To continue solidifying the lessons of February and March around the root chakra, and also to put April’s material into perspective, we compared several features of the the first and second chakras. [table id=2 /] While the predominant theme of the root chakra is foundations: safety, security, belonging, and abundance. Read more…
AGREEMENTS
For the May gathering we welcomed a new member to our circle, so I took my time with the agreements. Because we were talking about personal power this month, I underscored the policy of not offering help to anyone unless they ask for it. It may seem counterintuitive, but part of claiming your power is being able to ask for help when you need it. The flip side of that is respecting someone’s power is not victimizing them and assuming we know when and how they need to be helped.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
Along the theme of empowerment, I asked everyone to name an area in their life where they recently started to feel especially empowered, and another where they were still working on stepping into their power. (more…)
[Links to exercises will go up next month when I get back, but in the meantime, enjoy the minutes!] AGREEMENTS This year I’ve been putting much more thought into our three agreements. Last year, when I was much more in the moment with Dreamers & Schemers, I said whatever Read more…
Lots of learning around how we hold #fear in our bodies, hearts, and minds today. So much #gratitude for what was shared and for the gamely way everyone jumped into the exercises. On a mission to prove that #mindfulness and shadow work can be a lot of fun! #restorativejustice #selfcare #selfcareforsocialjustice #meditation #dreamersschemers
THREE AGREEMENTS
Dreamers & Schemers kicked off our March session, as always, with an overview of the Three Agreements that uphold our sacred space. This month, since we were about to delve into the topic of fear, I really wanted to emphasize the importance of honoring the self by being gentle and self-compassionate in our self inquiry. In terms of honoring other, I wanted to introduce the idea that sometimes the best way of honoring someone else is by trusting that person’s strength rather than rushing in to comfort at the slightest show of tears. Sometimes the rush to comfort victimizes the other or distracts us from what’s going on inside ourselves in reaction to external distress. Being a compassionate witness is being able to remain centered and expansive in the face of another person’s discomfort, trusting that if the other truly needs help, she will ask for it. As for beginner’s mind, it would come in especially hand during our guided visualizations. To get the most out of them, we have to be able to step out of all our judgments and expectations, effectively emptying ourselves out so we can receive what we can through our intuition rather than being bombarded with messages from our critical voice.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
The questions I put into the circle today were: What fear have you overcome? and What fear are you currently grappling with? (more…)
Scientific study has shown that we inherit across generations, not only through our psyches, but deep in our genetic makeup. Our genes are literally shaped by the experiences of our grandparents. Chew on that for awhile. Reflect on your grandparents’ lives. Are any of them survivors of war? Of childhood Read more…
The Monster Celebration is perhaps the most famous guided meditation comes from Amanda Owen’s book, The Power of Receiving, and it comes to me via my cherished friend Steph Cowling. I really dig visualization exercises such as this because in addition to being powerful and effective, they are also fun and surprising. Yes, this is a really fun way to do shadow work. (Personally, I found talk therapy to be incredibly important foundational work, but fun? Not so much.)
Owen’s hypothesis is that standing between us and whatever goals we’re struggling to achieve is at least one “monster”—her word for inner demon. In spite of the name, this is not an “evil” or “bad” aspect of the self. To the contrary, she holds that our monsters are likely outworn beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve us (e.g., the Rebel or the Good Girl). Monsters are thus the rejected or misundertood parts of ourselves that continue to haunt us precisely because we refuse to know them more intimately and accept them with unconditional love.
If we want to live our lives in wholeness and integrity, it makes perfect sense that the task ahead is to know and integrate every aspect of the self, including those that we wish did not exist. The magical thing about healing—alchemical, really—is that observing any aspect of the self in loving attention transforms that aspect into gold.
With this in mind, Owen has come up with a playful solution to facing the most feared aspect of the self: throwing it a celebratory party! What better way to embrace someone we’ve ignored or rejected for so long? (more…)
This practice of sitting mindfully with fear is inspired by the work of psychologist and Buddhist meditation teacher, Tara Brach. She teaches that fear is the root of all negative emotion, including those that manifest in ways that do not seem or feel fearful, such as anger, addiction, compulsiveness, and the need for control. If you drill down into any one of these, the root answer will always be fear. My grandmother provides a great example of how fear is the deep-rooted emotion behind most others. I’d never seen her more upset with me than when I came home hours later than I promised. (I didn’t think to call because I got caught up working on a school project.) Beneath her anger, of course, was the fear for my safety. (And beneath that was the love that she was unable to express verbally for most of her life–love tamped down by fear of vulnerability.)
Fear, you’ve surely heard, causes a physiological reaction in our bodies, regardless of how “real” the threat may be. Brach points out that most things that make us anxious are actually not imminent dangers, but either memories of past traumas or imagined future threats. This is why mindfulness—attuning ourselves to what is going on within us and around us in the present moment—is such an effective way of moving through fear. Neural plasticity enables us to interrupt our natural instincts (fight, flight, or freeze) and rewire our brains so we can create more effective ways of being in he world.
The best way of moving through fear, Brach argues, is by going against our natural instincts to turn away from it. (more…)
The Way of Rest by spiritual teacher Jeff Foster is a treasure. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred to this collection of little writings, some of which read like poetry, and find just what fits my mood. I’d bookmarked work #33 a couple weeks back because it Read more…
WHAT IS SHIELDING? Earlier this year we went over grounding and centering as basic meditation and energy management practices. This month we added shielding to our tool belt. What is shielding? It’s something I believe we all learn to do instinctively when we are young. There are many ways to Read more…