Hello and welcome to this guided meditation,
Feeling and Restoring Our Shadow.
This meditation accompanies the audio course Healing Our Shadow in the Mindfulness in Depth series.
It can be used on its own,
But I recommend that you take that course for more background on its approach and purpose if you haven't already.
This recording is a brief version of the meditation,
Which includes short periods of silence between the contemplations.
If you have more time,
Please feel free to pause at any of these points of silence that feel especially important for your practice today.
The purpose of this meditation is to use your mindfulness practice to revisit the experience of a psychological complex,
Which is a repeating,
Unconscious emotional pattern in your life.
The ideal time to practice this is when you still have an emotional memory of the experience,
But you also want sufficient time to have passed so that you can maintain a calm and non-judgmental awareness.
That said,
You can also practice it with any experience that feels alive for you right now.
To begin,
Please find a comfortable meditation posture.
I'll guide a brief body scan to help you center your awareness in your body.
Begin by finding the sensation of your breath as it enters and leaves your body,
And then allow that awareness to radiate outwards until it permeates your entire body from head to toe.
Now move that awareness to the crown of your head,
Tuning into the feeling at the very top of your head and focusing your awareness there.
Then allowing it to gently melt down,
Slowly moving your awareness through your face,
Relaxing all of the muscles,
Relaxing your expression,
As your awareness moves down through your neck,
Your shoulders,
Into your arms and torso,
Feeling your breath as it enters and leaves your body.
Feeling your heart chakra in the middle of your chest opening up,
As the awareness moves into your belly and hips,
Feeling your weight sink completely into the chair or cushion,
And then allowing your awareness to scan through your legs all the way down to your feet,
And then zooming your awareness out.
Once again,
Encapsulate your entire body,
Head to toe,
Bones to skin.
You may pause here if you'd like to spend more time in your body before moving on.
To prepare to revisit the complex,
We'll now spend some time developing the three C's in our awareness.
The first C is confrontation,
Which in this context does not mean anger or hostility,
But rather a sense of determination to go into our shadow intentionally.
We're cultivating an attitude of turning towards our complexes,
These difficult patterns that we repeat,
With an attitude of courage and strength.
I'll leave 30 seconds here to develop and hold this attitude of confrontation.
Again,
Feel free to pause if you'd like more time.
The second C is curiosity.
Curiosity is essential for this practice,
Because we are holding the view that our shadow and complexes are not simply flaws in our personality to be eliminated,
But rather contain gold.
This practice is about gaining deeper insight into ourselves in this requires curiosity.
I'll leave another 30 seconds of silence here to develop and hold this open and curious attitude.
The third C is compassion,
And specifically self-compassion.
It can be easy to feel guilt or shame when revisiting the experience of a complex,
Wondering why we keep falling into the same traps.
Self-compassion reminds us that complexes are part of the normal human psyche,
So we can let go of any self-judgment.
We're doing the most loving and compassionate thing for ourselves and others by trying to heal.
I'll leave you with 30 seconds to develop and hold this self-compassionate attitude.
So now we turn to the heart of the practice,
Which is revisiting the experience of the complex.
Recall that according to depth psychology in the tradition of Carl Jung,
The same emotions and feelings that accompany the complex are required to gain insight into our shadow.
This approach will be supported by your mindfulness practice,
Which helps you to sit with feelings in a non-judgmental and calm way.
You're learning how to be in the emotion,
In the emotion,
While at the same time maintaining part of your awareness or meta-awareness that's watching what's happening within you in a safe and compassionate way.
So please now spend a minute recalling the experience that you're working with.
Do your best to recreate the experience from memory,
But once again remember that you're in control as to how deeply you want to go into it.
Remember that you're in the safety of your meditation space and you can pause this practice at any time.
So now that you've immersed yourself back in the experience of the complex,
Stop any narrative aspects of the memory and turn toward the feeling.
Re-center your awareness on your body,
Remembering that emotions are intertwined with our somatic experience.
Pay attention also to your breath,
Which will help you stay in a calm and regulated space.
Getting to know the intricacies of the feelings associated with the complex is essential.
So I'll pause for two minutes here to allow you to be present with the emotions with calm and non-judgmental mindfulness.
This is a great place to pause and spend more time if you can,
Because it is the essence of the practice.
You you you you For the second part of the meditation,
Remember that complexes have an archetypal core,
Which means that there is a distorted story or narrative that it is upholding.
Remember that this doesn't mean that all of us believes the story,
It just means that some hidden part of us might.
Remember to be curious and to hold anything that comes up lightly.
So now please take another two minutes to remain with the feeling,
But now listening for any story or narrative that seems to be underneath the complex.
This can be anything from a simple phrase to a longer story that emerges.
You you you you While it's important to acknowledge and cherish the underdeveloped part of us that may believe that story underlying our complex,
We can now gently re-story the complex.
Try to see through the distorted narrative,
Seeing how it's based on a very selective subset of our experiences,
And come up with a more balanced story that reflects the truth of your more whole self.
Once you've come up with this new story,
Sit with it for a minute.
If a phrase comes to you that helps to reinforce the view that you want to reprogram with,
You can repeat that to yourself.
You That brings us to the conclusion of the meditation.
To gradually emerge from the practice,
Please take a minute to return your awareness to your body,
This time beginning with the extremities of your hands and feet,
Wiggling them to indicate that you will be coming out of meditation,
And then gradually allowing your awareness to move through your arms and legs towards the center of your body,
Until your attention is gathered in the center of your chest at your heart.
From here,
You can gradually reconnect with the feeling of the breath as it enters and leaves your body,
Acknowledging the courageous work that you've done,
Re-experiencing the emotion of a complex so that you can gain deeper insight and integrate what it has to teach you.
Now you can gently arise from your meditation,
Open your eyes,
And take a deep breath.
Thank you.
