This morning I wanted to talk a little bit about our shadow because I think it's one of the things we struggle with when we're meditating is that it can be the conversations in our mind,
The things that we try to push away during meditation.
And I feel like there's another way to handle them,
But I first just want to set up what shadow might be for you.
So it is the way that you sabotage things.
It is the way that you fragment from your whole self.
Our shadows in fact were created as a coping mechanism,
Probably when we were a child,
To keep ourselves safe,
Something we couldn't really process with a child's mind.
And so we started to split.
We all have them,
Even if you had a stellar childhood,
You still have fragmented,
Maybe there was a bully at school or maybe,
I don't know,
We process things with different levels of sensitivity.
And so we go from wholeness and then we start to split off.
These little parts of ourselves still linger.
They don't disappear because we really are whole.
There's just separations in our personality.
We call them fragments.
Carl Jung called them fragments.
And so they want to be part of the whole.
They want to be with you,
But they don't know how to quite get there.
Just like a child who really wants your attention and presents all this bad behavior to get your attention because they don't know quite how to relate.
So these are immature parts of ourselves that are just hanging around trying to come back home.
And so what we do,
Because they're not behaving the way that we want them to or the way our wholeness might,
We further judge them.
We further fragment them.
We further push them away and they get louder and louder and louder and louder.
They're not going to go away because they can't because they're you,
Right?
And this is when I say to people,
You know,
You are your nature.
Stop trying to be something other than your nature because it's a wasted life,
Right?
You can't not be who you are.
So what we do with our fragmented selves is we just invite them to the party.
And this happens very often in meditation.
We have these sabotaging thoughts and we're like,
Oh,
Why am I thinking that?
Oh,
I do this all the time.
Oh,
Please be quiet.
Get out of the way.
I'm busy meditating.
And what they're really asking if they had the correct language is to sit beside you to be invited,
But they might be just tugging at you in an annoying way.
We're like,
Go away.
So instead this morning,
I'm going to invite you to invite them to the meditation.
And I often say that we can sit them down like small children and kind of put our arms around them because that's what's going to quiet them the most.
Further judgment will just irritate them more.
And the more that we do that,
Like the wider our arms get,
The more they melt back into you in a more mature and evolved way because you're not seven or eight anymore.
And so they come back in and you find over time that those things that you used to do to wreak havoc in your life don't happen anymore.
Like,
Oh,
Look,
I didn't do that thing this time.
I didn't react that way this time.
I was stressed and I didn't eat 10 cartons of ice cream this time.
It can show up in so many different ways.
And so you can't expect it the day that you do it,
But it's something that has an accumulative effect.
And you'll notice over time that you are responding and not reacting.
Can you kind of wake up to it and go,
Oh,
Something is changing.
So let's get started.
Give us a little music.
Although up here we need it so much less because it's actually quiet.
All right.
So first we just pick our gazing point.
And I will say just before we start,
We might get a visitation for my actual child.
So don't be stunned.
He's downstairs and I don't know how long that's going to last.
So let's pick our gazing point.
Really observe yourself this morning.
Even all the little things you do to prepare.
Everyone has their personal ritual.
Now they start to drop in.
And you can feel and hear and sense all of those voices.
But we're not rejecting them.
We're choosing this moment.
As you're ready,
You can close your eyes,
But bring them with you.
Invite them inside.
Invite them to observe your breath.
There are some that come so easily.
There are others that are certainly more stubborn.
Those are the ones that need a little more love because perhaps they had a little more adversity.
They struggled a little harder in the beginning.
Leave them on the ground,
Mixed with their WalHelper Wounds.
Finding the earth beneath you.
Relaxing with visited.
Into it,
Feeling that your breath is probably slowing down now.
From the Earth,
Pull the energy up into your second space.
Here is where we might recognize that this is actually a meditation on wholeness.
As we bring all that energy into our second space,
The energy that will take us through the day.
And bless it,
Send it forward,
The highest intention.
We bring it to our third space where we personalize it.
These are where the shadows show up more clearly.
Stories of not being good enough.
Fear of failure,
Fear of success.
Not having enough so we don't share fully all the little ways that you don't show up in your divine beauty,
In your excitement,
In your completeness.
This is the chakra where we more deeply resolve the shadow.
How do we do that?
How do we heal anything at all?
We offer it our presence.
Any way you might pull back and not fully show up is your shadow.
We begin to be with the feeling,
With a loving and compassionate heart.
Everyone wants the same thing,
Wholeness.
Sometimes we're not sure how to get there.
Through our heart we can light the path.
We can get more clear,
More welcoming.
We begin to be with the feeling,
With a loving and compassionate heart.
What are those small words that you're telling yourself right now,
That inner dialogue?
These are also the voices of the shadow.
Perhaps it is your light shadow.
Can you hear me,
Okay?
Finding your seat right in the center of your mind,
Taking a look out the seat of the Buddha this morning,
What does it look like?
What does it feel like?
What energy does it carry?
What is it trying to reveal to you this morning?
Of course when you're ready,
Take your rightful seat,
The seat of wholeness,
The seat of divine love,
Let everything else dissolve,
Recognizing that in fact you're none of those small voices,
You're none of those distractions,
You are beauty,
You are light,
You are in fact complete,
Everything other than that,
Simply a shadow that can dissolve at any moment,
Like this moment.
You are dinghapping now.
Correct.
Tug the crown of your head,
Calling you back,
Asking you to merge.
Merging with the divine light that created you,
That you will inevitably return to,
Helping you to remember what wholeness feels like,
To allow the resonance to take place,
The frequency to quicken,
Your vibration to expand.
Finals a dream.
And then your breath as it begins to deepen and as it begins to deepen and as it begins to deepen and you notice how far you've gone.
As you deepen your breath,
Begin to notice the blessing that you received this morning.
The energy that you will present in the whole heart.
That is clear to you.
