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I was mentoring with someone on Skype the other day. She has been out of work for nearly a year, and although there were interviews for jobs, no offer had manifested. And now, with Corona Virus, she was feeling intense fear and panic and a sense of scarcity. She is a sensitive soul and I could see that in addition to the emotions coming from her personal story she was picking up fear from the Collective (the overarching field of consciousness held by humanity), amplifying the intensity of her emotions.
Due to loss of income from the stay at home orders from the virus, survival issues are up for many. Even simply being told to “shelter in place” can be an emotional trigger. This uncleared shadow has its origins in our childhood, and even from ancestral memory stored in the cells of our body. Our issues of survival are bound up in the first or root chakra at the base of the spine. When it is closed down we feel fearful; we fear for our survival. We fear death, and our fear blocks our ability to perceive the divine support that is always available to us.
Emotions are vibrational frequencies, and whether they are our own or we are picking them up from others, they can be witnessed, felt and released. Opening up a closed root chakra… ah, we feel grounded again. Connected to the earth and to our core light our fear subsides and we are able to manifest what we need.
Simply approaching your fear with the intention of releasing it begins to release its grip. The witnessing presence that I wrote about in my previous blog post is your ally here. In a quiet moment, begin this process by journaling about your situation and invite your emotional body to participate. In other words, allow any emotions that are coming up to be there. Witness them without judgment. Feel them and allow them their full expression, whether anger or fear, or some, as yet, unnamed feeling. Know that are not who you are; they do not define you. Allow them to pass through the clear light of the witnessing presence that you truly are!
Over the years I’ve helped lots of people process and clear their personal shadow using specific clearing techniques, including Releasing Frozen Children. If you’d like some help with this, I’m here for you. Please click the Mentoring/Guidance link at the top of this blog for more details.
So here we are, the entire world brought to a standstill by this microscopic, but super efficient, contagion. Is this just an accident… simply our bad luck? We live in an intelligent universe, and its impetus is to evolve. For humanity this means growth towards higher consciousness, from the separateness of the individual ego to the unity of the one heart. Rather than seeing the Corona Virus as an adversary to overcome, I believe it has arrived as a wake-up call with a karmic message for humanity:
You are out of balance with nature and the earth, and you are out of balance with each other. Stop. Go inside. Be at peace with the unknown. Out of the chaos and dissolution will come a rebirth. Allow the heart to lead the way and all will be well.
As soon as we are able to grok this message, even a little, this virus will cease to be a problem. This is my prayer for the world.
We come into this world with a psyche that is split into separation from our true divine nature, and the blueprint for ego becomes instituted. The story of Adam and Eve describes this spilt as our fall from grace. But it never really happened! It’s all maya – illusion – and becomes our inner journey toward awakening to the truth of who we are. Beyond ego and the lower mind lies our true spiritual nature as limitless and timeless beings. But because the ego is defined by the electro-magnetic charges of negative and positive, duality, and specifically loss and gain, are born in the mental and emotional bodies. So loss and gain are programmed into our consciousness from the get go becoming an unconscious lens through which we view the world.
In fact, if I could distill into a single egoic construct all of the processes that people come to me wanting to clear, it would be loss and gain. This is true because the relative mind will interpret any negativity in one’s life as a loss, whether it’s a material “loss” of some kind, some heavy state in the emotional body, or simply a loss of happiness. Sure, losses and gains are part of life – they seem very real in this world. But this is only the mind’s superficial reading of what’s going on; it is the dual mind’s interpretation of the natural ebb and flow of life. In truth, our natural state of wholeness and oneness is complete in itself: paraphrasing my teacher, nothing can ever be added to or taken away from that which we are!
What if we could stand “outside” of the natural rhythms of life and just watch? Rather than getting pulled into and identifying with a story around loss and gain, we watch and witness the movement of energy in our emotional body. This neutral witness is grounded in being. It’s identity is as spiritual presence. When we know ourselves to be that still presence – unchanging and eternal – then the ups and downs of life occur, but they don’t shake the ground of being that we are. Our deepest knowing from the place is that the invisible realms always support us and that the Universe is the source of unlimited supply! Loss and gain are real for you only when you believe them to be true. Granted this is a paradigm shift in the way we see the world, and so it becomes a process of undoing and reprogramming the limited mind.
The witness, or neutral observer is our ally here. By pro-actively witnessing or catching the contracting energy in the mind or emotional body, and then consciously choosing not to buy into it we create an little expansion and an ascension. We are detaching from ego and opening to what is true beyond it, which is our divine nature waiting to be unveiled! It is also helpful at this point to remind our lower selves of our unlimited spiritual nature with an affirmation, such as I am Spirit, I am divine and I am always supported.
So, practically, this is how it might play out in your life: You seem to incur a material loss of some kind – the IRS notifies you that you are in errs and wants you to pay more taxes, perhaps. You can consciously choose from your neutral witnessing presence not to take it as a loss. Rather, you can choose to step out of an egoic response and see it as a temporary ebb in the flow, reminding yourself that the Universe has your back, always. You have faith because you know that the tide will turn eventually, and, especially, if you are able to remain open and centered and not contract emotionally, it will happen sooner rather than later!
Negative emotions will also feel like a loss to the ego.The entire structure of our emotional body is based on negative and positive, loss and gain. So even the slightest drop of our awareness into negativity, say self-doubt, perhaps, will register as a loss. Unless we are able to witness it! If we can catch self-doubt as it slips into our awareness and detach from the story we are telling ourselves about it, we won’t make it real and unconsciously feed energy in to it. We can, instead, align with our center and allow all feelings, however negative (or positive), to pass through the still Presence that we are – never diminished or increased, but always full, complete and content in itself!
In this full day workshop we will learn three powerful, but easy-to-do techniques for clearing the spin of the emotions developed by Leslie Temple-Thurston and introduced in her book The Marriage of Spirit. Based in the ancient teachings of the reconciliation of opposites, the Polarities, Squares, and Triangles techniques help us to clear our confusing mental and emotional states, gently moving us into a place of balance, trust and equanimity.
Sunday, February 2, 2014 10am – 4:30pm
quiet Sutro Heights, San Francisco location
This workshop is offered in the spirit of service by donation. Suggested donation: $75.
Please email Gary at garysnote@bluebottle.com, for questions and to register. Space is limited to eight participants. Please bring a lunch and notebook and pencil
“If you want to shift your life, shift your consciousness”. Leslie Temple -Thurston
Paul, a student (not his real name), asked “why is it I get in so many car accidents?” After a bit of self-inquiry he was able to name how he has a habit of identifying himself as a victim as he goes through life. We could say he holds the energy of victimhood in his consciousness, and that this energy lives as an energetic field or aura that inhabits and surrounds his physical body. Through the spiritual law of attraction this field acts like a magnet drawing to him people and situations (car accidents!) that victimize him.
I explained that if he were to clear his aura of this victimization energy his life would smooth out greatly. As we dug a little deeper he also noticed that, although he spends most of his time being a victim in life, he can also act out its opposite sometimes. He saw how, when push comes to shove, he can also be a dominator or a perpetrator (the energy of the Tyrant)!
Duality is the operating system that runs consciousness for most of us in the world right now. It is a consciousness divided, and it plays out in our minds and emotions and, in extreme cases, in our physical world as dance of opposites, or polarity. Although Paul identifies primarily with the victim, he was beginning to see how he flip-flops from being a victim to being a tyrant, depending on the situation on any given day. Victim and tyrant, in fact, all polarities, are inextricably bound to one another!
Spiritual law says that any polarized state of mind will in time turn into its opposite; we cannot have one without the other… When Paul is in victim mode this energy dominates his reality, and that’s all he can see. He feels small, inconsequential, needy and deprived. But his tyrant didn’t go anywhere! This character is just not conscious to him, and what is not in the conscious mind lives in the unconscious. Similarly, when Paul is acting out his tyrant energy, his victimhood lies unseen in his unconscious, nevertheless always present and eager to resume its starring role in his life’s movie!
The underlying energy that upholds and sustains the tyrant/victim construct in our minds is the energy of power vs. powerlessness, and like all polarities held in the mind, it is inherently unstable. So, as good as it feels to Paul’s ego to feel powerful, in control, and able to assert its will, it won’t last. Inevitably, tyrants become victims! On the world stage, they’re all too familiar: Look no further than Hitler or, more recently, Saddam Hussein; then there is Mubarak in Egypt, a tyrant to his people for thirty years. Now he sits in a jail with a sentence of life imprisonment; and we all know the fate of Osama bin Laden!
Because Paul is committed to growing his consciousness and living his life from a place of balance, equanimity and inner peace, he must be willing to give up both his inner tyrant and his inner victim. Through a process of self-inquiry Paul’s work is to begin to name and own all of the ways he plays the tyrant and the victim, and to free himself of the exhausting and perpetual dance between them. He needs to make what is unconscious to him conscious, and then be willing to hang up his dancing shoes! He must make a bid for true power by surrendering both aspects of ego. Here is where grace will take over if he asks. In fact, it is the essential piece that will create an integration.
Paul’s consciousness with this polarity is boxed in by the seen and unseen attractions and repulsions he holds around it. I asked Paul to create four lists: 1. Why I desire to be a victim 2. Why I fear becoming a victim 3. Why I desire to be tyrant 4. Why I fear becoming a tyrant. What Paul will discover is that he spends some indefinite amount of time with the consciousness of each of his four lists before he inevitably flips to the state of mind of the next list, and the next, and so on in a never-ending loop of desires and fears.
His flip-flopping consciousness between victim and tyrant is keeping him in a spin of opposites, manifesting adversity in his life and from the peace of mind that he seeks. By feeling deeply into and naming all of his desires and fears around being a victim and being a tyrant, and then surrendering them all back to Source, he will move into greater balance and equanimity with this polarity. And if he continues to scrupulously examine and release even the most subtle ways that he engages these self-defeating personas, he can be free of them. No more victims or tyrants need ruin his day!
How about you? Are you ready to give up the struggle between your victim and your tyrant? Your inner peace and true power await you there beyond all polarity…
I’ll meet you there!
Please join me this weekend, Saturday August 25, and Sunday August 26, for a two part workshop on the Marriage of Spirit processing techniques. I will be co-teaching with my friend Charu Rachlis, sharing with you two simple, yet powerful, processing techniques called Polarities and Squares, which quickly and effectively help us to clear and balance heavy mental and emotional states. Based on the ancient mystical teachings of the unification of opposites and using the truth and power of the “middle way”, these techniques when used consistently over time bring increasing peace and well-being into our mind, body, and emotions. The workshop has the added benefit of being a fundraiser for the humanitarian organization Seeds of Light, with the proceeds going towards building a new orphan center for children in South Africa.
Click the link below for the workshop flier with the location and times. I hope you can make it!
“If you want to shift your life, shift your consciousness”. Leslie Temple -Thurston
I would like to invite you to a two part workshop – “Beyond Negativity, Pain, and Fear” – that I will be presenting this month with my friend, teacher Charu Rachlis. In this workshop we will share with you two easy, yet profound, techniques for clearing unbalanced mental and emotional states. Called Polarities and Squares, these techniques, based in the ancient teachings of the reconciliation of opposites, were developed by awakened teacher Leslie Temple-Thurston to help us to move beyond our egoic limitations of negativity, anger, pain and fear to a place of balance and equanimity. You’ll find complete information on the workshop in the flier linked below. I hope to see you there!
A student recently asked me what she could do about feelings of apathy, meaninglessness and desolation.
These heavy, dense emotions feel terrible and our first instinct is to run away from them – to not feel them. We may do this by distracting ourselves, by getting really busy or, perhaps, by self-medicating in some way. This is a mistake. By ignoring our feelings we actually allow them to dig a deeper groove in our psyche and in the body. In truth all emotions exist as a field of energy – an energy vibration held in the subtle body and the physical body and activated by thought. If we avoid feeling our emotions, the disturbance will eventually manifest in the physical, as a physical imbalance and an ailment of some kind. The solution is the willingness to witness any negative emotion that arises as a sensation in the body – simply as a vibratory field of energy. What typically happens, though, is that the mind intervenes. The ego/mind wants to tell a story about the source of the pain – to blame some one, or to blame some external event for causing the pain, or to feel sorry for itself. But this only exacerbates the suffering. With the willingness to experience our emotions directly and to expose them to the light of Truth, they will leave.
Our pure awareness is the light of the divine, and when we bring this awareness and attention directly to bear on the source of our discomfort in the body, this light acts like a laser beam, burning through the disturbance to reveal what is always there – the ground of being – vast eternal Oneness – and the source of our true peace.
To begin this exploration find a comfortable meditative position, or alternatively, lie on the floor on your back, arms resting comfortably at your sides, palms up, legs slightly apart with your feet relaxed and resting outwards. In yoga, this is the classic savasana pose. Take some deep relaxing breaths and bring your attention into your body. Notice any physical sensations. See if you can find the emotional pain you are feeling in the body. There is a corrolation. It can be sensed as a knot of coiled energy, a tingling sensation, or a churning tumultuous feeling, or perhaps an area of intense heat or pressure. Allow your awareness to meet the sensation directly. Feel. Notice if your mind wants to co-opt the process by telling a story about it, and let this go. Come back to sensation. Stay with it. It may want to move or morph into a different shape, or take on a different tonality. Track it as it moves or changes. Focus your lens of pure awareness directly on the source of your discomfort. Allow it to burn away.
You will soon find that which seemed to have so much substance, to be nothing at all! Take some deep relaxing breaths and enjoy this new found spaciousness. It is this spaciousness that is your true nature, and the field within which all emotions pass.
embracingOneness Blog 