillary I was very drawn to her. We were in a small group, and as she worked with each person – she’d say to them, “Well, what do you want? This is your time, what do you need?”. And then she’s ask, “Well, do you need anything physical? Do you want to be held? Do you want a blanket? Do you want me to rub your feet?”. And then I watched that first day in our small group, and I was like “oh… she means it.” You know? But nobody was taking her up on this.
So when it came to my turn, I was like “yes.” I do. I want you to hold me, thank you. I’ll take that. And I think it’s mostly because I had worked in a Hakomi training where they did do a lot of physical touch with permission. They would hold people or do different kinds of experiments with people. And based on that year and a half training I had seen how important that can be. So I asked Hillary to hold me and she did and I cried and cried and cried and cried. Probably for the first six months every time I worked with her I just kind of laid in her lap and sobbed. It felt very primal and very early pre-verbal childhood stuff – letting go of whatever.
Eduardo: Sounds like there was some big healing going on,
Peggy: Totally. And then it was done. It was kind of amazing.
Eduardo: That almost sounds like a fever broke or something.
Peggy: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Eduardo: You know, in some Eastern spiritual traditions they refer to a path of devotion – devotion for example to your guru. Can you speak to any of that in your own personal experience?
Peggy: I wouldn’t use the word devotion. I’m one of those westerners that doesn’t relate to that. I mean, I would like to know how to do that, but I don’t really know. I guess I’m too wary of authority to let myself be devoted to somebody.
Eduardo: But it sounds like there was a lot of heart between you two.
Peggy: Totally. Completely. She handled it so beautifully. So clearly. There was so much love. And I felt – you know, it’s kind of like what Saniel says: Come in and drink from us. Just drink in the transmission. That’s what I felt like I was doing. So I was taking her in. it’s not like I was feeling devoted back to her. It was like I needed her and she was giving to me, and I was taking it in. I would ask her all the time if she was sure this was OK. Like, am I too much for you? Because that was a big deal. I think my energy was too much for my mother. She thought I was hyperactive and just couldn’t be around me. She needed me to be away from her. And Hillary would always say that she loved this work, and she loved working with me, and she loved working with all of her students. And there was no “drained” factor. And now that I’m a mentor, I understand. I don’t think I totally believed her at the time.
Eduardo: Beautiful… Can you speak about the shift you went through?
Peggy: Well in my experience, the language I would use was that I did feel myself unwinding and unraveling. So physically I was starting to relax, and mentally I was starting to relax. And I started to not be able to push myself to do things, (like meditating) that I had just been doing out of discipline. It also felt like I could feel shifts in my brain. I would have used the language “it felt like things were falling out of my brain, out of my head”. It was like seeing belief structures and getting that, “Oh, that’s not real. That’s a structure. Those are beliefs.” And it would just dissolve and I was sort of dumbfounded. And then my brain was quiet. And that happened a lot. Seeing through a lot of beliefs. Mostly about who I was and who I thought I was.
Eduardo: Can you say more about this transition you were going through?
Peggy: Oh, yes, it was a very interesting transition. I took a year off from work, and in that year I had a lot of shake-down – there was a lot of emotional processing and letting go of more stuff. When I went back to work I think I was more in my body, more relaxed, and I definitely had a confidence in being that I didn’t have before.
Eduardo: Was it noticeable? Did folks notice and comment?
Peggy: Yes, but of course they thought it was because I had been off for a year. Everybody noticed. Truly. So when I went back to work, because I was in the same department- my job wasn’t the same but I was in the same department- it was so much easier to see the way that I stressed myself out. And so all of the pressure that I put on myself to perform at work – I could notice how I was doing it to myself.
So I came back to work and I got back into my habits kind of quickly because my conditioning was sitting there waiting for me. So slowly- I’d say within the first six months- I got more and more space between my habitual responses and being able to just hold them – to just feel.
For instance there would be things I would have to do as a project manager that I didn’t like doing. And I would react. And I would sort of feel myself whining and complaining in the same way I used to whine about things I didn’t like at work before I took time off. And then suddenly I would recognize this as a habit. And I’d think “What is so terrible about this thing that you have to do? You’re going to go sit in a meeting with people you don’t particularly like, and you’re going to get some work out of it, and you’re going to go back to your desk and you’re going to do it, and there’s nothing horrible that was going to have to be done.” And I did that, and I started to see more and more clearly where my reactivity was and how unnecessary it was, really, because it didn’t change anything.
And as I noticed it and let myself feel it, it would just dissolve away. Over time I noticed myself being happier at work, flowing more, and being more at ease. That was a really big change.
The other thing I noticed was that since I was so much more comfortable with myself I would just say things that popped into my head, and people paid attention. So I wasn’t as held back. A lot of the fear I’d feel about speaking in public diminished slowly over the months. And I would just watch that change. Also, when speaking to my new boss – or other authority figures – I would just watch myself say the truth and not feel intimidated. We have a culture of “nice” here in the northwest, and we have it where I work. People will be nice to each other in meetings, and then they go away and complain after the fact. We had a new boss who was inviting direct feedback, so I just decided to give it to her. I wasn’t “not nice”, but I was really direct. And she heard me. So I noticed that I had this way of giving people really direct feedback that they could hear.
Eduardo: Sounds like you were pretty clear, huh?.
Peggy: Exactly. I didn’t have any reactivity around it. It was just “Well this is what I see.” Another example – one of my new bosses – her job is to say no when people ask to do certain kinds of research where I work. And she wasn’t saying no! So, because I had worked in this department for so long, I knew what she should be doing more than she did, really. So I just found a way to say “You really just have to say ‘no’. You’re not good at this and you have to learn.” And she heard me. But I never would have done that before, or if I had done it I would have had a lot of edginess around it, so she wouldn’t have heard it.
Eduardo: It would have put them off and they wouldn’t have heard the message.
Peggy: Right. So my whole edginess, my crankiness, my sort of habitual conditioning around authority has changed. I’m more willing to say what’s on my mind. When things come up I can try to just feel them. And then see what I want to do or say. I have a choice.
Eduardo: You wouldn’t really have the chance to make that observation if you weren’t in a situation like at work where certain buttons get pushed.
Peggy: Exactly. Exactly. So it’s really quite different. Also, I used to feel like I was in a particular style or way of being while I was at work, and when I came home I was somebody else. I felt very split in that way. And that’s completely changed.
Eduardo: So you feel more whole?
Peggy: Exactly. I felt that was a lot of what happened in my second birth. I felt it the first day with Krishna. I had a feeling of integration.
Eduardo: You were able to be more happy, then? Is that one of the fruits of being present and observing as you were working?
Peggy: Yes. Definitely. And it’s because I can be more present so I worry less about the next meeting I have to do. Also, there’s something about not living in my mind so much as well. I’m using my mind to do things that I need to do but I’m not spinning in my mind about personal stuff, or worried about what that person is going to do or say, or what they think of me, or how this should be, or that should be, that kind of thing. So being in the moment is way less stressful.
Eduardo: What can you relate in terms of the changes in your personal life?
Peggy: I’ve noticed that I’m friendlier and I don’t hate people anymore.
Eduardo: Well that’s a notable difference, I’d say.
Peggy: It’s a big difference. And again, a lot of it is about being present in the moment. Now, instead of being in the elevator totally absorbed in my mind, I’ll be there feeling and looking at who else is in the elevator with me and striking up a conversation. I feel more open. I’m more resting in Being and much more open. Resting in the openness, rather than my contracted self. I sort of spontaneously behave differently. That’s a big change, because not only was I shy, I sort of didn’t realize I was very contracted. It really was through Waking Down and the second birth and all the Shake-Down took me through, that my life changed. I eventually came to see how much resistance was running my life. I think resistance was my method to survive my childhood – to resist everything that was coming in at me. And then I was hating everything and everybody too. It was my strategy to keep people away from me. Life just seemed too painful.
Eduardo: Sounds like it was pretty hard just to be in the world.
Peggy: Totally. It felt like I didn’t want to be here, alive, on the Earth. Somehow it felt like it wasn’t my choice. That’s what I would say in my mind. That piece slowly unwound energetically. Self-hatred was really wound up tight in me.
One of the things that Sandra talked about, at one of the retreats I was at, was how you can have a second birth in your mind, and then in your heart, and in your belly- not in that order – but it has to happen in all of those centers.
Eduardo: But not necessarily all at once?
Peggy: Exactly. And it feels to me like my mind got it first. And that the belly and the heart are sort of following. I feel it much more now in my body in terms of feeling the wholeness, in terms of feeling the openness.
Eduardo: Perhaps this is what “consciousness descending into the body”, relates to.
Peggy: Yeah. It does. It feels like the whole Being.
Eduardo: Well Peggy, this has been good. We’re getting toward the end of our time, and I wonder before we end if there is anything else that you want to mention?
Peggy: Let me think. There is something. One of the things that I very much appreciate about Waking Down is the whole welcoming aspect of it – the mothering, the welcoming of all parts of yourself. One of the reasons I was drawn to Hillary was that I could tell she wasn’t afraid of my feelings. I was afraid of my feelings and I was all backed up in myself. But she wasn’t and I got that about her.
Eduardo: That helped you to move through there, eh?
Peggy: Exactly. The way the teachers work, allows – well it allowed me to go to the deepest pain that I was carrying and feel it and notice that I didn’t die by feeling it. And then it would come up and go away, and come up and go away, so that it finally, on the deepest level kind of resolved. But the welcoming, the holding, the mothering, the deep, deep holding seems very unique to this path. And I really think it contributes to a very fast unwinding. The Diamond Approach does that but it does it in a much slower way. The depth of the holding isn’t the same. It’s a different kind of holding, and so you don’t unwind in the same way. They don’t have people unraveling in that way.
Eduardo: Thank you, Peggy. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this with me now. I’ve got a hunch we’ve got some pearls in there.
Peggy: Yeah. Well thank you, Edwardo, this was a lot more fun than I thought it would be.
