This is one in a series of posts with brief notes on healing, awakening, and personal things. These are more spontaneous and less comprehensive than the regular articles. Some may be a little rantish. And some may be made into a regular article in time.
BYRON KATIE: TRAUMA IS NOTHING MORE THAN BEING STUCK IN WHAT YOU BELIVE
Trauma is nothing more than being stuck in what you believe.
– Byron Katie
Yes, the essence of trauma is just this. At some level, our system holds a painful through – or set of thoughts – as true, and that recreates the trauma in the moment. It’s what creates it and holds it in place.
These beliefs may not be conscious. It’s thoughts often in the form of images. And a lot more is going on than “just” words and images. These beliefs and assumptions influence our perception, choices, and how we live our life. And they involve just about all of who we are as physical, emotional, mental, and social beings.
There are many ways of working with traumas. Talk therapy is typically unhelpful since it tends to unwittingly reinforce the painful stories, especially the painful underlying assumptions often shared with the therapist. Some of the best ones are non-verbal (releasing muscle tension, energy work, heart-centered practices). And it’s also possible to approach it through inquiry, as Byron Katie suggests. Inquiry is different from talk therapy in that it directly goes for dismantling the painful and trauma-inducing stories and underlying assumptions.
FEBRURARY 19, 2021
LUCID DREAMING AND INSIGHTS INTO OUR REALITY
As many have pointed out, there are several similarities between waking life and dreams.
We are capacity for our experiences. Any experience happens within and as what we are – which a thought may call consciousness, awake emptiness, or something else.
Whether it’s waking life or dream, it still happens within and as what we are. It still happens within and as what we may call consciousness or awakeness.
For this reason, some use lucid dreaming as a way to explore the dreamlike quality of all our experiences. It can be a stepping stone, in some cases. In lucid dreams, we may notice that our dreams are consciousness. They happen within and as consciousness. And then, we may find that in waking life as well. We may notice that all our experiences are like that, even if it’s something as apparently concrete and physical as stubbing our toe.
To me, going the path of lucid dreaming seems a bit cumbersome. I find it easier to explore it here and now through simple forms of inquiry like Headless experiments, the Big Mind process, and Living Inquiries.
And I also know that’s a personal preference. For some, lucid dreaming seems to work well. And it’s always helpful to explore something from many different angles. Each approach gives us some unique insights. Each one fills out the overall picture. Each one is a way for life to explore itself.
FEBRUARY 20, 2021
TRUE HAPPINESS?
True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from the Self and can be found in the Self only. Find your real Self and all else will come with it.
– Nisargadatta Maharaj
This is one of those slightly confusing quotes for me, mainly because of his use of the word “happiness”.
I know that early on in an awakening process, happiness can be a side-effect. It comes from the contrast between taking ourselves as an object to finding ourselves as that which our experiences happen within and as. The release and discovery can bring about some happiness.
In general, it seems a poor choice of words for describing discovering what we are and living from it. I would perhaps call it an underlying sense of contentment and being home, and there is also a quiet and underlying sense of bliss inherent in it.
I wouldn’t call it happiness since happiness and sadness and other ordinary human experiences all come and go within what we are, and that coming and going doesn’t really change.
Perhaps Nisargadatta was a bit inaccurate in his wording? Perhaps he was referring to the sense of being home and the quiet fundamental contentment? Perhaps he wanted to use the word “happiness” as bait since many think that’s what they want?
TO LEARN, GO BEYOND WHAT YOU KNOW
If you practice correctly, you learn something new every time.
– from a Storror video
How do we practice correctly?
It depends on the skill we want to learn, obviously. And there are also some universal guidelines to practicing so we give ourselves a chance to learn something new every time.
A crucial universal one is to go slightly beyond what we are familiar with. To go beyond our comfort zone and what we already know. When we do that, our shortcomings tend to be obvious and we may fail at first. And as we practice and get more familiar with it, we learn how to do it.
When we go outside our comfort zone, we become beginners again. And it’s essential to allow ourselves to be just that – a beginner. To fail. To blunder. To not know how to do it. To appear to regress. And learn something new.
There are also important elements to this: Receptivity. Curiosity. Being honest with ourselves. Knowing we don’t know it yet. Knowing we can learn. Having good pointers and coaches. Having a safe community to explore and learn in.
….
A crucial guideline is to go slightly outside of our comfort zone. To go beyond what we are familiar with and already know. To put ourselves in a place where are a beginner again. Where our shortcomings are obvious and we may fail.
I MISS HOW I FELT
If I am honest, I notice that I don’t miss people or places, even if it looks that way on the surface. I miss how I (sometimes) felt with that person or in that place.
As usual, it’s good to notice. It helps me see what it’s really about. It helps me see that I can find what I am looking for in another way – if the person or place is gone. Ultimately, it helps me find it in myself more independent of circumstances.
FEBRUARY 24, 2021
AGING
It’s pretty clear that much of what we associate with aging is not an inevitable part of aging.
A lot has to do with lifestyle. It has to do with a poor diet. Physical inactivity. And the accumulated effect of emotional issues, repressed wishes and emotions, and living an inauthentic life.
How do we stay healthy into old age? Through a healthy diet. Daily activity, and weaving physical activity naturally into daily life. Movement practices like yoga and tai chi. Lightening and clearing emotional issues and stressful beliefs. Living a life that’s meaningful. Following our inner guidance. Living an authentic life.
TAKING CURRENT SCIENCE AS THE FINAL WORD
I love science, and I also know it has limitations as any human understanding.
Some take current diet-and-health pointers from science as if it’s the gospel truth and the final word.
That’s obviously not the case. Yes, it’s important to take current science into account. But there are fads in science as in the rest of society. They only have a few pieces of the puzzle. Scientists are humans with the usual human biases and blinders. And they operate within a certain worldview and all worldviews are limited and limit what we look at and how we understand what we find.
As we know well from looking at history, the views and pointers in today’s science will be seen as incomplete or obsolete in one or ten or a hundred years.
So, yes, take it into account. But don’t take it as the final word or the gospel truth.
CLEARING A PART OF MY ENERGY SYSTEM, AND FEELING A MYRIAD OF THINGS MOVING
Earlier today, I spent some time clearing the voridians in my system (similar to meridians), and since then, I have felt a lot moving in me. I sense a lot shifting in my energy system, I feel a range of emotions at once, and I notice a more tender heart. It’s at a relatively mild level, but it’s noticeable.
This is not unusual. When I clear a part or area of my energy system, this tends to happen.
It makes sense. It seems that any issue sits in all parts of our energy system. So if I clear a chakra or some energy pathways, it makes sense that a wide range of things gets cleared out, and I sense a lot moving and a range of different low-grade emotions.
Note: When I say “clearing”, I mean to clear out some of what’s there – what will move during the time we do the healing. It doesn’t mean to clear everything out! That’s a much longer process.
OWN DREAM: MOVIE SCREEN
I woke up early this morning, wanted a few more minutes of rest, and started an audiobook. I fell asleep and dreamt I was standing in front of a large cinema screen. Fragments of scenes played out on the screen, and I assume those scenes were taken from the book I was listening to while sleeping.
FEBRUARY 25, 2020
WOUNDED HEALER
The wounded healer image seems to fit a lot of people in the healing profession.
Why?
One obvious answer is that all humans have wounds. It’s part of the human condition. So people in the healing profession also have wounds.
Another side to this is that we learn about healing and healing processes and dynamics through working on ourselves. We develop skills and insights through working on ourselves, and we can then share it and support others in their process.
Working on ourselves also hopefully gives us some empathy, compassion, and understanding of what others may struggle with, based on our own experience.
There is not necessarily something terribly mysterious about the “wounded healer”. People in the healing profession have their own wounds, they learn from working on themselves, and they develop skills, insights, and empathy through that process as well.
NOTHING OUTSIDE OF THIS MOMENT CAN ASSIST ME
Nothing outside of this moment can assist you.
– unknown source, although similar to a quote by Miyamoto Musashi
That’s true since we cannot find anything outside of this moment, apart from in our ideas and imaginations. We cannot rely on the past or future.
Of course, in a conventional sense, there is time and continuity and past and future. We can rely on past experiences, memories, and so on. And we can, to some extent, rely on the future – we can make our best guesses about the future and rely on it to some extent.
And, in reality, all we can rely on is what’s here. Memories and conditioning and learning from past experiences are here. The future isn’t here yet and anything can happen.
For me, it’s a relief to see this and be reminded of it. It helps me rely on what’s here. It helps me come home to what’s here now, and not rely on a fantasy about the past or future.
FEBRUARY 26, 2021
DREAM: A FRIEND STEALING MY MONEY
I am at a restaurant in Oslo and have $20,000 in cash with me. On my way home, I encounter a friend who is in difficult circumstances and she steals my money. I also realize I am in close contact with a large number of people in the restaurant and on the street, and most likely will get infected with the virus since nobody is wearing a mask.
The money situation reflects a TV episode I watched the night before. And the pandemic part is a type of dream I have had two or three times before during this pandemic. [….]
IT’S NOT WHAT WE ARE, AND IT IS WHAT WE ARE
In general, the content of our experience isn’t what we are, and it is what we are.
It isn’t what we are if we see ourselves as capacity for it all, that which it all happens within (and as). Content of experience comes and goes, and this awake space it happens within is always here to us. It’s helpful to notice this since it creates some space and distance to the content of our experience.
At the same time, it is what we are. It happens within and as us. This helps with recognizing projections and finding them within us, at a human level. It helps with recognizing the overlay of thoughts on the world as our own thoughts – our own labels, interpretations, and stories. It helps us with including all life and all of existence as “us”. It helps us with empathy.
A slight variation of this is that when uncomfortable feelings come up, it can be helpful to remember that this too is the flavor of the divine.
ELITIST?
I remember a friend in my early twenties calling spirituality and awakening “elitist”.
Yes, it can be if we boost self-esteem by thinking it makes us better than others.
And no, it’s not inherently elitist. It’s what all of us are waking up to itself. It’s one of many ways life is exploring itself, none inherently better or worse than any other. Any ideas of better and worse are just that, ideas. It cannot be found outside of those ideas.
IF WE DON’T HAVE DIRECT EXPERIENCE, IT CAN SEEM ABSTRACT
When someone describes something we don’t have direct experience with, or we don’t have close related experience, it can seem abstract. And if it has to do with discovering what we are, it can seem mostly intellectual and perhaps mostly idea-based and not from an immediate experience.
That is sometimes true. Sometimes, people write about awakening based mostly on what they have read or heard, and it is abstract and more idea-based than from immediacy.
If we have immediate experience with it, it’s often not so difficult to recognize when it’s one or the other. And it may also be not so difficult to recognize remaining assumptions and beliefs, even if much of it is from direct realization.
PANDORA’S BOX
Not just mythology but all stories – including all kinds of maps and worldviews and anything from science – reflect something in us. We can find the characteristics and dynamics they point to in ourselves.
And so also with the story of Pandora’s box.
We can open our own Pandora’s box when we intentionally set out to explore what’s unmet – unseen, unfelt, unexamined, unloved – in us.
Our Pandora’s box can also be opened in an awakening process. As Adyashanti says, when our mind and heart open, they open to anything and everything. Including that in us that has not been seen, felt, and loved. These parts surface to be seen, felt, and loved, and to heal and reorient within the awakening. This opening of a Pandora’s Box may be unintentional on our part. But it also seems built into the process, so there is a metaphorical intention there from life’s side.
When our mind and heart open, these previously neglected parts of us see their opportunity to heal, so they surface with the invitation for us to heal our relationship with them and invite in healing for them.
Parts of us may not want this and go into struggle with what’s surfacing, and these too are really surfacing to find inclusion and healing. They too come from separation consciousness, and we can either identify with them and their struggle, or support them in finding healing.
In my case, I often notice a mix of these two.
OBSESSIVELY PROGRESSING
For some on the healing and/or awakening path, progressing – in whatever way we understand that – can become an obsession.
If we notice a compulsion behind healing or awakening, it’s a sign we are caught up in a belief and identity, a sense of lack, and wanting to escape some uncomfortable sensations connected with this.
So if we want to progress on the healing or awakening path, we need to address whatever is behind the compulsion.
It’s also helpful to question the idea of progress, and what we think it will give us. And identify the essence of what we are looking for. Maybe what we are really looking for is already here?
It’s not a problem to keep working on healing and awakening. But if we notice a compulsion behind it, it’s a pointer to something that’s unloved and unexamined.
THE ESSENCE OF THE DARK NIGHT OF ISSUES AND TRAUMA
It’s not uncommon to have an initial awakening, a honeymoon phase, and then a kind of dark night where emotional issues and trauma come to the surface. Often, life circumstances bring these to the surface, although they can also surface “on their own” without any apparent triggers.
Why this apparent reversal? Why do these parts of us surface?
There is a simple answer: The very human unhealed parts of us want and need to join in with the awakening. They need to heal and awaken too.
An answer has more to do with the mechanism: When our heart and mind open, they also open to what’s hidden in us, including these confused and suffering parts.
Why do they need to heal and join in with the awakening?
In general, when there is a global shift in a system, it’s natural for the parts to join in. If water starts flowing, it all starts flowing – even if there are some eddies and areas where it flows a bit more slowly.
Also, inviting in healing and awakening for these parts of us is a vital part of deepening the awakening and living from it.
These parts of us were formed within separation consciousness, they are held in place by their local separation consciousness, and they perceive and live from separation consciousness. This means that even if there is a general or global awakening, many parts of us still function from confusion.
This colors our perception and life even if these parts are less obviously activated. And if these parts are triggered, we may easily get caught up in them and more obviously perceive and act from them.
As long as these parts of us are still suffering and operate from separation consciousness, the awakening is only partially done.
Another side to this is that when we notice and feel these confused and suffering parts of us, another part of us wants to support the healing and awakening of these suffering parts. It’s a natural impulse to want to support them in being liberated from their confusion and suffering.
….
MARCH 10, 2021
A MINI EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
I have probably had a low-grade existential crisis my whole life, and notice it especially these days.
What’s going on? I think it’s a combination of several things.
I have worked on primal fear in my system, and it’s more up on the surface now. This makes me feel more naked, vulnerable, and raw, and it brings up some existential questions.
I have been mostly isolated for many months now, as so many others. If I am more out among people and doing things, that distracts from this existential undercurrent.
It’s a sign that something in me wants more meaningful activities in my life, something that more directly supports the wider living system.
It’s an invitation for me to explore what’s going on. What beliefs and underlying assumptions are behind the existential mini-crisis? That I have my value only through my actions? That I need to be a “good boy” to be accepted and safe – among people and in relationship to the divine?
MARCH 20, 2021
A SHIFT
I notice something slightly different in how I experience myself and life, and it’s happening one its own and not as the obvious result of any practice or conscious exploration.
I feel myself as part of the natural processes, like moss, a mouse, a bird, or any other living being part of this living planet. What I mainly notice is being part of this much larger process, and just doing my best as part of it. It’s a kind of organic and visceral sense of surrender. I am a part of this much larger living whole, as all life is.
A cat doesn’t mentally struggle with its life, it just lives it as best as it can. Moss doesn’t struggle with its life. A fish also doesn’t. They just live their lives as part of a much larger living whole.
And somehow, there is a visceral sense of that here.
[in progress]
MAKING FRIENDS WITH WHAT’S HERE
illness, what if it will always be this way? find peace with it
IMAGES OF THE DIVINE
- coarse level
- more accurate but not quite
- what’s here now, whatever it is
- disillusionment
OVER-RELIANCE ON THOUGHT
thoughts – a tool, guide, questions etc.
but if hold as true, then (a) too fascinated with, (b) mix thought w. reality, (c) thinking may seem sufficient, the answer in itself
TAKING REALITY SERIOUSLY
One thing is to notice what we are.
Another is to take the implications of it seriously.
In this situation, how would I live if I took it seriously?
With this uncomfortable feeling, how would I relate to it?
PURIFICATION
I see some on a healing or spiritual path focusing on purifying themselves.
[in progress]
LOST MY CENTER
I have gone through several different phases in my life.
The most current one is what I think of as a dark night of the soul. What’s happened during this time has often been confusing and disorienting.
One of the main things is that I seem to have lost my center. For most of my life before this – in my late teens, twenties, and early thirties – I had a strong and clear center. One of my strengths was this center and what came with it: integrity, direction, passion, getting things done, and so on. And then, it was as if I lost this center and my inner compass and bearings.
Why did this happen?
This is a question best divided into mechanisms, gifts, and possibly big-picture reasons.
What are some of the possible mechanisms behind this loss of center?
Here are some that come to mind:
Staying for too long in a marriage that didn’t feel right.
An awakening shift into very clear no-self that may have opened up for all of it.
Severe chronic fatigue along with a kind of full-system collapse.
Asking the divine to show me “what’s left” in me, followed by intense and overwhelming dread & terror. (This overwhelming and seemingly unbearable dread and terror came out of the blue, lasted very strong for nine months, and was then more moderate and intermittent for several years.)
I also remember a period early on in this phase. Any time I put my head on the pillow and turned off the light, it was as if I lost all bearings, anchor points, and any sense of center. It may have been a kind of foreshadowing or precursor.
What are some of the gifts in it?
Although I had an open heart and empathy, I secretly didn’t really understand why people couldn’t just pull themselves up by the boot-straps, live with clear and strong direction and center, and find ways out of a chronic illness. Now, I understand better. It’s easier for me to feel myself as an ordinary human being struggling with much of the same as others.
As long as I had a strong center, I couldn’t so easily access unprocessed material in me. It was easy for me to stay optimistic and focus on my goals. It was not easy for me to contact unhealed parts of me, even if I wanted and tried through all sorts of approaches. It was as if my strength was used by my system to keep these things below the surface. Losing this center allowed all of this material to surface. It’s not been easy, but it has opened for the possibility of healing of more of these unhealed parts of me.
I have had to learn how to find or create a lot of what was previously very easy for me. It’s a bit like learning to walk again. And in that process, I have a better understanding of how difficult it can be and how it can be done. This may also be helpful for others.
What are some of the possible big-picture reasons it happened?
One aspect of the awakening process is for the different human parts of us to join in with the awakening. Many of them were formed within separation consciousness and still operate from separation consciousness. And they need to surface to be noticed, felt, loved, heal, and reorient within the awakening. My strength and unprocessed fear didn’t allow this to really happen, so life had to take drastic action for these parts of me to surface.
From this view, what I have been going through is part of a typical and universal awakening and embodiment process. If we are “strong” because of culture and fear, this type of collapse and apparent disaster is a way for these parts of us to surface to be healed and join with the awakening.
What form has this loss of center taken?
Almost too much to mention.
When unprocessed parts of me has surfaced, it’s been difficult for me to stay centered and relate to it with some strength. I have often felt overwhelmed and swamped by it, and have had to use a lot of different approaches as support.
I have been hijacked by fear in several life situations. Where I previously would have taken the bull by the horns, I have partially collapsed.
I lost my bearings and have felt confused and partially direction-less.
Just about any project I have started, has collapsed. Often because of external factors, but perhaps mainly because my loss of center didn’t allow me to take assertive and clear action even if I knew what this action would be. Even with the external factors at play, I could have salvaged it if I had a stronger and clearer center so I could have acted more assertively.
How is a new center created? How can I support the process?
It’s slowly happening.
And here are some ways to possibly support the process.
“Fake it until you make it”, or connect with the memory of having a center, or the little center that’s here, and act from it as best as I can.
Work on how I relate to my experiences. Can I befriend them in a deeper way? Get to know them. See they are what I am? See they are love?
Invite healing for the different unhealed parts of me.
…..
Over the last several years, I may have gone into a kind of reverse spiritual bypassing. I have been a little obsessed with going into the darkest areas of myself, and it hasn’t always been balanced.
In what way hasn’t it been balanced?
I have been slightly obsessed with exploring and healing the parts of me coming from separation consciousness, and sometimes I get a little absorbed into these parts of me.
I also notice a subtle kind of nihilism. I am used to examining something until nothing substantial is left, and although there is truth to this, it can also make us temporarily lose our bearings, center, and direction. I thought I was aware of this possibility, but I may still have gone a bit into this pitfall.
How can I do this in a more balanced way?
By focus more on the more clear sides of me, giving more attention to them, nurture and nourish them, and bring them more into daily life.
…
The strong center I had earlier in life was mixed in with a reaction to fear, and trying to compensate for not feeling good enough. As I slowly regain my bearings, inner compass, and center, it will inevitably be different after what I have been going through.
[in progress]
[drafts – in progress]
FREEDOM?
Some talk about “freedom” in the context of the awakening process, and it can be an important motivator for some, at least for a while.
Early on, it can seem as if it has to do with freedom. We may generally recognize that our thoughts are not inherently true or the final word on anything. We may find some healing. We may see through some conditioning. So in that sense, there is some freedom from taking thoughts inevitably as true, being caught in old emotional hangups, and being released out of some conditioning.
Equally or more important is the freedom to allow experience as it is, without engaging in a struggle with it.
And there is also the freedom of finding ourselves as capacity for our world. In a sense, it’s free because it’s not bound. And more accurately, the ideas of freedom or boundedness don’t apply. They happen within and as this capacity.
At the same time, it’s not about freedom.
For instance, a part of the awakening process is to learn to become more honest with ourselves – and others. And that’s not freedom. We become more and more tied to what’s honest for us and we don’t choose what that is.
More fundamentally, freedom assumes there is a separate someone here who can be free from something else. From a conventional view, there is some validity to it. But the essence of awakening is to wake up from this limited truth. In oneness, there is no real or fundamental freedom.
Freedom, in general, has never been important for me in this process, apart from in the limited sense mentioned above. Perhaps because for me it happened out of the blue, and my conscious engagement in the process has mostly been about clarifying and also understanding – to the extent that’s possible.
Note: There is another way to talk about freedom, or liberation, which I will mention in the next post. Also, I know that for some who have a sense of constriction as an issue, freedom is a motivator for healing and awakening, and there is nothing wrong with that.
WHAT IS LIBERATED?
DARK NIGHTS IN AN AWAKENING PROCESS
I thought I would write a few words again about dark nights in an awakening process.
First, what is a dark night in the context of awakening?
I am not sure if there is a simple definition. These dark nights seem to come in many different forms and types, at different times in the process, and there are always individual differences. In general, they are difficult and challenging phases of the process.
It can be a period of “dryness” or apparent loss of contact with the divine. A sense of losing anchor points. Fear of going insane. Huge amounts of energies running through the system. Unprocessed material surfacing to join in with the awakening. And so on.
Why can these appear as a “dark night”? I suspect because our conventional mind sees it as undesirable for whatever reason and tends to fight with it. We can fear losing our mind, losing progress or regressing, meeting parts of us we have spent a lifetime avoiding, not knowing how to progress, and so on.
THE CONNECTIONS: INQUIRY AND DEEP ECOLOGY
To me, the things I write about here – healing, awakening, inquiry, psychology, sustainability, politics, spirituality, energy healing etc. – are all expressions of the same whole. That means that if we want to break things down, there are innumerable connections between each of these topics.
For instance, what are some of the connections between deep ecology and inquiry? And deep ecology and awakening, or healing?
[in progress]
EMPATHY WITH STUPID
A study found that less intelligent people judge others based on categories (ethnicity, religion, etc.) and more intelligent people judge people based on “you should know better”.
I find myself often judging other telling myself “they are stupid, they should know better”. So how can I find what I see in them in myself? And how can I find more understanding and empathy with all of us for our stupidity?
Obviously, to many others, I am pretty stupid. I am not as insightful as some, even in the areas I am most interested in. I lack experience in many areas of life compared to many. There is much further to go in terms of healing, maturing, awakening, embodiment, and anything else in life, and there are many ahead of me. Others have innumerable reasons to judge me, just as I think I have reasons for judging others. In this way, I am just like anyone else.
When I think I know something others don’t and judge them for it, what’s really going on? It of course depends on the situation and topic, but in general: I don’t know for certain. And there may be many reasons they don’t know what I think they “should” know. They live their lives as best they can, with the background they have and the circumstances they find themselves in. In this way too, I am just like them.
I have done many things in life I see as stupid. When I look at these, I see that I did the best I could in the situation with the information I had and the limits I had because of my own hangups and emotional issues. We are all in the same boat here.
…..
OWN PATH
For ten+ years following the initial awakening, I was in a kind of honeymoon phase where things fell into place and bliss, gratitude, awe, and devotion was easily in the foreground.
Then, there was a phase where the awakening went more in the background and I was more focused on the world and my activities in it.
FROM OBSERVER TO ONENESS
[in progress]
GRIEF IS AN EXPRESSION OF LOVE
Grief is an expression of love in several different ways.
On a surface level, grief comes from losing something we love. We lose a person, an animal, a dream or something else we love, and then grieve. (Of course, this is conventional love which is often mixed in with attachments, beliefs, and a sense of lack in ourselves.)
SENSATIONS AND IDENTIFICATIONS
EXPLORING OUR FEAR OF MEETING DISCOMFORT
THE IMPORTANCE OF ENERGIZING THE SYSTEM
–––– IDEAS ––––
I usually don’t get too personal here, but I’ll mention a few things that I notice with my own internalized “inter-parental” dynamic.
…..
THE DOWNSIDE OF THE IDEAS OF SOUL MATES, TWIN FLAMES ETC.
[may look for, compare with idea, get trapped, etc., may be millions of potential ones, may be different ones for different periods of life – instead, why not enjoy what is, look at what works and doesn’t work etc. – more pragmatic]
THE ANATOMY OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
ALLOWING – FOR SELF, AND THEN OTHERS
INSIGHT IS DIFFERENT FROM HEALING
I have on occasion spoken with spiritual teachers and psychologists who seem to have a very superficial understanding of what they are talking about.
One thing I have noticed is that some seem to assume that if we understand a dynamic in ourselves at an abstract level, that means it’s resolved.
That’s obviously not the case. We can have some insights into a dynamic in ourselves, and it can still be there.
––––– DRAFTS –––––
Our western culture values youth over older age, perhaps because of our quick technological change and development which favors young people’s ability to pick up the new technology quickly. (Cultures with a more stable technology tend to favor old age and their accumulated wisdom and experience.)
In our culture, we sometimes talk about staying young even in old age, perhaps because we value youth.
We obviously don’t need to stay young. But staying healthy in old age is a good thing and we can do quite a few things to stay healthy.
……
In our culture, we are used to thinking light=good and dark=bad. I assume this has something to do with Christianity. There are plenty of light=good and dark=bad/evil images and metaphors there.
But is it true? What do I find when I look at the different things that’s described as light or dark?
….
I assume this has something to do with Christianity. There are plenty of light=good and dark=bad/evil images and metaphors there.
But there may also be a more general explanation. Favoring light over dark – and the metaphors that come out of this – is understandable for daylight animals like humans. We evolved with eyes and to function best in daylight. It doesn’t make
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A crucial universal one is to go slightly beyond what we are familiar with. To go beyond our comfort zone and what we already know. When we do that, our shortcomings tend to be obvious and we may fail at first. And as we practice and get more familiar with it, we learn how to do it.
When we go outside our comfort zone, we become beginners again. And it’s essential to allow ourselves to be just that – a beginner. To fail. To blunder. To not know how to do it. To appear to regress. And learn something new.
There are also important elements to this: Receptivity. Curiosity. Knowing we don’t know it yet. Knowing we can learn. Having good pointers and coaches. Having a safe community to explore and learn in.
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When we find ourselves as capacity for our world, it’s liberating and a whole new way to perceive and live this life. So why not remind ourselves it’s that way for others as well? Why not remind ourselves they are capacity for their world? Why not see how this shifts how I see them and how I relate to and interact with them?