Self Talk #15: Shadows on the Mountain, Exercise #2

In this third segment of her series on the human shadow, Rachel offers a guided meditation to help integrate your shadow aspects and to increase self-acceptance.


Music:
"Ave Marimba"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Carl Young . If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. Du Krishna Murti . Welcome to Self-Talk. I'm Rachel Ante . We're continuing talking about the shadow, and this is the third installment and perhaps the last, who knows, I might wanna talk about it again in the future, but this is the third in a three part series about the human shadow. And the last episode we did an exercise, Ken Wilbur's 3, 2, 1 process where we look at how the shadow is projected and how we can absorb or eat that shadow. This time we're going to do something a little bit different, and that is that we're going to do a guided meditation, which I hope you'll join me in. This meditation is a variation on the teachings in the book, the Zen Path , through Depression by Philip Martin . So let's begin. Find a comfortable place for you to relax for the next few minutes where you will be undisturbed, where it's quiet, and where you feel comfortable and safe. You may choose to lie down for this meditation, or you can choose to sit up. Either way, make sure that your legs are uncrossed and that your arms are, if you're sitting, resting in your lap, and if you're lying down, resting at your sides. Once you're comfortable, begin by taking a few deep breaths in and out. So we'll inhale very deeply through your nose. Hold for about three seconds and exhale through your mouth. Inhale deeply through your nose and hold for three seconds and exhale through your mouth. Exhaling as much of the air as you can. And one final deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Now you can begin to let your breathing regulate naturally. Start by feeling your body. What does your body feel like right now? Drop in and as you breathe, settle into your body. Settle into the chair you're sitting in or feel the ground beneath you if you're lying down. Continuing to breathe . Pay attention if there's any part of your body that's feeling tension. And you can take a nice deep breath in focusing on that area. And as you exhale, release the tension in that part of your body, making a quick check of your eyes, relaxing your eyes, all the muscles around them, your jaw relaxing, your shoulders. Pull your attention down to your belly, letting it relax. Let the muscles relax, focusing on the lower back and your legs, letting all the muscles relax in the legs. Moving across to your hands, letting your hands relax, focusing on your ankles and your feet. Feel your feet good. Now, taking another nice deep breath in through your nose, holding for three seconds and exhaling through the mouth. And just feel what it's like to be in this peaceful state. And as you're drifting in this peaceful place, begin to have an image come into view of yourself. Sitting at the top of a mountain, there's a nice flat area for you to sit comfortably. Perhaps you're sitting in half lotus, whether you can do it or not in real life doesn't matter. Sitting in an upright meditative position, comfortably feeling the ground beneath you. As you breathe, you're breathing in the cool mountain air, the plant life around you. Perhaps you're feeling the breeze against your cheeks in all a very peaceful and loving place. And now you open your eyes just slightly and see that beneath you. A little lower on the mountain is a plateau, a space, much like the one you are sitting on, but much larger. Invite now to sit with you. All the parts of yourself that you love. They look just like you. Just like what you're wearing now, just like the way your hair is this moment mirror images of you. But these are the aspects of yourself that you love. Your joyfulness, your friendship, your happiness, your love of animals, being a good parent or child or citizen. The parts of you that love physical aspects of yourself , the part of you that recycles the way that you show up in the world in a positive way. All of these elements of yourself are now gathering on the plateau and sitting just like you in meditative position facing you. Little mirror images of all the beloved aspects of yourself scattered across the plateau. And of course, this feels wonderful to see reflected toward you all the beauty of what you are and how you perceive yourself to be. So take a nice deep breath with all of those beloved aspects of yourself, all of you at once in and exhaling through the mouth, all in unison. Good. And now I'd like you to invite to the plateau all of the parts of yourself that you do not love. The parts of you that you may be ashamed of or dislike or have rejected or do your best to move past. So that may be your anger or jealousy or quick temper . The parts of you that you don't like physically all embodied, your perceived lack of intelligence, your sadness, your depression, the labels that have kept you back, that you believe in, whatever they may be. Invite all of these unloved parts of yourself to the plateau. And as they arrive, have them partner up with a beloved part of yourself. So perhaps jealousy sits next to joy again in meditative position, very near knees touching. Perhaps anger sits next to playfulness. And certainly the rejected physical parts of yourself has a warm place next to the parts of yourself that you accept physically and they touch knees. And it may be that there are more unloved parts of yourself right now than there are beloved parts of yourself. So double up , have envy and jealousy sit next to joy. So let everyone settle in for a moment. Really welcome each one as they enter the plateau. Good. And now that everyone is seated, all facing you all together, take a moment to sit and peacefully breathe with all aspects of yourself. No judgements , no separation. In fact, if you look out over the plateau, you can no longer tell which are the beloved parts and which are the rejected parts because they all look the same, all facing you, all seated in meditative position, eyes closed and ready to breathe with you. So go ahead and lead that breathing with one long, deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. And go ahead and continue the breathing on your own, just being with all the parts of yourself and with one final deep breath in and out. Imagine now that all of these mirror representations of yourself on the plateau begin to merge all together into one entity. Could be a glowing ball of light. It could be one ghost-like shadowy spirit image of yourself. But imagine that now and allow that being or that orb of light to move toward you and directly into your heart space, absorb all of the beloved parts of yourself. Because now even the darkest parts of yourself have learned to be beloved parts of yourself. And you can absorb them the same way you all breathed in unison. You breathe in unison now. And when you're ready, take a deep breath in through your nose, holding it for three seconds. And exhale as much air as you can through your mouth slowly. And when you are ready, open your eyes. You may wish to write in your journal about your experiences with this exercise. If not, you may wish to. Just sit with it for a moment after this podcast is over and see what comes up for you. Until next time, many blessings on your path. Thank you for joining me on self-Talk. I'm Rachel Este . Aho .