If we exclusively focus on healing our own emotional issues, it’s an endless process. There is always more.
That’s why I like to give equal, and sometimes more, attention to how I relate to my issues and the sensations, thoughts, or whatever is here.
How I relate to what’s here is, in a sense, one. And what I relate to is innumerable. So it makes sense to focus more on the former without ignoring the latter.
What type of shift am I referring to?
For me, the shift is from seeing what’s here as a problem or an enemy to befriending it. And befriending it has many sides, including the ones I mention below.
How can we invite in this shift?
I have found heart-centered practices very helpful. For instance, doing tonglen for whatever I subtly or not-so-subtly see as a problem – whether it’s a person, situation, myself, a part of me, or an experience. I can also use ho’oponopono or metta here.
It also helps to identify beliefs behind any slight enemy-image and explore these, for instance through The Work or Living Inquiries.
I can dialog with what’s coming up. Ask it questions. Listen to what it has to say to me. Get to know it. Perhaps understand it a little better. Find a new partnership with it. If it’s an emotional issue, I can see how it’s here to protect me and it’s coming from (slightly misguided) love and is an expression of love.
I can identify any emotional issues in me behind and fueling enemy-images, and explore and invite in healing for these issues. For instance, through inquiry, heart-centered practices, dialog, energy healing, or more.
I can find myself as capacity for the world as it appears to me, and whatever I see as a (subtle) problem, and see it’s all happening within and as what I am. It’s not inherently “other” and cannot be.
A version of this is that what’s here is a flavor of the divine. It’s the divine having this experience for itself.
INITIAL DRAFT….
Working on our own issues, and helping subpersonalities to heal and align with awakening, has two sides.
One is how we relate to what’s here – whatever is surfacing and whatever we are experiencing. And the other is inviting in healing for a part of ourselves or an issue.
Healing our issues is an endless process. There is always one more, and one more.
How we relate to what comes up is, in a sense, simpler. It’s always here. And if how we relate shifts, it helps us in how we relate to whatever is here.
It’s important to include both. If we do, it means that how we relate to what’s here receives a lot of attention, and that’s very helpful.
We may learn to befriend what’s here. We can learn to have a dialog with it and listen to what it has to tell us. We can recognize it as part of who we are, as a human being. We can recognize it as universal. We can recognize it as part of what we are – capacity for this and all experiences. We can recognize it as a flavor of the divine. We can see that this, what’s here now, is the divine having this experience for itself.