Facing the Darkness: A Powerful Healing Experience February 20, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Spirituality, Warrior/Divine Masculine, blog , 5comments
Have you ever had a period in your life where you felt stuck and overcome by your habitual patterns unable to break free? That has been my life over the last few months and it seemed like no matter what I tried to do it would not work out. Either I was too confused to know where to direct my energy or when I did have a direction no matter how much effort I put forth it would still be unsuccessful. I felt a deepening frustration and an increasing darkness overtaking me and nothing was working to break free of it despite much effort. I have a pretty strong spiritual practice but it did not seem to be able to penetrate whatever it was I was struggling with. So as I do when I’m feeling confused or lost I asked for guidance from the universe, from my guides. Usually that involves putting out a request for help and then opening to receiving the guidance in whatever form it might take. In this instance I received a response immediately as if it had been right there waiting all along. The response was Daime, a form of Ayahausca from the Santo Daime tradition originating of Brazil.
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Becoming the Peaceful Warrior February 5, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, blog , 1 comment so far
I’ve written about the warrior archetype and the way it is played out in a destructive way in our society today (See “The Warrior Archetype and the Reemergence of the Goddess“). Lately I’ve become more aware of the importance of this powerful archetype both for myself and the collective. You see for much of my life I’ve embodied the negative warrior both within and without. In my view, the negative warrior is characterized by aggression, defensiveness and destructiveness. Underlying this is vulnerability and fear, a soft underbelly that needs to be protected at all costs. The negative warrior feels isolated and separate and at war with the world as well as in a constant state of inner conflict. Aggression and defensiveness are the weapons of the negative warrior as he fights to protect an inner core of painful vulnerable feeling from anything that would threaten to expose it fearing that would bring his destruction. This inner core of feeling may have been created early in life by trauma that was never healed or by the experience of being punished for openly expressing emotion causing it to be repressed out of fear of that punishment as is so common in our culture.
Cultivating Joy January 24, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, blog , 1 comment so far
I’ve been doing so much inner work lately that not only can it feel overwhelming but it can get pretty depressing at times even though confronting and integrating inner darkness and pain is necessary for healing and freedom. However I can get lost in the darkness and unconsciousness which is a risk in doing inner work and represents going to an extreme and becoming invested in the darkness that one is trying to illuminate and heal. At this point we can become cut off from the very element which will heal the darkness, Joy. I want to distinguish here between happiness and joy. I consider happiness to mean a good mood, basically feeling good usually in relation to pleasant conditions whether within or without. Happiness from this perspective is a temporary surface mind state. Joy on the other hand is much deeper than happiness, it is a blissful state that emanates from the core of our being, a reflection of our true nature. Joy is not dependent on conditions because it emerges from a place beyond conditions or the details of our life situation. Therefore joy is always accessible even when happiness is not. It is a profound sense of empowerment, calm and ok-ness even in the midst of chaos and turmoil.
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The Healing Power of Trees January 13, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Divine Feminine/Goddess, Healing, Spirituality, articles , 1 comment so far
I love trees, I always have. I love the natural world but for some reason trees have always had a special meaning and a special power for me. The reverence and appreciation I feel for them can be intense and lately I’ve made it a daily practice to connect and work with them. They are a great teacher for me and they demonstrate and symbolize how to live in the world with grace, groundedness, openness and connectedness. They help me move energy by connecting me with the Earth and acting as a channel for its energy. They comfort me when I’m feeling lost and help me get to my feelings. They provide a natural temple to connect with Spirit, the Goddess and the power of the Earth. Its really too bad they aren’t appreciated more for what they have to offer people as well as what we can do for them because I think we are meant to work together.
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Feeding your Demons November 16, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , 4comments
Have you had the experience of having intentions, goals and aspirations that you are passionate about but never seem to fully come to fruition? Do you find yourself struggling with habits, addictions or feeling stuck in familiar patterns in your life that no longer serve you but resist your efforts at change? Do you ever feel like there is a part of you that is working against your wishes? Well for me the answer to these questions has been most definitely YES, and for a long time my response was to increase my effort and fight against the tendencies in me that I found to be obstacles or to throw up my hands in frustration and sink into depression. However I began to realize the more I struggled to rid myself of the qualities I didn’t like about myself, the more I tried to force change by sheer effort and willpower and the more I judged myself for not succeeding the way I felt I should I only made these seemingly opposing forces or qualities stronger. Recently I discovered a powerful practice that directly addresses this issue which is known as “Feeding Your Demons”. Having put it into practice I find my life transforming in amazing and powerful ways and I don’t find myself so much in conflict. Feeding your demons is an old Tibetan practice known as Chud which originated in the 12th century with a female Yogini named Machig Labdron. It is presented in a very simple and accessible Western context by Buddhist teacher Tsultrim Allione in her book “Feeding your Demons” (see resources section).
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Mindfulness and the practice of RAIN September 24, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, articles , add a comment
Most people have heard of mindfulness, like meditation it has become a fairly common term in general use. It has also become more accepted in western psychology as having therapeutic benefit. Many books have been written on the topic and yet there remains much confusion in terms of just what mindfulness is and how to apply it on a daily basis to heal and find greater freedom, this is especially true with regard to difficult or emotional situations, its easier to be mindful of a sunset compared to the intense anger in a fight with a partner. While the definition of mindfulness varies I would describe it as a gentle, focused, compassionate attention. A quality of spaciously noticing what is happening whether it be within or without. In the west today there has developed a tradition of Buddhist training and practice that is mixed with western psychology. From this tradition, represented by Psychologist/Buddhist Teachers such as Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, a very practical application of mindfulness practice has emerged that can be readily applied in daily life especially with difficult issues or situations.
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Dropping our story September 16, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, articles , 2comments
Meditation has been one of the most powerful healing techniques that I’ve ever encountered and I’ve used it extensively on my own path as well as regularly offering it to those I work with. The power behind it lies in its ability to help one touch the core of their being, their inner most nature which from my perspective is limitless in every way, this includes limitless joy, abundance, power, love, healing and compassion. Meditation and mindfulness practice also help to break through the mental stories that we overlay on so many of our experiences and bring us back in contact with raw feeling and experience.
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The Warrior Archetype and the Reemergence of the Goddess July 26, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Divine Feminine/Goddess, Psychology, Spirituality, Warrior/Divine Masculine, articles , 1 comment so far
For the past few thousand years we have lived in a patriarchal paradigm where the masculine has been over emphasized at the expense of the feminine. This has produced not only the oppression of women, constant war and violence but also inner conflict for both men and women as each struggles to be whole human beings in a world where an imbalanced ideal is cherished. The result of the over emphasis on the masculine has resulted in it taking a negative form as the feminine is devalued and even systematically repressed. This negative masculine form is cut off from its feminine side and so is out of balance and taken to an extreme in a futile attempt to compensate for the lack of grounding in the feminine. This is symbolized by two archetypal patterns in particular, that of the Negative Father and the Warrior. The Negative Father is the authoritarian head of the household who rules the family and is often the source of abuse, sexual misconduct and control. This pattern is also seen in the authoritarian governments that have become the norm where the government represents the ultimate controlling punitive father figure for its citizens. This isn’t to say all fathers fall into this pattern but it is symbolic of a key aspect of patriarchal power. As a counselor I see many clients who have a figure in their lives in the role of the Negative Father and much of their work in counseling involves working through trauma associated with that as well as reclaiming their power from that figure and this includes men and women.
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