Muse

Loving your demons requires calling back the shadow aspects of yourself–shame, guilt, rage, grief and feelings of unworthiness–to become integrated and take residence in your heart.

Self-love, acceptance and total forgiveness allow this integration to take place. 

We try to avoid our demons by pushing them away, using defense mechanisms like denial, compartmentalization, repression or dissociation (separating your body experience from your mind or emotions.)

For many, there comes a time when fending off the unbearable stops working. 

As Carl Jung wrote, "what you resist, persists." Unintegrated painful experience can echo through your life as sleep disturbance, anxiety, depression or other problems.

Making a conscious choice to face your demons takes the courage to explore and feel what you have been avoiding. 

When you invite your demons to show themselves–through therapy, meditation, or other practices–you begin the process of integrating the unbearable into conscious awareness. 

Learning to accept and love everything about yourself is at the heart of your transformational journey.

Here are some suggestions for learning to love your demons:

1. Make a conscious choice to open your eyes, ears, and heart to what lies deep within. Get interested in all aspects of your experience.
2. Work with practices that help you develop steady, loving self-observation. Tell your judgement it's time to retire.
3. Self-acceptance, self-love, and self-care should be at the core of your practice.
4. Compassion and forgiveness allow your heart to fully integrate all of who you are. You may find a specific practice helpful, such as this forgiveness meditation by Jack Kornfield.

Facing and loving the shadow aspects of yourself will be a difficult, but rewarding, journey. You will discover things about yourself you never knew and come to love yourself in ways you never thought possible.

You will eventually find a heartfelt stillness inside that will hold you steady no matter what is going on. 

The ability to be fully, calmly present with what is, frees you from suffering.

When it is time, be willing to let go of what no longer works, and nourish your heart and soul with gentleness, kindness, and compassion. 

Love your demons, transform your life!

Be Well,

Rebecca

"Pickard Brook" photo image by Jennifer Hopkins ( http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/ ) with a Creative Commons license.

If you develop the skills to work constructively with anger it can be transformational. If you pay attention, anger will reveal where you hurt–and where you need to heal. 

When you repress anger, you often "act out" in a passive-aggressive way. Repressing anger robs you of your life force. It requires an exhaustive amount of energy to keep anger under wraps. 

The other extreme–constant venting and/or expressing your anger is unproductive, and does not lead to resolution or integration of the underlying issues.

Managing anger with care is about finding a middle ground between the polarities of repression and venting.

It is also important to learn how to express and release anger in a way that does no harm. Hitting, punching, and yelling may help to move anger in the body, but this can hurt. For example, if you lose your voice doing anger work, you are hurting your vocal cords.

Anger often masks hurt, fear and grief.

Anger is like the scab on a wound. If all you do is rip the scab off, it might be satisfying but it doesn't help heal the wound. Unless anger work is accompanied by clearing and integration, it is just scab-picking.

Being skillful with expressing and releasing anger requires insight and the ability to notice when you are angry. Integrative anger work requires proper grounding, embodiment (staying fully present in your body), and insight into the nature of the wound that is activated.

The marker of integrated healing is the feeling of softening in your heart center as well as a greater sense of caring and compassion for yourself.

If you pay attention, your anger can help you understand and heal your psychic wounds. If you release it with care, you will integrate this insight into your consciousness. 

Here are some suggestions for handling anger:

1. Because anger is a very physical energy, pay attention to your body. Breath moves energy. Breathe into the places you are feeling angry, and really receive your breath. 
2. Get grounded. Proper grounding enables you to both release anger and receive healing energy. For more information on grounding see Getting Grounded, Staying Grounded (May 13th post).
3. Once you are grounded, breathing, and tuning into your body, allow yourself to feel. Notice what you feel, along with any corresponding thoughts, and write all of this down. Don't censor yourself, and write as if no one will ever read your words. It is helpful to keep an anger journal–one you use just for processing and healing anger.
4. If you can't sit still with your anger, tune in to what your body needs to do. Whatever you choose–walking, running, jumping rope, hitting a tennis ball–do it mindfully, and with care. Make sure you are breathing. And don't hurt yourself. When you are done moving, get grounded, pay attention to what you are thinking and feeling, and write down everything that comes to mind.  
5. If you have a kind and loving person to share your feelings with, healing and integration will happen more easily. If you don't, you may want to consider finding a "listener" you trust.
6. Do this practice until your anger subsides. For some people, this may need to be an ongoing practice. Don't judge your progress, just do the practice. You are building a caring and compassionate relationship with yourself, and that's what matters.

As you develop the skills to gently and courageously walk through the fire of your anger you will release blocked energies that keep you from being grounded, centered and in your power.

The practice of using care, compassion, and kindness towards yourself is your healing journey–and this practice will fuel your transformation.

The Muse is going on vacation until September.

Until then–

Be Well!

Rebecca

"Fall Maple Leaves" image by Jennifer Hopkins ( http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/ ) with a Creative Commons license.

Our thoughts create our realities. 

Thus, paying attention to the quality of what your mind puts forth in each moment plays a crucial role in the transformation process.

When your mind sucks you into a downward spiral and feeds the demons of judgement, fear, anxiety, and unworthiness, your suffering is sure to increase.

The relationship with yourself lies at the heart of healing and transformation. You will only make progress when you think and feel more kindly towards yourself.

Positive self-regard aligns you with the healing energies of the universe.

Like attracts like.

Maintaining an authentically positive attitude, however, can be challenging. Transforming the quality of thought takes mindfulness, discipline, and lots of practice.

We are not born with a mind that is inclined towards the negative. To the contrary, a negative outlook develops as a result of learning from others such as parents, peers, and teachers. Early depression and the experience of trauma also have an enormous impact on how we think.

Creating mental vibrancy is not about being happy all the time. It is about learning to maintain objectivity and perspective when the mind begins to descend into negative or victimized thinking.

Cultivating a positive attitude is much more complex than using affirmations; it is learning to gently coax thinking/feeling energy into a more positive flow.

So when your mind goes dumpster-diving, how can you get it to shift gears?

Here are some suggestions: 

1. Validate your feelings without indulging your thoughts. If you are dwelling angrily on something, check yourself and gently say ”geez, I must be pretty angry right now.” This is the practice of compassionate mindfulness in action.
2. Bring your focus from your mind to your body. Let your body tell the real story. Is there any part of your body that is uncomfortable? Do you notice which chakra is most activated? What is the energy underlying your negative thoughts?
3. If you can find anything funny or ridiculous about what you are thinking, engage your humor. Humor shifts energy instantaneously. 
4. Make yourself do something productive. The sense of achievement is a surefire way to mobilize more positive energy.
5. Imagine how you would like to feel right now. Even though you aren’t “there,” try to feel it through the use of imagination. If you can imagine a positive feeling you will create it.
6. If all else fails and you just can't get your mind out of its downward spiral, observe and accept your thoughts. Breathe deeply and remember it will pass...

The practice of transforming your thinking from a negative to positive outlook will change your life. 

And you will light the fires of the transformation process!

Be Well,

Rebecca

Lamphire Woods image by Jennifer Hopkins ( http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/ ) with a Creative Commons license