Everyday Enlightenment, page 20
• Now, use your natural powers of imagination to visualize a movie. First, picture a small table. Reach out with your arms and imagine yourself holding the table legs. Feel the table moving up and down. Why? Because a pink bunny is bouncing on that table as on a trampoline; it's bouncing up to grab the ringing telephone on the ceiling. See the bunny grabbing the phone on the ceiling? Then a big automobile comes crashing down through the ceiling and lands on a gigantic, brightly colored orange in the living room, squashing the orange and spraying orange juice all over the blue jeans hanging on the walls. Of course, when you soak blue jeans with orange juice, the fly unzips and a lit cigar falls out, tumbling down into a small fishbowl with a hiss, magically transforming the fishbowl into a television screen. What's on television? The Shopping Channel—featuring a glittering handbag. The handbag opens, and out pops a spinning, jangling alarm clock, then another. The two spinning clocks become the wheels of a motorcycle, which bursts through the television screen and slams into the refrigerator. The refrigerator door opens and out come several pairs of running shoes, which run right up a mountain, and at the top they kick over a huge can of yellow paint. As the yellow paint pours down the mountain, it becomes clear and pure water, turning to a huge waterfall like the Niagara Falls, pouring down to soak many pair of underwear hanging on a clothesline. A bright yellow tennis ball falls out of the underwear and lands on the head of an elderly physicist who, in that moment, has a bright idea.
• Let's run through the movie. The first object you held in your hands was a_____; on it bounced a_____, which grabbed a _____ from the ceiling, which collapsed as an _____ crashed through, landing on the gigantic _____; the juice then soaked the _____hanging on the wall; the zipper opened and the _____ fell into the _____, which turned into a_____, which showed a_____, out of which popped a spinning_____, becoming two, which turned into the wheels of a_____, which burst out of the TV screen and crashed into a _____, out of which came many _____, which ran up a _____, spilling _____, which turned into a huge _____, which the soaked the line, out of which fell a_____, landing on the head of a _____ who had a great idea.
• Now close your eyes and run the movie backward, starting with physicist and ending with table. Have fun with it!
• Finally, if I were to name, say, the orange, which object came before it? _____ And which came after? _____ How about the refrigerator? What came before and after?
Note that you just did something—maybe not perfectly, but respectably well—that you seriously doubted you could do. You could do this, and you can also overcome the next doubt you encounter.
Practicing Courage: As the proverb goes, “Those who bravely dare must sometimes risk a fall.” As a gymnast I used to fall twenty or thirty times a day when attempting to learn new elements. When failure is a typical daily occurrence, it takes the edge off the fear.
There's great value in experiencing failure, rejection, embarrassment, shame. We discover that the sky doesn't fall. Life goes on. And if we keep trying, we continue to improve.
Competence as the Key to Diminished Fear: It's said that we are all ignorant—only about different subjects. Similarly, we are all afraid, only in different circumstances. You or I might feel frightened standing on the edge of a ten-meter diving tower, contemplating a swan dive. Experienced platform divers, however, feel little or no fear in this situation, because such a basic dive no longer represents a risk for them. But when they performed their first swan dive from the platform, or when they attempted a new element they'd never done before, they also felt fear.
Fears diminish as skills improve. As you develop competence, you gain confidence.
Do you doubt that you are a good cook? Do you believe you lack physical coordination or sports talent? Do you think that you are not very good with numbers because of a difficulty with word problems in the fifth grade? Do you believe you lack a gene for hooking up electronic equipment?
Then take this final challenge:
• Find something—anything—that you would like to be good at but doubt that you are (and probably can give reasons why).
• Make a clear and specific goal, such as “I will unplug and disconnect all my electronics equipment, then put it all back together” or “I'll learn a cartwheel” (or other physical skill) or “I'll cook a five-course gourmet meal.”
• Then, once you have your goal, set a realistic, specific time frame. “One of these days” is not quite specific enough.
• Then make a list of things you can do to prepare yourself—a step-by-step plan to learn how to do what you intend to do. This may start with making some phone calls, calling your library for a reference book, getting lessons, or consulting with a friend who is experienced at what you want to learn.
• In other words, pick a goal, take your shot, doubt it if you will, then do it because you can.
Picking goals we doubt, then doing them, is one of the most invigorating, rejuvenating, inspiring things I know of. Remember Bob Dylan's words: “Those who are not busy being born are busy dying.”
Freeing the Body of Fear
Fear begins as a thought, feeling, belief, or expectation, but it ends up stored in your body as physical tension and inhibited or shallow breathing. One way of dealing with fear is to work directly with the body, to clear the fear, which is stored as tension
Professor Oscar Ichazo, founder of the Arica School, proposed that the body has different zones of fear—areas where different fears are stored. By working with your hands to massage these areas, literally right down to the bone, you release both tension and fear from the body.
Chronic fear-produced muscular tension limits movement patterns, causing physical pain or even biological anesthesia (blocked sensation). We begin to restrict ways of moving and thinking, losing degrees of awareness, cleverness, spontaneity, and other cerebral functions. Self-massage enables us to take direct responsibility for clearing the fear-produced tension in our own bodies. By working gently, deeply, respectfully, into each area of stored tension, we produce a more vital, elastic, and youthful body.
Following is a summary of the different zones of fear in the body. Whether or not each zone of fear listed applies in your case, feeling that you are clearing out a ‘particular fear as you work deeply along the muscles and bone surfaces—doing this work as a ritual of purification—has a profound effect. Trust that good instincts will guide your hands to use the right pressure.
You can set aside several hours to do the whole body or do a little bit each day in your free time. (If you spend even five minutes on a single zone each day, by the end of one year you would have spent over thirty hours freeing your body of stored fears and tension.)
You will need a partner to work areas of the back. Use a small amount of massage oil and be sure your fingernails are trimmed. Work slowly and patiently, gently, yet deeply, with an attitude of respect for the body. Begin with a light caress before pressing more deeply.
The Zones of Fear
• Feet (fear of being oneself): Pull, twist, and bend each toe; work the tops of the feet, around the ankle bones, and deeply on bottom of the feet.
• Calves and shins (fear of action): Smooth along the top and edges and each side of the shins; deeply work the upper and lower calves.
• Knees (fear of death): Free the inside/rear of the knee; move the kneecap around and work deeply into the back of the knee.
• Thighs (fear of insufficient capacity): Work around the upper thigh and groin, all muscles around pelvic bones, and deeply into the thigh.
• Genitals, including sitting bones and tailbone (fear of sexuality): Work out all tenderness around genitals, anus, and tailbone.
• Pelvis, from pubic bone to top of sacrum in back (fear of life, shyness): Work deeply around the upper pelvis from spine to pubic bone.
• Diaphragm, bottom ribs down to the pelvic bone (fear of assimilation, eating, breathing, taking one's space in the world): Work under rib cage at the spine around to the solar plexus (below the sternum).
• Rib cage to collarbone (fear of anger, shown as sadness and sighing): Work under the collarbone, the chest muscles, and between each rib.
• Hands, to the top of the wrist bones (fear of doing): Work between all fingers and into the point between thumb bone and index finger.
• Forearm and elbow (fear of punishment): Work the channel between two bones in the elbow joint and from the pit of the elbow to the wrist.
• Shoulder, deltoids, and armpit to elbows (fear of disappointment): Work around muscles at the top of shoulder, then the biceps and armpit.
• Upper back, trapezius, and rhomboids (fear of losing control, inability to delegate puts the weight of the world on one's shoulders): Work under partner's shoulder blades and along all the muscles of the upper back.
• Lower back, from pelvis to shoulder blades (fear of losing): Work along sides of your partner's spine and shoulder blades.
• Base of skull to upper back, trapezius (fear of social blunders): Define all fibers at base of partner's skull down to the upper back muscles.
The Head and Face (done alone or with a partner): Work gently and slowly along all bone surfaces, pressing deeper where tolerable and softer where more sensitive. Smooth forehead from middle to sides. Press your forefinger between the brows and smooth along the bony ridges. Massage temples, cheekbones, around nose, lips, and chin. Work deeply under the jawbones.
Massage external ear, twisting and turning. Vigorously rub scalp.
• Fear of Misunderstanding: Ears, neck area, and mastoid bone
• Worries and Wondering: Forehead from eyebrows to hairline
• Anger: Eyebrow ridges and space between eyebrows Prejudices and Judgments: Eye socket ridges and muscle attachments
• Shame: Cheekbones
• Fear of External Control: Nose
• Fear of Being Disappointed: Lines from base of nose to the mouth
• Fear of Being Disgusted: Mouth, lips, and muscles around the mouth
• Fear of Inferiority: Chin
• Fear of Revulsion (sights, smells, circumstances): Jawbone
This intensive bodywork is designed to clear away the residual tensions associated with past and current fears. It does not make fear go away, only the tension that accompanies it. By eliminating the tension, you'll learn to keep your body relaxed and your mind flexible, so that you can act effectively, decisively, and courageously in the face of fear.
Farewell to Fear
You may have discovered that the more fear you feel in the face of a challenge, the greater your sense of elation when you have conquered it. There are few words in life more satisfying than “I did it!” Each time you face your fear by doing whatever it is you want or need to do, you practice everyday enlightenment. As it turns out, fear is not a wall, but a doorway of opportunity; not the end of the world, but only the beginning. Sometimes we have to make a leap of faith and grow our wings on the way down
The end of one path brings another. Having delved into the core issues of fear in your everyday life, you are ready to enter the next gateway, the shadow-land of your psyche, meeting and illuminating the abandoned and disowned parts of your personality and, in doing so, finding the opportunity of becoming whole.
THE NINTH GATEWAY
Illuminate Your Shadow
As an infant, you were pure potential, full and whole, open and authentic, yielding and powerful, good and bad, disciplined and spontaneous, a container of possibilities. In growing up, you disowned parts of your being that conflicted with emerging values. Creating false self-images, you became “this” but not “that.” Hidden opposites will have their day; it's what you don't see that can hurt you. By illuminating your shadow, you become whole again, and real. Releasing energy once bound in defense of self-image, you find energy, understanding, humility, and compassion.
Cultivating Compassion and Authenticity
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
—Henry David Thoreau
Road Map: The Quest for Authenticity
The ancient Greek sage Socrates advised, above all, “Know thyself.” His most famous student, Plato, wrote in his Dialogues: “The life which is unexamined is not worth living.” These are strong words
A modern sage named Harry Palmer put it this way:
From the time of the ancient Brahmins of India, through the Greek and Roman civilizations, up to the modern deans of the human potential movement, one doctrine, though worded differently, has remained unchanged. It weaves its way in and out of every spiritual practice, every philosophy, and every self-help program. It is, know thyself.
Is this merely an extraordinary piece of good advice that has been passed from generation to generation for ten millenniums or is it something with roots that go deeper? Is it the expression of some essential purpose that inhabits the human soul?
Even the proverbial abandoned child, raised in complete isolation on a deserted island without recognizable language or custom, will one day come to the entrance of this inner path. Who am I? Why do I exist? What is life? These are questions that cannot be satisfied by worldly things. They reveal a path of inquiry that leads inward, through the uncharted turbulence of the mind, into the region of the soul.
In Face Your Fears, you learned of our primal fears of mediocrity—of being unmasked as a charlatan and a fool. These fears do not go away by reassuring ourselves or by playing roles that deceive no one but ourselves. Rather, they are healed as we look deeply into our own shadow to discover that we are fools and charlatans after all—and to find that we are also heroes and knaves, thieves and lovers, wicked imps and holy sages. We are each a diamond of many facets and flaws.
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
—Mark Twain
You are aware of some of your qualities—the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Other aspects you have denied, and with them, you have cut away a part of your power, your creativity, and brilliance. Now is the time to illuminate your shadow, become whole and real, with nothing left to deny or defend.
Having taken an appreciative look at the hidden treasures of the subconscious, you are now prepared to delve deeper, into the shadow realm, where parts of your identity, disowned and abandoned, wait to be reclaimed like lost children.
Why you have rejected aspects of your character, qualities that make up the rich blend of personality and power, will soon be clear. The shadow realm is a realm of fallen angels and fears, where self-image dies and illusion gives way to a new and integrated reality, humility, compassion, and sense of authenticity. You may feel older yet undoubtedly wiser.
Remember that the higher purpose of your explorations in each gateway—and the specific reason that you might want to acknowledge hidden or secret parts of yourself—is to elevate your awareness and attention so that you can experience life more fully and liberate the energy previously used to defend your self-image.
on this exploration you will encounter topics that include contemplations on darkness, light, and becoming whole. You will also shed light on your own shadow as you clarify its meaning and power and consider why you would want to illuminate your shadow in the first place. Then, after exploring time-tested ways of expressing your shadow side in constructive ways, you'll come to the three-question reality check—perhaps the most constructive means ever devised to meet and embrace your shadow and become real and whole.
Darkness and Light
ne night, walking along the street and seeing two menacing figures approach, Socrates told me, “Sometimes you've got to deal with the darkness before you can see the light.” His words are prophetic for all of us.
Where there is light, there is shadow; every outside has an inside; every high has a low; for everything revealed, something remains hidden. Nations, organizations, spiritual groups, religions, and cultures all have their collective shadows. But it is the personal shadow you must embrace to pass through the ninth gateway.
There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.
—Carl Jung
In James Barrie's enchanting tale, Peter Pan loses his shadow at the Darling household, where he had been eavesdropping on Wendy as she told bedtime stories. Peter is forced to risk being discovered—seen for who he is—because he must find his shadow at all costs. And so must we all.
Without his shadow Peter doesn't feel complete, and in fact, he isn't. Whether Barrie understood the deeper significance of his tale or whether it simply flowed from his creative unconscious is less important than the truths his story reveals about all our lives—that we must all find our shadow.
A Self-Assessment
As in previous gateways, it may be useful to reflect upon the following
• If someone offends you, calls you a name, or accuses you of something, do you automatically defend yourself?
• How many times have you stolen and lied? Are you certain?
• Do you sometimes feel resentful when you give more than you receive?
• Are you getting your fair share of life's bounty?
• Do you have some resentments about the mistakes your parents made?
• Do you feel you do more for your spouse or partner than he or she does for you?
• Do you know yourself?
• Are you a good person? Are you also a bad person?
• Name two or three of other people's traits or behaviors that bother you the most. Is there a part of you that would like to behave that way?
As you explore this gateway, you may experience some enlightening insights, for in illuminating your shadow, you realize that in each of us lives a little of all of us, and find within yourself greater authenticity and compassion.
Shedding Light on Your Shadow
