Learning to suffering consciously is an art that has been
lost in our times. By training yourself to enter into an intimate, curious,
embodied relationship with difficult psychological and emotional experience,
you reclaim your right as an alive, sensitive, empowered human being. And
proclaim your willingness to practice transmutation for the benefit of life
everywhere.
Each time we turn from a painful feeling, bodily sensation,
or disturbing emotion, we practice self-aggression, encoding circuitry of self-abandonment,
as we hope to end-run the reality of our vulnerability. The split-off material
is not healed, but placed into the shadow, where it is sure to surge in
less-than-conscious ways in our relational worlds. We need only look around
(and inside) with eyes wide open to see the consequences of this.
It is by way of compassionate confrontation and integration
of the full-spectrum that we dance within the opposites and provide sanctuary
for the unconscious to come into form. Through this integrative and consecrated
activity the meaning of our experience will be revealed, and its role on the
journey ahead clarified.
At times, the ally will appear in a sweet, peaceful, and
light form, which we can take refuge in and be grateful for. At other times,
the form will be fierce, wrathful, and of the dark, oriented not in peace, but
in wholeness. While not as easy, we can come to be grateful for this one as
well, who has not come to harm, but to reveal.
While the mind may turn from the wisdom and the love buried
inside the shadows, the heart knows. The body knows.
The Way of Rest summer retreat – registration open now
New book – The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – to be released in April
