To transform ancient circuitries of shame and hidden self-hatred require the willingness to integrate disorder in our psychic reality as we will be asked to reorient in ways that we cannot know ahead of time.
If it is no longer possible to engage the world from the achy ground of unworthiness, how will we proceed? If those familiar reference points are no longer available, what will we organize around? What will be the new image or metaphor through which we will live, love, and create?
The habitual abandonment of our embodied vulnerability and other states of disavowed feeling have become so encoded that we cannot know in advance what it will be like to make the journey without them.
There is a certain excitement in stepping into new territory, but it can also generate disorientation as we sense a pending confrontation with the unknown. We must be kind to ourselves during times of transition, honoring the actualities of what it truly means to heal.
To slow down and soften as we are asked to provide sanctuary for the wounds, grief, and unfelt joys of a lifetime, to offer a temple of rest where the disowned inner travelers can gather and return.
We do not rid ourselves of the unwanted by relegating it into the shadow, but by attunement and re-embodiment to the full-spectrum. By deserting that which longs for reunion, we will only create the conditions for future eruption which is sure to occur in less than conscious ways.
We will never reorganize the patterns of a lifetime by means of self-aggression, which only reinforce the realities of early empathic failure and the shame which arose from the deep sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with us.
Increased awareness is critical and necessary, but for most it is not sufficient. We all have quite a lot of insight into our habitual patterns and “know” what we need to do. But despite all this “knowing,” fundamental change often remains elusive.
At some point it is only a turning of the heart which will heal the cosmic exhaustion, wounds, and pain of an unlived life, where love is revealed to be the ultimate medicine that can penetrate the deepest layers of our conditioning and felt sense of separation.
Image by Skeeze
My latest book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available
The next book, The Unfolding Heart, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come
My next event:
The Great Befriending: A Five-Day Journey of Self-Love, Deep Rest, and Coming Alive (with Jeff Foster), September 21-26 in Loveland, Colorado
