The dance of the internal and external other

It can be fascinating (and disturbing) to see how we locate qualities in others that we long to be in touch with in ourselves, but for some reason have disowned.

It is no coincidence that we tend to attract and be attracted to (as well as repel and be repelled by) those who outwardly embody a particular quality that we've lost contact with in ourselves. This can be subtle and can take some practice and discernment to see.

At an earlier developmental time, for very good reasons we split off from certain aspects of ourselves, ways of being, feelings, native creativity, and qualities that were unique to us. While we yearn to reclaim these lost soul-parts, it is often too anxiety-provoking to allow them back in directly. By first finding them in another, we can begin to enter into relationship with these abandoned parts, in what appears to be a safer way, at a distance.

Whenever you find yourself surprised at how enraged you become toward a certain person, or activated by some way that they are – or infatuated with them in a way that seems irrational, or annoyed or irritated beyond what seems appropriate for the situation... slow down and pay careful attention.

Be kind to yourself. Be curious. No shame, blame, or judgment. Just slow. And kind. And curious. Again, look for responses that are irrational, overblown, and seem to occur on their own, out of the blue, in a surge of unexpected emotion. We’re not speaking about becoming angry and taking clear, boundaried action if someone is being unkind, abusive, or disrespectful to you – please do that – but about those situations where nothing like that is occurring.

Where in more neutral situations, before you know it, you're drowning in some sort of reaction, whether it be a flood of ruminative thinking or you are hooked into a painful (yet familiar) emotion or feeling. Or lashing out at them, critiquing, judging, attacking (or idolizing, turning them into a savior, irrationally falling in love with them) in a way that, on deeper reflection, just feels a bit overdone. It can feel like it’s coming at us from the outside, some energy which is autonomous and beyond our control.

What qualities in others (positive or negative) have an uncanny ability to throw you into a spin, constellate an avalanche of highly charged feeling, uncomfortable emotion, or surges of somatic disturbance in your body? Slowly, if you are called to do so, bring a person to mind who has a way of inducing these reactions in you...

For just a moment, set aside any interpretation of what might be happening and any details about the "other." Open and see if "internal other" is arising now to be held, to be known, to be contained, to be integrated.

What is being asked to be tended to here? What has the "external" other come to remind you of, not to harm or to seduce, but as an emissary of wholeness? As an invitation of integration.

Enter into relationship with this one, imagine and dialogue with them, provide sanctuary so that they may re-emerge into the light, and to take his or her rightful place back into the internal family. This one is you, longing for permission to return home.

My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

My next event will be a five-day retreat, with Jeff Foster, April 4-9 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, CO. Please stay tuned here for additional information/ registration.  

Into the inner sanctum

Hidden underneath the rich and textured narrative, erupting under the colorful flow of feeling and emotion, there exists a fertile, vibrating, mysterious world of sensations, of intuition, of imagery: a somatically-organized field of intelligence, creativity, and aliveness.

As we enter the body with breath and awareness – descending under the historic interpretations, and guided by new levels of curiosity, kindness, and care – we enter into uncharted territory. Here things are turned a bit upside down. In this new land, we may come to even appreciate our neurosis, our heartbreak, our confusion, our disappointment, our “failure,” our doubt, and our fragility. No longer viewing these forms as evidence of our lack of awakening or that we have fallen short… but as unique portals and invitations into the very alive reality that things are never really going to turn out the way we thought. It's just too creative here. You are just too wild, too unique, too unprecedented, too whole.

As the trance of shame, blame, and unworthiness burns up in the warmth of cleansed perception, we find ourselves at the threshold of the known and unknown, a liminal space where we can no longer find a familiar place or reference point around which to organize. It is exhilarating here inside the opposites, but simultaneously terrifying to a mind longing for resolution, certainty, and control. In the bardo, inside the vessel, there is no real place to land, other than where you already are.

As we become aware of the ways that we distract ourselves from the open, center-less, alive nature of immediate experience, we can then make a choice to re-embody. We can return to the life of the senses, to our uncompromised commitment to self-kindness, to no longer apologizing for what we are, and to fully participating here in an unfolding miracle... setting aside the dream of postponement until a future moment.

In this place of heart-centered, compassion-infused embodiment, we can no longer pretend we’re not feeling what we’re actually feeling; whatever guest arrives in the home of the heart is allowed, surrounded in warmth, and taken directly into the inner sanctum. Inside this secret chamber, your neurosis, your fear, the deep need to be special, the frenetic scramble to be seen, to be “awake” – all this begins to become dismantled, dissolved, and taken apart by love.

While this disassembling is sure to involve both sweet and fierce grace, it is a movement of wholeness, and evidence of the full-spectrum nature of the path of the heart.

My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next event, The Magic of Being Fully Human, to be held in Ojai, CA on October 14-15. 

A sacred deflation

Of course it's natural to have a bias for the experience of "success" over "failure," however we define those terms. But let us be conscious of this bias and not fall into fragmentation. Whether in the outer world of accomplishments or in the inner world of collecting experiences, learning to fail consciously opens us to the full-spectrum. Inside the opposites of success and failure is a doorway, a parting of the veil, revealing an unknown reality of immense creativity.

We live in a world that has lost contact with the evolutionary potential of conscious dissolution, deflation, and the inevitable crucifixion we will each face as we journey along the way. These experiences are not mistakes or errors to be "manifested" away or to throw "secrets" at, for they are too holy for all that. The art of allowing things to fall apart and to honor the death aspect of the death-rebirth journey is one known by alchemists, tantrikas, and wandering poets, but is not all that popular in a culture obsessed with persona and happiness at all costs.

It is the nature of all form to dissolve, so that new forms may emerge. This is the essence of creativity and is non-negotiable, as the energy that keeps the stars from falling out of the sky. We can try to fight against this, argue with it, and spin off into repression, shame, and blame, turning from the fires of reorganization. But the consequence is a life of partiality, splitting off from wholeness, and a heart that longs endlessly for aliveness.

If we will not consciously carry the energies of failure, deflation, and disappointment, they remain in seed form in the shadow and will erupt, usually in very unskillful ways that lead to greater suffering for ourselves and others. We only need look at the current landscape and see. This is true not only for individuals, but for couples, groups, cultures, countries, and societies.

It is by way of our willingness to contain, hold, and integrate the entirety of what we are that we will know the magic of the sacred world. To fully participate in success, to fully participate in failure, and to know that ineffable third thing that we experience in their union. And out of this embodied knowing we very naturally surround the ghosts of our unlived lives with our presence, hold them and provide sanctuary for their conscious integration, dissolving the trance of partiality and revealing essence.

It is not easy to dance and play in these fields until our perception is cleansed, as the dream is thick and deeply embedded. Fortunately, this work requires only one moment, this one, and cannot be completed in the past or future. Only now. No matter what is happening in the inner and outer landscape, we can all begin right now. And now. And now. And even now.

My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next event, The Magic of Being Fully Human, to be held in Ojai, CA on October 14-15.