Category: Awareness

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facing despair

Gangaji speaks about the essential jump – where we plunge our consciousness all the way through whatever identities we have believed ourselves to be – into the abyss of despair.  This may not sound like the most fun way to spend your time…and in truth, most of us take drastic measures to avoid this gnawing pit. But at some point, we must be willing to recognize that when we continually avoid this deep wound, we build up a storyline on top of it that is fuelled on a very deep (almost imperceptible) level by avoidance of this foggy and miserable sadness.  So we end up carrying that sadness everywhere – and as you know, it comes up through the cracks in all sorts of crazy (and crazy-making) ways.

So eventually, we must face this abyss. Life will carry us to this most mysterious choice-less decision to consciously and willingly explore this churning darkness.  Arriving at this moment is the most terrifying and sacred gift.  We know we must jump into this abyss unarmed, unprotected, undefended… we must be willing to free fall into the centre of it – with no escape hatch.

Until we face this most essential wound – we live in avoidance of it.  Many of you already know this is so in your own life.

I am here to tell you there is no hard landing at the bottom of this jump.  When we are truly willing to face – to open ourselves to fully face and feel this despair – to let it break our hearts – and to continue going towards the most excruciating epicentre of it anyway…. there is something tremendously alive, vibrantly conscious and profoundly loving waiting ~for you~ at the centre.  Once we fully recognize the truth of ourself – not as a concept or some lovely idea we’ve heard from someone else, but directly for ourselves… there is a realization that it cannot ever be (and never was) unmet.  The mind cannot ever grasp this – and if it tells you it has, that is not the truth….

There is a catch though, we can’t dive in looking for this ‘something at the centre’… we must go in fully willing to let it consume us completely… to be fully devastated by our own despair….. not ‘for a little while’  or for ‘just a peek’ – but an eyes wide open, deep dive into the possible foreverness of this despair.

The despair is the flagging tape, showing you where the portage starts – through a tangled forest to the long-forgotten, long-avoided well – the abyss.

This is a most sacred journey.

So much love and support – and encouragement <3

L.

ps email me if you would like to book some time with me!…..xoxo

theawakeningheart@laurapshaw.com

 

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who is the thinker?

True self-inquiry, that teachers like Gangaji, Byron Katie, Mooji and Dr. Kathryn Jefferies invite, is both terrifying and liberating.  The actual inquiring is a journey that each of us must take alone.  I have found that once we get familiar with ‘checking’ our thinking, then we can start to ‘check’ WHO the ‘thinker’ is?  Here’s what ‘inquiry’ has looked like in my experience.

Ask: ‘on who’s behalf am I engaging all these thoughts, emotions, craziness….?”

“On my behalf!!” 

“but who is that ‘my’?”  

“ME!!  The ‘me’ in this body, the ‘me’ that’s always been here….”

“ok, but where is that ‘me’ right now?  Try to access that ‘me’ without digging into the past….”

“it just is who I am”

“but who is that ‘I’? – look carefully”

 “Argh!!  I don’t know… now I’m confused… I don’t know what’s here now…..”

 “yes, go into that ‘don’t-know'”

  …… (long pause)…..”There is no ‘real’ ‘I’ there – I can pull up thoughts/accomplishments/ things of the past to create or give proof of a sense of ‘me’ that has existed and still claims to exist, but I have to rely on the past for that to hold water.  Right now, none of that is actually here.”

“and so who needs to defend itself now?”

“no-one, there is no person actually there that needs defence….”

“and how are all those emotions and thoughts met now?”

“just with space, no resistance there whatsoever – only the idea of ‘me’ brings on tremendous resistance…..when that idea is let go of, anything can come freely…. wow”

So when we see that this ‘me’ that we are so sure of, actually only exists as an idea in our mind on who’s behalf we have been defending, justifying, and experiencing all of life , the bottom of that compelling idea no longer has anything to keep it together and just falls away.  The idea of ‘me’ has been seen and we are left in (and as) the awareness that sees……This awareness is unaffected by whatever thought or emotion arises – as they will.

This is not a concept to intellectualize or a belief to adopt – it must be experienced for oneself.  If you come back from the journey ‘knowing’ something, you haven’t quite gotten to the bottom of those deep deep taproots of ‘me’.

What remains when all else is seen is your true self.

Much love xx

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We do not control our thoughts

I realized once again today that the thoughts that bubble up are as unexpected as the dragonfly that just zipped by my window.

I was reading some incredible writing by my dear friend Dr. Kathryn Jefferies, and in it, she reflects on how we automatically believe our thoughts because we believe there is personal agency in creating them.  If we really inquire into this directly, experientially, (just try to predict your next thought!!), we see that the thoughts that arise are not within our realm of ‘control’.  Personal agency does come in however, when it comes to what we do (to ourselves and to others) with those thoughts.

Right now my practice is to notice what is noticing my thoughts. I’m marinating my attention in that space, that awareness behind thought (which is my true self).  I can see the ‘known’ path of thought-emotion-action, and I can still often feel the pull to go down that path.  But I also see that that path is propelled by a thought (a vivid and persuasive image in my head that says something has to be done, fixed, changed or created to make something better) not by the simple, peaceful, already-whole, already here, truth of being.

I used to have so much loyalty to my thoughts – I truly believed my job was to take the best action I could in response to whatever thoughts and emotions came up.  Now I see the power all those thoughts had over me, because of my belief in them.  Through inquiry, I’m checking them out a bit more carefully before taking any action (because I’ve seen how harmful the action I take can be – even if the action is allowing myself to stew in stress and therefore miss great moments being truly present with my kids).  So now as I check the thoughts  (at least the ones that get me internally hung up on something), I’m able to stop myself from going down that (unconscious) path.

And, a new way of being present to the depth, beauty, humour and mystery of reality is constantly taking me by surprise.