Awakening to the Energies of the Self(31 slides)

Creatively compiled by dr. michael farnworth

There are few things more challenging than to awaken to the energies which we have

hidden from our self over the years.

It becomes a difficult journey which we can turn away from easily and at any time.

Most of us will shrink before the adventure.

But if you are interested in the journey, be attentive…

• What I am going to share with you next will not make any psychological sense even if it makes intellectual sense.

• The psychological meaning only comes as you awaken and taste the energies that you have spent your life being defended from.

• You must take the journey alone but there will be guides and teachers along the way to direct and help you… they will originate in your inner and outer kingdom, as you are ready.

See what sense you can make of the next idea as it metaphorically describes the nature of the journey towards the Self… it deserves

pondering.

Reread it multiple times…

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

• “Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be all alone, we will be with all the world.”

Before going on…

• See if you can, in your own words, describe the general idea of what Joseph Campbell is inviting us to understand.

• If you can’t stay with it until you can and before going on…

Quiz:The quote talks of our intent of needing to

slay another but we end up slaying our self…

Please explain.

At least give it a try.

Slaying Our Self

• The death or slaying of self has to occur before a rebirth. The death is in preparation for the change. The slaying of the self is the death of the ego so it no longer betrays the Self but becomes its nurturer.

• This death/rebirth is the awakening adventure and journey that is metaphorically core in embracing ourselves and Life.

• It is a gift from Life but we need to be intimate and enlightened enough to know to even ask for it and even though it will be the last thing we will want to do.

The issues of intimacy and energies…• Intimacy is the act of sharing feelings, positive and

negative ones.

• Self intimacy is based upon an awareness of the energies of the inner kingdom, your heart/body specifically.

• The energies are the sacred blueprint for providing feedback to your soul about what is happening to you.

• To be shut off from them is the basis of the psychological disconnect in your life.

Energies and culture…

• This culture views energies as a nuisance and weakness.

• We are typically shamed for our energies when we were growing up and because of that we learned to start pretending.

• We also got into trouble for our energies of anger, fear and sadness and we learned to suppress the ones that created problems for us.

Over time…

• Over time we began a slow disconnect from the sacred feedback system that was to keep us in touch with who we were and to what was happening to us.

• This disconnect was with the self and represents the loss of sanctuary that is the psychological heritage of each.

The disconnect taught us…

• It taught us not to take ourselves seriously.

• It taught us that we were not important.

• It taught us that our feelings were stupid and weak.

• It taught us that we cannot trust ourselves.

• It taught us that our value was not in who we were but in a role that we could play.

• It taught us dishonesty in who we were and in what we were experiencing.

To compensate for the disconnect:

• To compensate for the disconnect many of us embraced vanity and pride as a way of coping.

• We became obsessed with controlling ourselves and others.

• We became grandiose.

• We became shut down and defended.

• We hide our fear and contempt behind the roles we play but are forever fearful others will discover the hidden ugliness of our true natures.

• We became role plays.

Now as a side light or short detour…

• To the person who is still defended and asleep in the cultural slumber of death this will make no sense.

• They will wonder about the hiding and contempt but will see themselves as liking themselves just fine.

• To that person this will be just an intellectual curiosity but will not ring true or appropriate… so don’t worry about it as it doesn’t apply to you.

To those that feel the truth of what has been explained…

• We come now to the part that is easy to explain but that hides from those who are not ready to hear.

• Your own readiness and receptiveness is a personal quest and cannot be forced or controlled… but can be invited.

• Your surrendering to the energies of the journey will be the most difficult and scary thing about the trip.

First, a paradigm shift…

• I believe that energies are the most sacred thing about you and the essence of your psychological natures in Life.

• Energies, emotions, feelings are manifestations of your sacred character.

• • Energies are our teachers. They help us understand what

occurred to us growing up.

The Drama of the Gifted Child page 55, Alice Miller

• “It was not the beautiful or pleasant feelings that gave me new insight but the ones against which I had fought most strongly: feelings that made me experience myself as shaggy, petty, mean, helpless, humiliated, demanding, resentful, or confused; and above all, sad and lonely. It was precisely through these experiences, which I had shunned for so long, that I became certain that I now understand something about my life, stemming from the core of my being, something that I could not have learned from any book.”

Now, that being the case…

• If you want to reconnect to your inner being- you are going to have to embrace the vulnerability, fear, anger, sadness, shame, disgust, humiliation, contempt, hurt and pain of childhood.

• The very thing you have spent a lifetime becoming defended about… you are going to welcome back into your life.

Grieving is the work of healing…

• One allows and invites back into their awareness the energies of their wounded childhoods.

• The energies will envelope and surround them and instead of shutting down because of the anxiety they create they are allowed to exist so that they can teach you what it is that happened to you. They are the corridor through which you must walk to reconnect.

• The corridor of grief, sadness and pain.

If you refuse the invitation…

• Then you will pretty much remain the same as you are now and have been.

• The changes that you will make and have made will be pretty much self serving and self created… with nothing much of substance really changed.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way…

• “As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.”

Mere Christianity p.154

Re-sown to what?

• Re-sown into who you really are. This death of ego is the evolution of the Self that is waiting and wanting to be embraced.

• When one is re-sown the heart is changed due to the death of the ego and the change of heart is essential to the awakening/rebirth process.

• Paradoxically it is a metaphorical child who is waiting to be

welcomed.

The child in all of us…generates a lot of contempt!

• This metaphorical child, is the vulnerable, hiding, scared child of your past.

• What kind of awakening could you experience if you surrendered your pride, vainness, grandiosity, arrogance, role plays, defendedness and fear?

• These are the things keeping you asleep and in contempt of yourself! Can you surrender?

How can you access the hidden world of old brain energies…

• The energies:

• Forgotten• Repressed• Disassociated• Suppressed• Denied• Idealized• Defended

Exploring childhood memories…this is important so please take the time

• 1. Recall your earliest memories…• 2. “Freeze frame” the clearest parts…• 3. Nurture the strongest energy attached to the

memory…• 4. Explore what present behavior is consistent with the

memory’s feelings*.

•It is an interesting aside that we typically only remember those memories that are consistent with the present view we have of ourselves.

Daddy Hung Me Out by A.R.Mitchell

• He hung me next to the load of dripping clothes. I was just a child! Couldn’t walk! Couldn't talk! Too frozen stiff to cry! But strong enough to clench my monkey fists around the line. I still can see the pomegranate bush.

• Yes I dropped. Of course I dropped, I was just a babe, not yet walking, not potty-trained. Of course my daddy caught me, cuddled me, laughed his husky dammed-if-she-didn’t-do –it laugh and handed the ice to Mama. I thawed in tears.

• I tell Mama, I knew the pomegranates, the deep blue sky, the cruelty. “No- you were too young to remember.” But I do. “Angel,” she says, “You were such a strong-willed child and Daddy was never so proud as when you hung.”

Simple by becoming awake enough to know where to look.

• Your inner kingdom is the source of your reality and selfhood. It alone, holds the key to helping you understand what happened to you. Your history is essentially unique.

• The outer kingdom of social acceptability belongs to the superficial things of this world. Its powers, attractions and pulls are legion and seductive.

The courage to suffer…

• Compassion means to “suffer with”…

• Do you have the courage to suffer, grieve, experience the energies of your past?

• Is depression the result of having given up the self?

• Is the freedom to be yourself bound up in past punishments and deprivations?

• Where is your passion in life? Are you brave enough to feel your feelings?

The false self…

• The false self needs to give up the stage to the true Self… and the true one is fashioned after Life.

• The compassion and love for the sacred creation of that Metaphorical child is what the awakening is about.

• And I’m referring to you. Please take yourself and your history seriously.

A final invitation…

• Awakening from the cultural slumber is not easy, so meditate for the experiences and guides needed to continue your journey.

• Want your awakening and rebirth to a deeper order reality. An order of reality more consistent with your deeper desires of Life.

the end