You Are the Light
Winter solstice marks the shift into lighter days...
May we remember that the Light is always with us because we are that Light.
Prefer to listen to this post?! Listen on youtube or right here
As I came back to the draft of this newsletter with tips for the holidays and full intention to finally send it, it has taken yet another form inspired by Winter Solstice. The second line of the Asatoma Mantra Tamasoma Jyotir Gamaya translates to lead me from darkness to Light. The Light that is referred to is not the opposite of darkness... it is the Light of Awareness that holds both darkness and light in the same Light. The Light of Awareness or consciousness holds all experiences of life in the same Light, it is the field in which all experiences arise out of and dissolve back into because all of life is impermanent and changing, but the one thing that never changes is that Awareness and we have a choice to live in conscious Awareness or unconscious Awareness.
If this feels a little heady or esoteric, let me bring it back to more practical application. Be with what is showing up. Be knowingly aware in both the darkest of moments and the brightest of times. Instead of getting entangled in thoughts or emotions with what's showing up or going the opposite direction by avoiding, BE Present with an evenness of mind. Often people say this evenness sounds like apathy; in fact it is quite the opposite because you are fully involved with life instead of your mind's thoughts about life.
Did I fall off the esoteric deep end again?! Well while I am down here, a little insight from the Atma Gita, a Yogic text:
53 “No pleasure, no pain can affect my true Self
Both suff’ring and pleasure belong to the mind
The Self is the witness of all the mind’s play
Remaining forevermore conscious and free.
54 “The Self, like an object reflected in glass
Appears to be mind and the whole universe
And man, by forgetting his identity,
Is lost in delusion and knows misery.
57 “None other can cause me to know joy or pain
For I am forever the unchanging One
The sense of delight or of sadness I find
Comes from the false notion that I am the mind.
58 “the body and mind are both subject to change,
But I am the One in whom all is contained.
In freedom forever, beyond shame or fear,
The sweet blissful Self is the one I hold dear.”
Wow! What a direct description of recognizing we are the not the constructs of our mind and the power that comes from realizing that!
Below are a few ways to establish yourself in Presence or the Light of Awareness which can be handy anytime... but especially during the holidays.
1. I just finished a stress relief series that offered tools one can use in real time and the first tool is Conscious Feeling. When you have a circulating story running in the head, when you have stress producing thoughts, shift your attention to sensations in the body. Sensations as they are without commentary or judgment. The feeling state shifts you out of the past [the mind] and into the present. This also gives space and permission for what’s there; by giving whatever is arising some attention, you might notice it changes naturally.
2. Use your Breath. Every emotion has a correlating breath pattern. Change your breath, change your physiology. Slow your breath down to “short circuit” the wiring of an unhelpful belief or unconscious pattern- the mind's version of tv reruns. Just like conscious feeling, the breath can only be experienced in the here and now, so attention on your breath pulls you out of the past and into the present. As I have mentioned previously, it’s not about using the breath to get rid of what’s coming up, instead it is a way to slow everything down so that you can consciously feel the here and now.
3. If there's something that is lingering or feels incomplete, find a time that feels safe and appropriate to allow yourself to fully feel what’s arising from a situation by using the Energetic Diffusion Technique. Practice with this recording and you might find that you can eventually guide yourself through the steps without the recording. Or you might lead yourself through an abridged version in real time during a situation. You’ll notice EDT uses both conscious feeling and the breath, and uses it in a way to allow instead of control or get rid of it. Through this allowing, you’ll find it eventually softens or dissipates or in the least you can experience some ease with whatever is happening.