Living With Integrity

This meditation is an exploration into what helps us stay in alignment with our ideals. We'll look at both our light and our dark, and learn how to integrate them with awareness and compassion. Further themes will include, humility, resilience, and overcoming setbacks.

Transcript

So,

I'm going to start sharing and start talking about today's topic.

And it's one that I honestly have a little hesitation to share.

I have even just like starting this live today,

I could sense just a difference.

Normally,

I'm super excited to share with you all.

And today I'm like,

Oh,

Man,

I got to talk about that thing that I'm still processing and working through,

Even though this thing happened a month ago.

So,

If you're new to me,

A lot of what I share on Insight Timer comes out of my own experience and kind of processing that and doing a meditation around that.

I always like to say that we're,

As a teacher once told me,

Just comparing notes.

And so,

I kind of show you my notes and then maybe some of those notes resonate with your experience or with your life.

So,

For what occurred recently in my life,

I was in a men's facilitator training.

And I had an opportunity,

I had an idea to kind of create a men's group and a coaching circle that met for about eight weeks.

And I had a lot on my plate already,

It was just kind of like a thing,

I was like,

Maybe I'll do that.

I wasn't super like,

It wasn't grabbing me so much.

But I decided to do it.

And I decided to do it in a way where I did not really take a lot of time to create my own structure and create my own copy.

And so,

Long story short,

I stole and took my coach's copy,

A good portion of it,

I made a little bit my own,

But really kind of took his language in a way and put it out there.

And without any like,

Hmm,

Maybe this is not exactly the best thing to do.

And he saw it.

And honestly,

I didn't think he was going to mind,

But it affected him deeply,

Which affected me knowing the harm that I caused or the feeling that I caused,

Really just brought me to a place that was challenging,

But has been incredibly,

Incredibly fruitful in going and feeling so humbled and moving through the guilt and the shame that that came with it.

And really asking myself,

What is,

What is integrity?

And I think sometimes,

I know I have been humbled a lot this year.

And I tend to sometimes think that,

And I think we all maybe at some point,

Kind of think that,

You know,

We're,

We're,

We're,

We're right.

Our thinking's right.

Our beliefs are right.

That we're always kind of in this state of,

Of,

Of,

I guess,

Rightness.

But I guess what I'm trying to say is,

It's really highlighted me opening up to looking at myself with a little harder lens.

And with a little more understanding of where else in my life may I have caused harm in my past,

Where I kind of going through my normal life,

And then there's many things that are coming up as I'm doing this.

Where else may I be out of integrity?

Where am I fooling myself?

Where am I not seeing my blind spots?

Now these are really tough questions to ask,

Right?

I mean,

Unless something happens like it has happened for me,

We might not want to go there.

And it's going into our shadows.

It's going into our darkness and a lot of spirituality,

You know,

We can kind of bypass it with this love and light and just live in this essence.

And that's beautiful.

However,

The,

The wholeness,

The integration of ourselves as a whole human being,

There's the yin and the yang,

Which will be a big part of today's practice is understanding that darkness is within us.

And by not looking at it,

By not opening to it,

We're going to set a repression in a way where that thing's going to come up in some way,

It's going to manifest itself in some situation where we're really going to see it.

And I had that happen for me in some way,

And I really I can start to see it now.

And it's been part of beautiful doing the inner work.

And we're always just continuing to do our inner work at different stages,

And whatever that work is for us.

And so I decided out of what was feeling most integrity and inintegrity to me to not run that group.

Now,

If you have been around my work for a while,

Or if you've taken my course specifically Learn to Stop Caring What Others Think,

You'll hear in that course,

Me share all about giving yourself permission,

Right?

Like,

Don't worry about what other people think,

Give yourself permission to do that thing.

I even have a quote in there that is,

It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Now that Lou,

You're saying this might be kind of contradicting advice right now or contradicting thoughts.

And it reminds me of one of my favorite Buddhist teachings that I think I've heard Jack Kornfield or not Jack Kornfield,

Goldstein,

Why am I I'm losing Jeff,

John Goldstein,

I'm losing his first name.

I can't believe I'm losing his first name,

Goldstein,

Someone tell me who Goldstein,

IMS,

I'm losing it.

Anyway,

He was telling me about how his teacher would tell the story all the time of a,

Let's say if a person's this is on if giving paradoxical advice,

Right?

So a teacher tells one person something and tells the next student the exact opposite.

And so you would say,

Well,

If someone's walking down the road,

And I see he's he or she is about to move into a pothole on the right,

I'll tell that person to go left.

And then if I see another person who's walking down the road,

And they're about to go on the pothole to the left,

I'll tell that person to go right.

And so there's all these potholes in our life that went into a different parts in our life,

We might need different advice,

We might need different instructions that might seem completely opposite from what we used to kind of baseline.

And I think for most of the past six and a half years,

I've lived in that giving myself permission.

And for the most part,

It's been great.

And now I've kind of turned and really see,

Okay,

Lou,

It's time to kind of step back and really look at where might not that not be the best advice for you.

And so we're gonna practice seeing if we can bring some light to our shadows in this practice,

Seeing if we can also see what we're not seeing in our light.

So sometimes the seeing our blind spots is also not seeing our golden shadow,

Not seeing our greatness,

Not really owning kind of the fullness and vitality of our spirit.

So we're going to practice that today.

And this practice is going to be,

It's going to be kind of contemplative in a way where as we move through,

I'm going to have you sit with questions.

I have a meditation specifically called living the question.

It's kind of inspired by a real poem,

But it's basically,

You're going to ask a question to yourself and try not to mentalize the answer.

You try to stay in your body and notice does an insight pop up,

Does the answer kind of arise naturally.

And so that'll be part of today's practice.

So just give me,

I'll give you that instruction too in the class,

But just previewing that it's,

We're not trying to like mentally figure out an answer that might be helpful,

Might be actually helpful to journal on these questions,

But really for now,

Just in this practice,

Sitting and being with the question itself and noticing what arises.

So I honor you and I thank you for witnessing myself in a moment where I'm sharing where I'm out of integrity in my life and it's been humbling.

And I think what all the greatest spiritual traditions and teachers will say is,

That is the path is humility.

And I need that reminder more than anyone sometimes,

And I think we all do.

It's super healthy for us.

So I've been making this intention and really doing my own inner work for the next few months around this.

So I look forward to hopefully sharing more in different capacities,

In different ways,

And hopefully maybe around humility as well.

So thank you all so much for being here,

And I'm excited to move through this practice with you.

So take any movements,

Anything that you need to kind of resettle into your space,

Into your body,

Into wherever you find yourself at this morning,

This afternoon,

This evening,

Coming into a relaxed but alert posture.

If you're in a chair,

Feet flat on the ground,

If you're on a cushion,

Just noticing the weight of your sits bones as it presses down,

Lengthening through the torso and softening and relaxing any place that's already feeling tense or could use some love.

Maybe that's the tightness of the jaw or the tension around the eyelids or the forehead.

It's inviting that softness,

That receptivity into your body.

Noticing the stream of thoughts that might be there and welcoming them as part of our human experience and seeing if you can drop into your breath,

Into your body.

When I think of integrity,

I think of integral,

Which means one piece of a whole necessary to that whole,

And that's what we're doing on our healing journeys,

Integrating,

Making ourselves whole,

Peace with all parts of ourselves.

And so first using the body to understand this wholeness,

Just doing a quick body scan and seeing if you can let the different parts of the body come together,

Head,

Shoulders,

Arms,

Chest,

All the way down to your feet.

And then bring your awareness onto the body as a whole in this spirit of symbolizing wholeness,

Togetherness.

I'm going to do a little mantra just to root in to some focus here.

And simply silently to yourself,

Repeating,

Chanting,

One,

One,

One.

And so let that be your anchor for a few moments.

And then together we'll take a gentle breath in and breath out.

I'd like us now to use the symbol of the yin and yang and meditate on it.

And almost like you can imagine the yin and yang as your body,

As you.

You can picture the symbol almost like that symbol comes into your body and is in the center.

You're noticing the half darkness,

Half light,

And within each is its opposites,

The light within the dark,

The dark within the light.

And it's important not to fool ourselves in this world of spirituality and just living in the light and the love.

And that might be true if we find enlightenment and become one with spirit.

But the soul,

The soul is here with duality,

With complexity.

And if we don't see that and acknowledge that,

We're going to be bypassing it.

And so just simply acknowledge the capacity for light and dark that is within you,

That makes you whole.

And not to start judging or shaming you,

But just embracing your fullness,

Embracing this truth.

I am the light and the dark.

Just notice and observe what that's doing or how you're experiencing this in your body.

Notice if there's a coming home,

Notice if there's a resistance and welcome whatever is arising.

And this practice we're going to be doing is going to be going back and forth between our light and our dark in hopes to be integrated,

To be in integrity.

So let's first be in the light.

So see if you can feel the light within you,

Within your body,

Wherever you sense it.

Maybe if you're imagining the yin and yang symbol,

You can sense it there,

Wherever you notice it in your body,

Or you just feel your whole body fill with light.

And as you do this,

I'd like you to bring to your awareness who you are at your very best,

The highest idea of the greatest version that you have for yourself.

And maybe you see a vision of the self or more so,

Maybe you just feel the energy of what that feels like to be fully in that ideal self.

Notice it in your body and see if you can let its energy in,

Feel the expanse energetically.

What does the greatest ideal self feel like?

And so we're now going to move into the contemplation on a question.

As I said before,

I'm going to ask you to ask yourself this question and then really try not to mentalize the answer right away.

Kind of just sit and be and meditate on the question itself.

Where am I getting in the way of this light?

Or where am I getting in the way of my light?

And so keep that question in the awareness and the energy as you just be with it.

Stay in your body,

Breathe into it,

And notice if you feel your body speaking to you.

Maybe there's a tension that's showing you where you're getting in your way,

Or maybe there's a clear insight that is arising,

And maybe you have no idea and that's so welcomed as well.

Where am I getting in the way of my light?

So often we don't let our light out based on limiting thoughts or what we think we're capable of.

And so see if you can just let these words soak as another mantra in a way just for you to further grow this relationship with your light.

It's just simply,

My light shines brighter than I can see.

And saying this to recognize that just as we don't see some of our dark sides,

Our dark blind spots,

The blind spots are also within our light.

So repeating,

My light shines brighter than I can see.

My light shines brighter than I can see.

And then together we're going to take a full breath in and let it go.

All right,

Switching,

Honoring the light and what it brought and moving now into being with our darkness.

So see if energetically you can kind of shift that in your body.

Notice yourself moving in to that darker energy of the yin yang.

Notice immediately if there's anything that it does to your body,

If there's any resistance.

And see if you can relax into it.

And maybe here acknowledging a time in your past where you weren't your best.

Maybe you hurt someone,

Maybe you did something you regret.

Maybe it's who you become around certain people,

The triggers.

And see if you can hold this part of you again without judgment,

Without making yourself bad or wrong.

Dark is not bad,

It's not,

Those aren't synonyms.

And just holding this darkness with compassion and acknowledging this wide experience of our human soul and working to make ourselves whole and acknowledging if this is a little bit more difficult than being with the light.

And then moving into our next contemplative question.

Being with the question in your body.

Where am I not seeing my darkness?

Where am I not seeing my darkness?

Stay with your breath,

Stay with your body and don't seek or search an answer,

Just notice what arises.

Staying with it and then whatever comes or came or doesn't come.

Maybe it was a pothole that you keep stepping into,

A pattern.

Maybe this is a journaling prompt for you later.

Maybe you ask your partner,

Ask someone you trust.

And then staying here in this practice and offering just a receptivity,

A welcoming to that darkness by repeating,

My darkness is welcomed.

My darkness makes me whole.

My darkness is welcomed.

My darkness makes me whole.

And then gentle breath in with me,

Letting that go.

And now this final part here is bringing it all together.

Honoring the darkness and the light,

Embracing both sides again in your body,

The yin and the yang.

And just notice,

Does it feel any different from before?

Living in integrity means living in wholeness,

Honoring both sides as you walk your soul's path.

And being out of integrity can be not fully living our light and doing things that keep us in the dark.

And so one final contemplative question to ask yourself,

Where am I out of integrity?

Where am I not living into my light and where am I succumbing to my dark?

Where am I out of integrity?

Just be with that question,

Stay in your body.

And then wherever you have your hands,

I'd like you to put your palms up and in your right hand,

You're going to notice is going to represent your darkness.

Feel the energy there on your left hand and your palm is going to represent your light.

And to bring this home,

I simply just want you to take this light and dark and give yourself this big hug,

Feeling yourself embraced in both sides of you,

Welcoming all parts of you and honoring yourself as a whole integrated human being.

And as you do this before we end our practice,

Setting an intention today to do better kind of been my thought in my own life.

And so whatever that means to you,

What does doing better mean?

And then taking one last final full conscious breath in and let that go.

And you can gently come back whenever you're ready.

Reviews

Thought provoking. Thank you.

That was wonderful. Exactly what I needed today. Thank you 🙏🏻

Very usefull. And I really liked the teachers honesty about his own experience. It made the whole exercise easier to take to heart. To give myself permission to be open to myself about my own darkspots. Thank you ♡

Learning to embrace our darker as well as lighter selves, intending to do better, is good stuff.

Very powerful, extremely challenging, very worthwhile

A very brave share along with an opening to acknowledge and embrace our darkness with our light!
Both as important and beneficial in life!

Thank you Lou🙏🏼 I have been in need of that integration. ☯️ ☀️ 🖤
No mud. No lotus.