Tag: brief notes

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 made into a regular article in time.

CONSCIOUSNESS AS A MOVIE SCREEN?

Some people like to use the movie screen analogy for consciousness.

Just like a movie is projected onto a screen without affecting the screen, our consciousness experiences all sorts of things without being affected.

That’s true enough, and the analogy may be useful to highlight just that.

But, in general, I prefer not to use the analogy. It can mislead more than enlighten.

For instance, a screen is physical and consciousness is not. And the light hitting the screen comes from somewhere else while consciousness forms itself into its own experience.

I prefer to use dreams since it’s an example and not an analogy.

To ourselves, we are consciousness, and to us, the world happens within and as the consciousness we are. That happens in dreams and it happens in waking life. Waking life is, in that way, no different from a dream. The difference is that it tends to be a bit more consistent than dreams. There is more continuity there.

WILL AWAKENING TAKE CARE OF TRAUMAS?

Does awakening take care of traumas?

Not necessarily, and perhaps not even typically.

I suspect most still need to actively work on emotional issues and traumas, even within our nature recognizing itself.

At least, that’s how it has been for me. My nature recognizing itself does not give me a free pass.

COMPLETELY HEALED?

I sometimes talk with people early in an awakening or healing process who says: “it’s completely healed”, “it’s gone”, “this technique healed it completely”. (When I say “early”, it may be within the first five or ten or fifteen years of the process depending on a lot of things.)

To me, that seems like wishful thinking. It brings to mind I Ching’s Youthful Folly hexagram.

How can you know? Yes, a certain issue may not seem to be up right now, but how do you know it’s healed? How do you know it won’t come up again later? How do you know there are not more layers? How do you know it’s not connected to a much larger network of similar and supporting issues?

My sense is that with maturity, we learn to hold all of this with a grain of sand. We see it more as questions than statements. We know that the mind sometimes wants things to be over and goes into wishful thinking. (Which can be comforting on the surface and for a while, and also makes the contrast stronger when life goes in another direction. It may also go against our deeper knowing.) We know that life has a way of surprising us.

And we may also see that this is what’s happening during a certain phase of the process. It’s innocent and natural. It’s not wrong. It’s part of the process.

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 made into a regular article in time.

THE DARK NIGHT & LOSING WHAT I FOUND SAFETY IN

For the last fifteen years or so, I have been in a dark night.

It started even further back, when I got married the first time. (Late 1990s.) Then, it got much more dramatic with the return of severe CFS. (Mid/late 2000s.) And it went even deeper when I asked the divine to “show me what’s left” which brought up immense survival fear within a week or so. (Early 2010s.)

It seems a pretty classic dark night, judging from what I have heard from others, and especially what’s described in the “Dark night of the soul” chapter in Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism.

During this time, I have repeatedly lost what I earlier found safety in. I lost my health. (Severe CFS.) I lost my marriage. I lost my house and car. I lost just about all my belongings. (Including a library of 2000-3000 books about spirituality from all traditions and outside of traditions.) I lost the possibility to stay in my adopted country. (The US.) I lost my excellent memory. I lost my ability to think clearly. I lost friends. I lost my reputation. And so on.

Through all those losses, I have been invited to shift my center of gravity more fully and thoroughly into my nature. And out of holding onto identities for safety, since these come and go.

I have no idea where in that process my system is. I have no idea where in the dark night process my system is. (My guess is 80% through since it feels lighter now, but who knows.) I have no idea how far and thoroughly into my nature my center of gravity is. I have no idea how much is left.

And that’s completely OK. I prefer it that way. It’s aligned with reality since I don’t know any of this for certain. I can only guess, and guesses are just that, guesses. (And inherently painful if I try to pretend for myself they are more certain than they are.)

IS SOME KIND OF DARK NIGHT NECESSARY IN AN AWAKENING PROCESS?

I don’t know, but here is my guess right now:

No, it’s not necessary.

But the process it comes out of, and what it leads to, is necessary.

It’s necessary for everything in our mind-body that’s out of alignment with awakening – a conscious noticing and living from our nature – to align with this. It’s necessary for every part of our psyche to shift out of separation consciousness and into being aligned with our nature as oneness.

It’s necessary for every bit of thought and identity that our mind holds as true, in order to protect us, to wear off, for the charge in them to dissipate, for the mind to see through it and find what’s already more true for us.

And that may require one or more dark nights and one or more kinds of dark nights.

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 made into a regular article in time.

IS AWAKENING “PERMANENT”?

Some talk as if awakening is somehow “permanent”.

I understand why.

When the noticing is here and stable, it seems obvious and unmissable. It seems it will never go away.

Time happens within and as what we are, so how could this go away?

Also, some may go into the thought that it’s permanent to find comfort. They want it to stay, so they tell themselves it will.

And yet, is it true?

Permanence is the story of a future.

I cannot know.

So for me, it’s more peaceful to hold it lightly and keep it open.

Also, I know that there is often an awakening shift, then it goes away (which can be experienced as one kind of dark night), and then it’s refound in a different and more thorough way.

[Made into a regular article]

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 made into a regular article in time.

ENJOYING DAILY LIFE EXPERIENCES

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.

– Friedrich Nietzshce

We don’t need to wait for bad memory. We can notice what’s actually happening.

The past and future only exist as images and other stories in our minds, often with some associations with sensations (emotions). Even the present only exists as sensory impressions and overlays of images and stories.

The more we perceive this, the more it becomes obvious that enjoying what’s here is the only thing that makes sense. It’s all we have, so why not find enjoyment in it.

“I AM NOT AFRAID TO DIE”

I heard someone say: “I am not afraid to die”.

My first thought is: How can you know?

You may not notice any fear now, likely because you don’t have the thought that your death is imminent. And how can you know there isn’t fear in you? How can you know that some situations won’t trigger fearful thoughts about dying, and with it fear?

It’s good to be humble about these things. What I am aware of in myself is only the very tip of the iceberg. Many parts of me perceive things very differently from my conscious view, the view I desire and identify with. And certain situations almost certainly can activate fear of dying.

This is the case for me as well. I don’t notice any fear of dying in me right now. And I know that parts of me likely have that fear and can be triggered by certain thoughts, which in turn can be triggered by certain situations.

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 made into a regular article in time.

AWAKENING DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH SPIRITUALITY OR RELIGION

There is some truth to that statement, although it’s not the whole picture.

Yes, awakening doesn’t require spirituality or religion.

It’s about finding what we already are in our own first-person experience.

When I explore what I am in my experience, I find I am ultimately capacity for the world as it appears to me. I am what my world, all my experiences, happen within and as. And there isn’t any “I” there even if I often use that word to make it sound a bit more conventional and approachable.

Even if there was no spirituality or religion, it would be this way and people would happen upon this discovery.

Life would still notice this aspect of itself through humans and perhaps other beings in the universe.

And awakening is also obviously connected with spirituality and religion.

Many aspects of spirituality and religion reflect this discovery, at least to some extent.

Some forms of spirituality and religion guide us to mimic living from this noticing.

And some elements within spirituality and religions are aimed at guiding us to notice it for ourselves.

IS GOD HE, SHE, IT, NEITHER?

In our patriarchal culture, people have traditionally used “he” when referring to God.

Why? Likely because it makes more sense in a patriarchal culture, and whether it’s intentional or not, it has also likely justified patriarchy.

No matter the reason, it does tend to limit our understanding of God.

Why not use a more rich and fluid way to talk about God?

Why not sometimes call God she and highlight the more feminine characteristics of God and existence?

Why not sometimes call God it and highlight our (imagined) third-person relationship with the divine?

Why not sometimes call God mystery and highlight the mystery inherent in the divine and existence?

Why not switch between all of these and more, and highlight the multifaceted and fluid nature of God, existence, and ourselves?

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.

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.

ADYASHANTI, BYRON KATIE, DOUGLAS HARDING

For many years following the initial awakening, I couldn’t find anyone who seemed to express or understand what was alive for me.

I found some who were in the same general area – Meister Eckhart, some Buddhist teachers – but what they expressed didn’t always seem completely clear, and it was often clothed in culture and tradition so the clarity became a bit obscured.

It wasn’t until I first discovered Adyashanti (around 2002) and then Byron Katie and Douglas Harding (Headless Way), that I found someone who expressed the same – or very similar – insights as what had been revealed to me 15-20 years earlier.

For the first time, I heard someone say exactly – sometimes using almost the same words – as what I had written in my journals and occasionally mentioned to someone else if I thought they perhaps would resonate with it.

Some years before that, I was part of the group that first experienced the Big Mind Process (Genpo Roshi, Kanzeon Zen Center), and that too reflected what had been revealed.

Yes, all is one. Yes, the insights are there for anyone to discover. And yet, it does mean something at a personal level to find someone – even if it’s “just” a teacher that you may not even meet in person – who expressed and speaks and acts from the awakening that’s here too.

At the same time, I value immensely the many years of relative loneliness in this. It did help me explore it for myself and learn to rely on myself.

There are no mistakes. There is a value in being “alone” in it for a while, and there is value in being in a community.

I don’t pretend the same clarity or maturity or embodiment is here as is in Adyashanti or Byron Katie or was in Douglas Harding. I don’t know. And it doesn’t really matter. I just know some of what there is to continue to explore here, and that there is always further to go.

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.

THE WORLD AND WHAT & WHO WE ARE

Everything we see in the world happens within us.

The world – as it appears to us – happens within and as what we are. We can notice and explore this through, for instance, Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.

The stories we have about it – labels, meaning etc. – happens within our own mental field. We can explore this by noticing what happens within our sense fields and how the mind combines them to create its experience, and we can do this in a more systematic way through, for instance, Living Inquiries.

The stories we have about the world and others equally well apply to ourselves – in the moment and we can find many other specific examples. At a very human level, the world mirror ourselves.

Why is this important? It’s not inherently important but it does seem to be how our world works, and it can be helpful to notice and explore this.

Finding what we are helps release identification with the content of experience – identifications, roles, and thoughts in general – and this can be a great liberation.

Noticing how our mind puts a mental field overlay on our world helps us recognize thoughts for what they are – guesses and questions about the world – and hold them more lightly.

And noticing the world as a mirror for ourselves helps us notice projections and find in ourselves what we see in the world and in others, and this helps us live from a bit more clarity and kindness and less from reactivity.

ONE TASTE

Some folks in the nondual/adveita world talks about “one taste”.

What does it mean?

I assume it mainly means noticing that all happens within and as what we are. Whatever the experience is – and they are all unique and different, they all happen within and as what we are. In their infinite variety, they share one taste.

How we notice this reflects the awakening process in general. We may have a glimpse. We may notice when we pay attention. We may notice most things in this way but “forget” when some issues are triggered in us, and then notice again when things calm down and we remember.

As the noticing becomes more stable, and as there is a deeper embodiment – AKA we relate to our issues differently and work through more of them – this one taste becomes more and more the water we swim in.

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.

BLAME VS DEEPER UNDERSTANDING

If we believe the thoughts passed on to us from our culture, we may go into blame – of others, life, ourselves.

And if we have a deeper understanding, we know that blame is a sidetrack and we may even have compassion with ourselves and others.

So what is this deeper understanding?

It has several facets, and here are a few.

A major one comes from knowing from ourselves what we see in others. I have done that too. I have reacted to my own stress and pain in ways that’s been unwise and painful to others. I have acted on my fears in ways I wish I hadn’t. We are in the same boat.

We are responsible for our own actions, and yet each of our choices and actions have innumerable causes. It comes from our culture, family, ancestors, biology, and much more. Our actions are, in a very real sense, the local actions of the whole of existence. When I see my own and others actions, I can have compassion knowing they have innumerable causes outside of the person. And, for my own health and sanity, I still need to take responsibility for my own actions.

If I feel a need to blame someone, I am – most likely – reacting to my own pain. I am trying to reduce my own stress, pain, or fear by blaming someone else. It doesn’t really work.

Any assumptions I have about the other are just that, assumptions. Through inquiry, I may find that I don’t know, the reasons may be far more innocent, and that I am just like what I see in the other.

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.

ULTIMATELY ALONE, AND NOT

One of the discoveries of life is that we are ultimately alone, and not.

We are alone in that we need to do some things on our own – learning, exams, work, making decisions, and so on. Although we can find support from others and be in a community, we are ultimately alone in all of this.

We are also ultimately alone in experiencing our own experiences and relating to our emotions and thoughts. Nobody can do this for us, and nobody can fully understand how it is for us.

We are our own final authority, even if we may try to tell ourselves otherwise.

There is a loneliness in all of this.

And there is also a kind of loneliness in oneness. (Although I feel some make too much out of this one.)

At the same time, we are not alone. We have (hopefully) friends and family. We can find support from others. We can receive guidance.

We are part of humanity, the Earth community, and the universe. We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and emotions of the universe.

Within oneness, there is an immense richness. Although there is a certain loneliness in oneness, we are certainly not alone within oneness.

There is an immense richness within us, in a conventional sense (psychological) and as oneness.

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 on the rant side. And some may be made into a regular article in time.

SPOCK: WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE NO LONGER EXISTS

What happened before no longer exists. What will happen next has not yet been written. We have only now. That is our greatest advantage. What we do now, here, in this moment has the power to determine the future.

– Spock in Star Trek: Discovery, S2:E11 Perpetual Infinity

This is undeniably true, even from a mainstream view. And, to the extent we take it in and allow it to inform our life, it’s profoundly liberating.

This is an example of how we know what’s real. Most of us know that the past and future doesn’t exist and that our ideas about it are our ideas. And yet, we often perceive and live as if the past and future exist. We mistake our ideas about the past and future as an actual past or future.

Not only does the past and future not exist outside of our ideas about it, these ideas are often biased and inaccurate. Taking this in and allowing it to inform us is one of the most healing things we can do. It can help us heal our past. It can help us be more flexible in how we approach the future. And it can help us see that our ideas about the present are also our ideas and not the present itself.

It’s also very good to see this in mainstream TV series and movies. It can serve as a reminder, plant a seed, or ignite curiosity about how our mind creates its own experience of the past, future, and even present.

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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 on the rant side. And some may be made into a regular article in time.

THREE JEWELS

When we are uncomfortable or anything unpleasant happens, we look to take refuge in something. Usually, we turn to food, alcohol, sex, drugs, money, power, or relationships. But none of these things give us the lasting protection or satisfaction you’re looking for.

When you understand you can’t find lasting happiness in Samsara, then the desire to find true refuge becomes strong. In Buddhism, we take refuge in the three jewels—the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

The Buddha is like the doctor who understands your disease and knows how to treat it; the Dharma, his teachings, is the medicine he prescribes; and the Sangha is the spiritual community that helps you to take the medicine. To take refuge is to finally seek protection from suffering in a way that can really help you. When we think about the ultimate nature of reality and what causes us to suffer— this is the true meaning of refuge.

–  Keanu Reeves in Discovering Buddhism module 7, refuge in the three jewels, 2004

This is beautifully and clearly said, and it applies to awakening in general – not just Buddhism.

In a broader and more universal sense, the Buddha is any skilled and insightful coach who knows the terrain of who (human self) and what (Big Mind) we are. The Buddha is also what we are, Big Mind. The Dharma is any pointer that helps us navigate this terrain for ourselves and discover what we are. And the Sangha is any fellow explorers in this adventure.

Buddhism is one system aimed at helping us discover what we are and explore the terrain of who and what we are and how to live from and as it. There are many other systems. And there are many paths outside of any system. This noticing is not dependent on any system.

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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 on the rant side. And some may be made into a regular article in time.

COMPLETE HEAVEN

I am at our family cabin by a lake in the forest east of Oslo. It’s sunny, warm, a light breeze, and I can shift between warming myself in the sun, sitting in the shade, laying down in a cool and dark room, and going for a swim in the lake (24 degrees celcius). It’s complete heaven for this physical being to be able to shift so easily between all these situations. I can very easily be comfortable.

And then there is the nature, the birds, insects, flowers, trees. The beautiful sky. The amazing evening and morning sky. The light at night. Feeling a deep sense of belonging to this Earth community with all the other beings and the rocks and lake and sky and sun. It feels deeply nurturing and healing.

I know it’s an amazing privilege. On the one hand, it’s the type of environment we are made for and our ancestors sought out and lived their lives in. On the other hand, and especially today, it’s not at all a given to have this opportunity. I know I am privileged. I know how much I have to be grateful for, even in a very conventional sense. (And in spite of challenges and a challenging life situations due to health problems.)

Click READ MORE to see more of these brief notes.

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 on the rant side. And some may be made into a regular article in time.

THE EGO TOO IS THE DIVINE

The ego is a name for what comes from holding a thought as true. It’s the perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and actions that come when a thought is held as true.

Some talk about the “ego” as opposed to the divine. Some see it as something standing in way of finding or meeting the divine or awakening. Some even use a war metaphor for talking about the “ego”: it needs to be conquered and so on.

I understand where it comes from. Taking thoughts as true is what brings identification with particular content of experience and makes it difficult for us to notice what we are. It makes it more difficult to find ourselves as capacity for this human self and the wider world and all our experience.

At the same time, seeing it as a problem or even something that needs to be changed is part of that dynamic. It sets up the perception of a duality that’s not so helpful. These are ideas that come from separation consciousness and although they may be useful at a certain phase of the process, they also tend to reinforce separation consciousness.

We can say that they are half-true so they are half-useful. At most, they are useful as a stepping stone early on in the process. (And not really necessary even then.)

So what’s a more helpful way of looking at it?

Why not look at it more from within a oneness context? Or the context of all as the divine and the play of the divine? Or just in a more finely-grained way?

First, it’s helpful to drop the idea of “ego”. It’s much more dynamic and less of a thing than that.

Then, why not meet the parts of us that operate from separation consciousness? Why not get to know them? Explore? Listen to what they have to say? Thank them for protecting us? Find a genuine love for them?

Finally, through different forms of noticing and explorations, we may discover more about these dynamics that happen when the mind holds a thought as true. We may discover they come from innocence. They come from a wish to protect our human self. They and understandable and natural. They are universal. They happen within and as what we are. 

At a human level, they come from love. They are a way for our mind to protect our human self. And as what we are, they are what we are. They are love. 

They are not an obstacle. They are not a problem. Yes, they create suffering. And yet, it’s innocent. From the context of what we are, it looks different. There is a natural forgiveness. A natural relaxation. 

A natural welcoming of whatever parts of us still live in suffering and operate from within separation consciousness. A natural welcoming of them as always having been what we are – as human beings and capacity for the world. 

Click READ MORE to see more of these brief notes.

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 on the rant side. And some may be made into a regular article in time.

AN EXERCISE TO DEAL WITH REGRETS AND NOSTALGIA

Sometimes, we get a bit stuck in longing for the past or what could have been. There is one simple exercise that can be helpful in these situations.

Make a list of all the genuine not-so-good things about the situation or what could have been.

For instance, say a relationship ended and we long for what was. It’s easy for the mind to paint a rosy picture of what was to support this longing – and torture itself more effectively. Was it really so rosy? Make a list of genuine examples of what you didn’t like. What were the things that were not so easy? What did you wish was different? What was the reverse side of the rosy image?

Do it honestly and sincerely. Take time with it. Take it in. Be gently brutally honest with yourself.

We can’t trick our own mind so find genuine examples. You can also ask someone else to help you find things you missed.

Click READ MORE to see more of these brief notes.

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 on the rant side. And some may be made into a regular article in time.

POWER-OVER VS POWER-WITH IN HEALING AND AWAKENING

A power-over orientation is one of domination, use, discarding, and valuing oneself over whatever it may be – nature, women, children, other ethnic groups, or our body.

It seems that pre-agricultural societies had a more power-with orientation. They lived with nature and in a more egalitarian way. The power-over orientation may have come to prominence with agriculture, accumulation, and a more hierarchical society.

This means it’s a part of most cultures around the world today, although it’s perhaps most obvious in the European culture. It influences most or all areas of society. It’s something we absorb just by being part of this culture. We perceive through it and sometimes act on it. And since it’s so old and all-pervasive, it’s often invisible to us.

All of this means it’s an important factor in our own healing and awakening process. It’s important to be aware of it. Notice how it influences us. And see through the beliefs behind it and the beliefs upholding it.

The most obvious may be how we relate to ourselves.

Do we try to push and manipulate ourselves in a certain way? Do we try to manipulate the experience we have here and now? Do we try to avoid it, make it go away, “transform” it, pretend it’s not here? All of that may reflect beliefs that what’s here is not OK, that our experience is wrong or bad, that it’s dangerous, that “we” – as our global whole – know better, and ultimately a power-over orientation.

So how does a power-with orientation with ourselves look?

To me, it has to do with a gentle curiosity and befriending parts of me. Meet them. Allow them as they are. Be present with them. Listen to them. Dialog with them. Get to know them. Listen to what they need. Give them space to heal if they want to.

If they suffer, recognize the suffering. If they are caught up in stressful beliefs, perhaps these beliefs were formed as a way to protect us? Perhaps it’s innocent? Perhaps it comes from love?

Do these parts of us as happen within and as who we are as a human being? Do they happen within and as what we are as capacity for the world as it appears to us?

Power-with means a real partnership with ourselves and the different parts of us. They are all already included so why not consciously include them?

They wish to be met, heard, and understood so why not met, listen to, and find understanding for them? They are already allowed so why not consciously allow them? They come from love so why not explore if and how they come from love?

This orientation is a way into allowing and supporting a vibrant inner community. One that includes more and more parts. One where each one has a voice. One where each one can be met with presence and love.

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