The Contraction You Cannot Will Away
La contracción que no puedes eliminar con la voluntad
A student asks about a persistent contraction in the heart center that seems to resist every method of healing, and the conversation opens into the relationship between stillness, fear, and fully entering life.
The Contraction You Cannot Will Away
A student asks about a persistent contraction in the heart center that seems to resist every method of healing, and the conversation opens into the relationship between stillness, fear, and fully entering life.
I have this contraction in my heart, and it's been there for a very long time. I do a lot of meeting it, feeling it, observing the different sensations. Every time I meet it there's some release, and then it just recontracts again. It's a constant state of contraction, release, contraction, release. My sense is that this is the gripping of the separate self, the center of that identification. Whenever I do inquiry into it, it gets so much louder and intensified. Then I sit with that and allow it to just be there. I've tried two different approaches: being unaffected and observing, or merging with it completely. They produce slightly different results, but it's still the same in the end. It's always there. It recontracts again. It doesn't feel like I get to the root of it. I'm wondering if you might have a suggestion for how to approach it. At certain times, when I'm in peace and presence, I won't necessarily notice it. But if I put attention on it, it's always there.
With this kind of deep experience, it's always a bit of a mystery how to approach and work with it. You've approached it from, in a sense, all the right angles: self-inquiry, meeting it, feeling it, that kind of relationship. I'm wondering if you've explored listening to what it is saying, in the sense of what it wants, what it needs, and being open to it being a lot more than what might be easy to hear. Because you're saying it's in your heart center, it might be, for example, a huge desire for something in life, something that's not necessarily what we'd call spiritual. Something you want to live.
The direction that reverses
A great deal of the direction in spiritual work is speaking to people who are running away from deeper sensation, from meeting the inner world. So there's all this guidance around going inward. But sometimes the opposite is true, or more what works, especially if we have already done a lot of going inward. I'm wondering if you've explored what this contraction would be asking for, what it might want around something in life that is big and scary. The way I often phrase it is: look at what you want as if you are the universe wanting something through you.
I've definitely explored that. In every therapy session, I work with this from every angle: talking to my inner child, feeling into what it wants. It's interesting because the things I'm most passionate about in life all became irrelevant the deeper I went into non-duality. But even when I try to reopen my passion for those things, I find that when I engage with them, this heart contraction gets so loud. It manifests as total exhaustion in my body. There's some kind of resistance or fighting, even for the things I love. I'll do them and then need to rest for a long time after. The most peace I get is when I don't do anything, when I just sit in meditation. It could be what you say, that there's something in me that wants to live and wants to do these things, but whatever resistance shows up, I can't get to what it's about. It's just fear and anxiety. There are no stories, no thoughts around it. When I ask, all I hear is: I'm scared.
So this contraction in your heart center is fear.
Definitely. And there are waves of grief. I used to cry all the time, and I would allow the crying, and that felt good. But then the crying mostly stopped, and now it's mostly anxiety. If I dig and try to put a story to it, that will allow me to cry more, but I don't think that's the way.
No, not that.
What we fear most is what we want most
Because it's a fear, and you can't name what the fear is of or about, that usually means it's deeper. Ultimately, what we fear the most is what we want the most. You've mentioned the word peace. I'm wondering if what you're contracting around and afraid of is a kind of peace, well-being, joy, or expansiveness that you also long for, but there's something in us that can't have both. We can't fully be in that which we long for the most and remain the same. Something has to give.
I didn't quite catch that. What can't remain the same?
If you were to fully open up to what you long for (peace, joy, well-being, expansiveness, freedom), you cannot remain the same. Something has to give. When we're meeting deeper sensations, deeper fears, deeper pains that are hard to grasp within a story or find the cause, that's what it's about. It's not about leaving something specifically, and it's not about meeting the sensation either, because the sensation is ultimately the resistance to what is, the resistance to what we want, the resistance to the love that is here, that we are. In order for us to fully realize that and know that directly, something in us has to give, has to change, has to end. We often struggle because we want it both ways.
That's why I have this sense that this is like the death of me sitting there, and that's what I'm dancing around. But it's not like I have an opportunity to just meet it fully. It feels like I'm dancing around the edge.
If you're noticing that on a regular basis, you are meeting it.
But it feels like if I were meeting it fully, I would disappear into it and it wouldn't be there.
The edge you cannot willingly jump off
That's a story. It's more mysterious than that. All you can do is be aware of it and get as close as you can. But there's an edge you can't willingly jump off. That's not in your hands. It's not in the hands of what you know yourself to be, not in the hands of the "you" that can do something. What is in your hands is to do what you're doing: get close to it and do all you can. But you can't willingly jump off that edge through your own personal will. What can be done is to keep seeing, keep looking, and keep looking from as close as you can.
Maybe there's a desire to have one-pointed focus on what to approach it with, because I have so many methods right now that I'm jumping around with.
That's my point. All of that is going to, at some point, only take you so far. All of those are strategies, and strategies are ultimately about changing what is. There's a lot that needs to be changed, but there's a point where we simply can't change. We can't end something that's not real; we can only see that it's not real.
If you want a strategy, I would recommend the strategy of letting that contraction be there, even if it's going to be there for the rest of your life.
I feel like I've done that, because it's literally been here for years and I've lived with it.
But you're still trying to get rid of it. It's the first thing you brought up.
Yeah, definitely. There's not a full surrender. I've had periods where I'm like, "Okay, this is here, I'm not touching it, I'm not trying to change it." So I've tried that on, even though it doesn't stay.
Welcoming with a bat behind your back
That's a strategy to see if it ends. You tried it for a couple of months, it didn't work, and now you're on to a new strategy. This reminds me of a way Francis Lucille points to this. He says: if you're welcoming a friend, you have a big smile, you open the door, but behind your back you're holding a bat. The minute your guest is a little distracted, you knock them out. That's the strategy of "I'm welcoming the sensation" for a month, and as soon as there's a chance, you're trying to get rid of it. That's not a true, honest welcoming.
The real question is: if this contraction were there for the rest of your life, can you be okay with it? Can you just live your life and have that be there? But if you approach that as a way to get rid of it, then that's what it's going to mirror back to you: the subtle ways in which you are actually more deeply resisting.
The challenge I have with that is that I still do my non-dual practice. I still want to do inquiry. That's what's there. I don't want to feel like I'm avoiding it, and I don't want to feel like I'm just letting it sit.
I hear you, but if the non-dual practice is about getting rid of that contraction, it's not a true, deep non-dual practice.
I wouldn't say it's about getting rid of it all the time. When I'm engaged in the practice, it's about curiosity, going deep, wanting to meet it or learn about it, like a child crying and asking for my attention.
What non-dual practice actually is
That's not a non-dual practice. That's a therapeutic healing practice, which is very valid and valuable. But a non-dual practice is about understanding the nature of reality and the question: who or what am I?
I've been given so many different non-dual practices. That's just one of the many things I've heard. Recently I've been asking: who is afraid? Who is feeling this?
That's closer. There are many different approaches to experience, but ultimately a non-dual practice is not about what's being experienced. It's not about changing the appearance. Everything you can describe (anxiety, the heart contraction, fear) is appearance. I'll be the first to say that I'm not exclusively a non-dual teacher. It's one of the ways in which I work. But since you're bringing your commitment and devotion to truth and non-dual practice, I have to say: with regard to this experience, this sensation, this fear and anxiety in your heart, the non-dual practice is not about that experience. It's about understanding the nature of this reality and the nature of what you are. That said, I do understand it's also valuable to approach the experience from a non-dual perspective.
From a purely non-dual perspective, I'm able to be in peace and silence. I can remain there and notice the contraction. There's an understanding that while this might not be non-dual practice per se, working with shadow is part of the non-dual path. It helps release seeming obstacles to knowing. So it's all part of it. But I guess one of my questions is: how much to remain in just the peace and the presence versus going in to work with the contraction?
Peace you cannot go in and out of
The peace that I would talk about, what I call peace, you can't go in and out of. When you say "how much to remain in the peace versus," that's not what I would call peace. Let's call it a lowercase peace. The peace I speak of, you can't come in and out of. It's simply not possible.
My experience is that it's always here, but it's not experienced when I'm identified with thought.
There's a good point there. See why it's not experienced. That I would recommend as a non-dual inquiry. When it seems like it's not experienced, where is it? How does it appear that it's not there?
The heart is contracted.
Exactly. So that's why, if you approach it as "this does not have to go away, this can be here for the rest of my life," you can then see if you can discover the peace directly, in spite of this contraction in your heart. I think that's the crux of it. Some part of our experience we are saying no to, and for you it seems to be this contraction. It doesn't matter that we fully understand what it is. When that contraction is there, the peace is in there too. They appear to be exclusive, and you know this, because you say it's always there but it's not experienced.
So make it your practice to recognize how is it not there. How does it appear to not be there, if you know it's always there? Allow the contraction in your heart to be there and recognize more and more the peace that is also there. Bring the peace through the contraction, not as something you're doing, but by seeing the mutual existence of both. One is a sensation, a phenomenon appearing (contraction, fear, pain), and the other is the knowing of the peace that is there. Experience them simultaneously.
That makes sense. I'm feeling that right now. The peace just got really loud and the contraction got really quiet. I guess the experience is like they flip.
That's great that you can see that right now. So whenever that contraction is there, instead of trying to have it end or get healed or resolved, just let it be there. What if it's divine will for that to be there for all of your life? Otherwise there's a subtle interpretation that something is wrong with it, a subtle belief that it shouldn't be there.
It's where I'm led once I get taken away in thought. I'll identify with thought, notice that, come back to what's under it, and it's this contraction.
That's great. You're shifting from identification with thought into a sensation. You've already recognized that peace is present. You said at one moment it's not experienced, but then you can see through that, recognizing that it actually is present. It is directly known, therefore experienced, while you're meeting that contraction. Just have both be present simultaneously. That's all you need to do. If the contraction resolves, it resolves. If it's there, you just meet it with that deeper knowing, that deeper relationship from peace.
That makes sense. Would you also recommend still doing inquiry?
Yes, but I would recommend the inquiry be more total. You seem to be already doing quite a bit of work on the emotional level and shadow work. That should keep going; it never ends. But then have the inquiry be more total: what am I? What is the nature of this reality? Where is it appearing in my experience that I am separate? When it's subtle, it's going to be some form of "no" to some kind of experience.
I can feel it moves to my belly too. That's the other spot. Heart contraction or belly contraction. Then I allow it to be there and it dissipates.
Beyond resolving sensations
What I have found is that we can get overly focused on resolving sensations. That's valuable when we haven't done emotional and shadow work. But once we're able to do that work, we keep it going (it's valuable forever, this body-mind emotional shadow work), and then we meet the more and more subtle ways in which we are believing something that is not. That has to do with the answer to the question: what am I? Who am I?
From that perspective, we don't focus on the sensations. The appearance of contractions or blockages isn't that important. I often describe this as two parts of the work. One is growing up, which is the healing, the shadow work, the contractions, the meeting of sensations. The other is waking up, which is fully not getting involved in the appearance of body-mind, sensation, and world. But these both work together.
How do you know when to do one or the other?
At first, through dialogue. But then intuitively you will start to recognize when one is an avoidance of the other, when one is being called for. It's your own intuition.
I think that's what's been happening. I'm just flipping between them. And when you say shadow work, do you mean just feeling it, or digging a bit?
It's a lot more than just feeling. Feeling is one aspect. Shadow work includes the stories we have around ourselves and our relationships, our relationship to the world, all of the maps we have around how to function and how to live. What am I in service to? There's a whole realm of work at the level of psyche, mind, psychology, and emotional life.
But getting into beliefs, I kind of stopped doing that. It felt too mental and never-ending. So I went more toward somatic healing work.
That's just better shadow work, but it's not one or the other. It's the right balance. There are also going to be narratives, maps, and thought systems around how to live that have shadow aspects. They're paradigm belief systems. These are two sides of the same coin. If you're only looking at the stories and narratives and not the emotional-sensation space, you're just scratching the surface and it's very intellectual. But the same thing happens if you're only looking at the sensations and not addressing the beliefs that are the roots of those sensations. We have to believe a mental map or narrative in order to produce an emotion, and vice versa.
Do you feel like it's enough just to have awareness of what the beliefs are? I'll hear them and name them, but I don't really do much else. I don't know what else there is to do.
Asking from the soul level
Consider the questions: what do I want? How do I want to live? What am I in service to? And consider them at the soul level, as if it's the universe asking and answering, the universe as you. Usually we consider those questions from quite a small perspective, and that perspective is very limited, part of an egoic body-mind mapping. The question should go much deeper. It should be asked from, and answered from, a place where we aren't limited, where what we are lives through this body-mind but is not limited to it.
For me, that answer has always been love. I don't have a better word. And then I see how much of my thoughts and behaviors are not aligned with love. Almost all of them. So I just go back to trying to remain as the love, as the presence that those arise in. But I don't know if you have something more specific.
I feel the inclination to go more toward life in the world. At a deeper level, the answer is as simple as love, service, truth. But then the "how," the forms, that involves all of our aspects: imagination, creativity, energy, body, mind, soul. Aligning all of our thoughts and belief systems, working with all of that, clearing all of that. Because the question is always: and now what? What do I want now? What am I in service to now? And that question should not come from a limited perspective, not from a small interpretation.
That's where I was hoping I don't have to figure all of that out as a separate self. My hope was that I could let love live me. If I focus my energy on seeing through the illusion of the separate self (the one trying to perfect every thought and behavior to align with love), that feels like impossible work, more effort than I'd want. I want to be in this effortless unfolding.
Effortlessness is found at the peak of effort
You just revealed your attachment. This wanting it to happen through you effortlessly: there's a choice there. True effortlessness is like peace. It is experienced at the peak of effortfulness. And you said "you as a separate self," but you're not a separate self. It's really up to you to live that, to create, to choose. You're delegating to a higher self, but you are that higher self.
This is where it gets very confusing. Different teachers say different things. "There's no doer, there's no one to do anything, and when the separate self falls away, it's just effortlessness." That's how this whole thing is being sold to us.
I understand how confusing it is, and it should be confusing, because we will always interpret things through our own filters. Anything that is spoken is not truth. When something is described as effortless, or when someone says "there's no doer," it doesn't mean there isn't the experience of effort. It means you recognize that in the peak of what is effortful, it is effortless. There is an effortlessness. Otherwise, you'd always be choosing what's effortless, avoiding effort. And that's very dual.
It reminds me of when I play music and I disappear. I've disappeared into the music and it's playing through me. I'm just improvising, but there's some engagement. I have to be really present. But then that feels like a flow state. So what's the difference between non-duality and people who just try to live in flow states?
Flow states versus permanent recognition
In the past, it used to be entering and leaving flow states. The flow state is when we, through practice, can enter to some degree (often quite a deep degree) of disidentification. But it's a disidentification that is, in a sense, controlled. We enter it in certain moments based on a practice we've practiced. As soon as that practice (sports, music, whatever it is) stops, we go back into identification. Through those experiences we taste true effortlessness, but only in a controlled setting. In non-duality, the effortlessness is the same, but it becomes permanent.
It's not that now I am making no effort. It's that I can go to all the extremes and peaks of effort, and effortlessness is also there, just as in music. When you experience that peak of musical creativity flowing through you in improvisation, where it might seem more true to say "I'm not doing this, it's happening through me," that's the tasting of non-doership. But you've practiced, and your whole body and mind are in extreme doing. Yet there is the knowing that something is being done through you.
In a non-dual realization, you can see that this is happening all the time. And it's not any "other" doing through you. It's not a higher self doing through you. It's everything. It's the universe. But it's all "I." At that level, "I" doesn't make any sense. So it's better not to put words to it. There is no higher power, no higher entity that is known to be the one acting.
That makes sense intuitively. I've had a lot of glimpses of non-dual reality, and I once had an experience where the self was gone for about a day. The contraction of the separate self was gone. I remember thinking, "What if this comes back?" and feeling it was not possible to come back, because it was never here. And then it came back. That was very sad. But I did see through it, and I can relate to how you're describing it.
Total responsibility
Just don't delegate to some higher entity. It's absolute, total responsibility. It's just that that which is responsible, the nature of "I," is not what it appears to be. It's not limited. It's not body-mind. It's not thoughts.
Responsibility for me feels like thought and belief around what I'm supposed to be doing.
That wouldn't be true responsibility, because if it's thoughts, then it would be programming, conditioning, culture, history. Then there's a delegation of responsibility onto culture, conditioning, social norms. True responsibility is: what to do right now that is the highest, most loving thing that can come through you. You can't rely on social norms. You can't rely on culture, past history, conditioning. You can only rely on the mystery of "I," of you, of the highest that you can invoke within yourself. Not you as a limited person, body and mind, but you as the totality.
This is where it's confusing, because it's always a thought that tells me to do things. If I'm not listening to the thought, which is the conditioning, then I just sit and do nothing.
The thought isn't telling you to do things. You choose the thoughts. The thought is saying you could do this or you should do this, but ultimately something is aware of the thought and responds. If that which responds is always automatically obeying thought, then there is conditioned behavior. Then you are operating from identification and limitation.
But if I have awareness of the thought...
Then you have total responsibility to choose what moves through you and what doesn't.
My choosing appears as a thought: "I could do this or I could do this." And then that becomes efforting.
Mastery, like music
Until there is deeper and deeper wisdom. You can tap into your experience in music here. At first, you have to effort: hear the note, figure out what it is, find it on the instrument or in the voice. It's a whole process. But the more you are in mastery, the more the choosing just happens. And it's the right choosing.
When you are awareness, noticing thoughts, you are more able to discern what is the right thought, the right action. Because you're also familiar with what are not the right ones. There's an intuition, a knowing, a wisdom: something that's in service to limitation or not, something that's in service to fear versus love. The more you stand from the position of "I am not limited, and I will be in service of love and not fear," the choosing that starts to happen is like the flow of music. The right notes just happen.
So there won't be a discussion around it.
If there's this sense of responsibility, there's going to be a looking at whether that was the right action or not. That's where the learning comes, where there's always a deepening wisdom, because there's an openness to learning, to having made mistakes, to being more and more deeply attuned and in service.
That's where I question how that's different from how I live now.
It's the deepening.
Like, no longer talking to myself?
You won't have to talk to yourself. What I'm describing doesn't require much inner dialogue, or any. It's like when you're playing music: you're not thinking what note to play next. It's coming straight in the moment.
I thought you said the discussion still happens, just more refined.
I'm not referring to discussion. I'm referring to the fact that there are thoughts of options. Sometimes they're not even necessary. It's like driving a car: you're not thinking about pressing a pedal; it's just happening. But when something is more complex, that's what the mind is useful for. The appearance of options can be looked at, contemplated, seen for what they are. "This is a thought that is fear-based; that's not important. This is something more beautiful, loving, creative, that I'm drawn to." And then naturally the choice happens, where the choices are more in the loving direction rather than the fear-contracting direction.
So there could still be thoughts about choosing, but not a sense of a chooser. Because contemplation means there's choosing and thinking back and forth.
The words are tricky. By contemplation, I mean there's a looking, a seeing, that can take a period of time. But if there's a lot of complex churning, usually there's a stuckness, and that starts to dissolve more and more. Thinking is still a valuable function; it's just that the mind is now free to be more and more useful. It's not absolute, because it's the operating of body-mind. It becomes more and more aligned and in service to what we're in service to. It starts to be experienced as naturally occurring, happening, flowing. But it's not like some other entity is moving us like a puppet. It's more mysterious than that. I think you've described it in music: it's just coming through, from you don't know where, appearing and happening through you, and you are completely in the middle of all of it. But you can't say you're doing it, and you can't say you're not doing it. It's both.
If I look closely, that's already the experience now. Who's talking? This is just happening.
And it can go deeper and deeper. Just keep noticing what you are wanting to be different, what there is a "no" towards, at the level of something fundamental. I'm not talking about certain situations in life where it's appropriate to say no. It's this deeper thing where we contract.
That makes sense. That's the "no" that shows up, full circle back to the heart. The mind still gets confused. I want simplicity so badly. Simplicity is peace for me. I don't want to hold too many methods or practices. I just want one-pointed focus.
Simplicity found inside complexity
Obviously there are preferences, but that can very quickly turn into a pushing away of something. We are very complex beings. The human body-mind is extremely complex. The mind is extremely complex. To try to avoid the complexity is going to put us into a struggle. What I recommend is to avoid the complication (unnecessary getting tied up in knots) but welcome the complexity.
If you can go into the complexity (the infinite complexity of millions of cells and neurons and thoughts, all the possible combinations of creative thinking), and then find the simplicity in that, find the simplicity in the nature of what we want and what we are, then it can help navigate that space. There is a simplicity, and I think intuitively you're drawn to it, and it's correct. What I speak of is very simple. But the way we relate, work, function, choose, and communicate needs the complexity, because of the nature of what we are.
There's a simplicity at the heart of it. But it's similar to effortlessness: you will find the true effortlessness in the middle of the peak of effort. You will find the simplicity in the middle of the complexity. That's the "not two" aspect. It's both. You don't find simplicity by fighting complexity, or by rejecting it, or by avoiding it.
I've definitely been avoiding it. I've been like, "Okay, no more thought, just do nothing." My body loves that because it's so exhausted from the mental exhaustion. The rejecting of everything and doing nothing feels good.
That's a kind of coping, because it's not the complexity of thought that's exhausting. It's getting too immersed in what I refer to as complication: entering the complexity with an agenda, and then it gets very tense and complicated. That's exhausting. But the mind could be operating at a very complex level and it could be effortless. This I know from experience, and it was very surprising to me. I thought it was all about the mind being stopped and slow and calm, and that's where weightlessness, peace, and well-being were. It's not.
That's good news, because I also want vitality, to live a fun life.
The contraction and the fear of life
And that's the question: what do you want? If there's something in life you're saying no to, that's going to be a contraction, a fear, at the heart level. If you want life, abundance, vitality, joy, fun, you can't say no to complexity. If you say no to complexity, life becomes constrained and limited. The mind becomes a struggle when forced to function only in a simple way.
It's when I'm trying to do the living part that the contraction gets so much stronger. That's that resistance, the fear of it.
That's why my sense from the beginning, when you first started sharing, was that this has to do with going into the world, with life in the world. There's a deep, valuable wanting, a longing to live. What is it you want to live? When that is really met, something can surrender at a deeper level.
I always notice it's the fear of not being safe. That's the big barrier. And so where I answer that is I find safety in the peace, and then I'm in peace and don't want to do anything. It's a loop.
That's a very temporary kind of peace and safety. It's not the kind you're longing for. It's not going to satisfy. It's about finding that safety in the middle of life, at the fullness of life, and noticing that it's there no matter what happens.
My nervous system is so sensitive that life is overwhelming. I hide a lot. I've noticed this has been a hindrance. I still go out and try, but in little bits, and then I have to go back and rest for a long time. But I like the idea that if I'm going out into the world and experiencing the reactivity, I can notice that the peace is there in that moment.
To discover the safety and the peace in the world, in the experiencing, in following the desire for abundance and life.
It's so intense. I have these energetic convulsions, almost kundalini-like, and the fear gets really intense. I'll be shaking when talking to someone because they're triggered and I'm feeling it. It's overwhelming.
It's all through that. Not by avoiding that, or trying to manage, control, or resist it. Through that. And through more and more understanding, at the level of wisdom, of how to go into life. That's the sense I was getting from the beginning around that contraction. Going into life is the direction.
That makes sense. Even though it's exhausting, maybe I should still try to do it more and really sense the peace.
Yes, and find the ways in which you work without exhaustion. Find the edge where there's a newer vitality and energy, because you're meeting the challenging aspects in a deeper, new way. Sometimes you need to rest.
The body feels like it needs to rest all the time. Doctors say it's chronic fatigue syndrome, mold exposure, a long list of reasons.
All of that is useful information, might help with something, might help you find different ways and ideas. But it's a lot more mysterious than what the medical system understands. They can help with some aspects.
I find it doesn't really help much. Life just keeps pointing me back to stillness. That's where all my answers are, for everything.
Stillness found in the movement of life
And then once you find that, find the answers in the stillness and in the movement, in the abundance, in the complexity of life. See that it is also there: in the dancing, in the chasing of wild dreams, in the playful creativity. There is not a "no" to any of it. There's just a discovery of what playful exploring of life you want, and what you're not interested in. Sometimes it's effortful, sometimes it's complicated and painful. But if it's coming from this deeper sense of love and peace and well-being, that doesn't go away. We bring it to the intensity, to the challenges.
I think I got confused because I didn't want to be drawn to life by the desire to get something. Everything I discovered was trying to get something, so I stopped doing everything.
You can ask and answer the question from a different place. How to go into life without it being about getting something. How to go into life with it being about giving something, enjoying something, loving something.
I have resistance around the giving because it's like, "I don't have the energy to give. I'm tired."
That's not what I'm referring to by giving. It's just the question: what is in your heart to live, to want? The deeper desires, at the soul level, the universal level of creativity and life exploration, as opposed to the separate self orientation of "me, me, me, what I need to get, my fears, what I need to avoid, what I need to be okay because I'm not okay." Once we're able to work through that and dissolve it to a significant degree, it's important not to be avoiding life.
I think it's been clear for me for a while what those deeper desires are: authentic connection, community, creativity, and expression. But when I engage with it, I discover how everyone's in their ego, it's a mess of trauma and triggering, and I bow out. I can't do it. That's what keeps showing up.
Yes. And through that, through all of that, is where the discovery happens.