Reading Carl Jung now, – rich ground, – how spectacularly clear and deep his writing is…

I judge in others only that which I judge in myself; I judge in myself only that which I refuse to accept, repressing parts of Self into shadow. The more I judge, the less of me is conscious [aware], the smaller I am. The presence of non-judgement is felt like the sun that warms and nourishes body, soul and spirit. Emotional outbreak followed by a judgement is a compass pointing your way to the next evolution of yourself.

That leads me to mention paradox therapy. Don’t know if it already exists, but it ought to. Conceptually simple: it is the realization of equal validity of an opposite. Practically, I imagine this effect can be acieved through psychosomatic integration (a beefed up version of anchor integration).

I once heard a Teacher,
a world famous guru,
give beating to Passion,
call her names, call her “dirty”.

I left him heartbroken.
For what is my Passion?
She is the movement
towards heavingly union.

i’ve discovered something insane about myself -

- i’ve discovered that i hide most, ALMOST ALL of my power in my Shadow. Afraid of reaching for it, afraid of becoming TOO MUCH, burning too bright. Too much for whom? Too bright for what? And what has stripped me of the power TO BE?

If only I was in hiding alone, but i look around and see human outlines everywhere, outlines made with white chalk…

I would like to take a moment to connect a Shadow self to dualities:

A Shadow self is the repressed and rejected aspect of self that lives in the unconscious.

A duality is a tool human beings use to make sense of the world.

Every duality creates a Shadow self, that can be integrated only by opening up as both aspects of the duality.

The most profound dualities (hence Shadow selves) are space and time.

I want to share a process I discovered recently while coaching a client (indeed, it is always the teacher who learns more than the student). It worked really well because it re-aligns your daily self-expression with your Being (that’s who you really are once all the crap drops away). A problem cannot remain a problem when you become someone who cannot possibly have that kind of problem, isn’t that so?

It starts with a picture your Being that you wish you could one day allow yourself to become. *take a few minutes to make it Technicolor now*. Get your list of oh-so-big problems out. Randomly pick the worst one, and see how would your Being have handled this problem? (I do hope you have got a vision of Being big enough to handle all problems in just a right way. If not, better start all over again). Now ask your Being: “What changes have I had to make in my mind and body to have handled this problem?” *wait for an answer*. Solve another problem.

P.S. Don’t confuse this process with timeline work, – you can do damage this way; it’s at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Body delights in a beautiful lover, Spirit delights in an ugly lover.

Let’s talk for a moment about how manifestation happens. There are some people who believe that manifestation is the immediate gratification of their desires: I want an apple, and it magically appears in my hand.

I don’t think it’s like that at all. I believe manifestation is a lot like reality shifting as described by Roger Zelazny in Chronicles of Amber:

If you think about a space of realities, then two realities are next to each other if they are very similar, e.g. a white wall in one appears as a touch of blue in another. But they are far apart if they are very different, e.g. a white wall in one and no wall in another.

Manifestation then is simply an ability to re-organize your experience in a way that moves you closer to the reality you want to be in, one small step at a time. But the path you take makes a difference:

Materializing an apple one atom at a time is stupid. But walking to an apple tree to pluck an apple from a branch is smart.

Three things make a difference:

1. How flexible you are in re-organizing your experience determines how many paths are open for you to get to where you’re going. It’s all about freedom.
2. How aware you are of the field of possibilities determines how many choices you see. This is THE key. Every tiny event CAN be used to move you towards wherever you’re going. A leaking faucet is an invitation to become more ecological and stop wasting water. A beautiful woman in a seat next to you is an invitation to learn confidence. A furious teenager screaming at you is an invitation to practice compassion. Life hands you an invitation to become alife every moment; how many do you accept?
3. How well you see where you are going determines how much random wandering will fall on your shoulders.

Thinking back now, how many times have you heard the command: “Know Thyself”? Extraordinary command. Full of power. Sadly it’s rare when the true meaning of this command is clear.

Here is the common understanding: “I need to know myself, so let me search for who I am. Let me probe deeply, elicit my beliefs, my values, put together a complete picture of my identity and set it in a context of my spirituality.” Sounds good, eh?

*bzzz* Wrong. This process will keep you running from religion to psychology to spirituality, running in circles chasing after the elusive self feeling dissatisfied.

This line of thinking is based on an erroneous belief that self is a state. It’s not. It’s a process. A forever emerging spiral unfolding of your adaptive intelligences. A process where as you move up from one level of the spiral to the next, self changes dramatically.

There isn’t a single thing that’s fixed about it. Even your teeth will fall out

So don’t go looking for The One Self. The moment you fixate on the answer, it becomes tangential to who you really are.

The only thing that does work is keep the command: “Know Thyself” repeating in the back of your mind. Forever. Just not too incessantly. See the string of answers as a line with black and white photographs hung to dry, each photograph only a snapshot of an illusion.

… openness. Resistance is futile for Life is stronger. Any closure of your heart, tension in your gut, denial in your mind leads to misery. (Fear is but one example).

Any closure creates resistance creates friction when life flows through you on its inevitable course. And friction is heat, loss of energy and loss of joy. Only absolute conductor (0% resistance) is absolute happiness.

Openness to beauty, to pain, to ecstasy, to death. Openness to, on its way through to the unfolding of the bare essence. Delicious essence.

You want it unresolved. You want to stop oscillating between the two extremes and enlarge yourself to accept both simultaneously.

On the one hand you are told to open and accept life as it is. To let it flow through you unimpeded. Kosmos is perfect.

On the other, you want to grow and become more happy, joyful, wealthy, enlightened. Whatever rocks your boat. Improve yourself and Kosmos as well.

So which side is right?

Both simultaneously, – make yourself larger than the paradox. Timing is key:

Completely open to what IS right now: pain & pleasure, health & dis-ease, orgasm & shit. Why perpetuate delusion by denying what is already there?

AND imagineer a ferociously delightful life where you improve yourself to Infinity.

Stay with it. Stay with the duality even when your plans unrealize, and open yourself through the disappointment to acceptance.