Production Mode, Book Excerpt: On Seeing Our Vasanas

Dear friends,
I am in full on production mode as we get ready to go live with my new website. I look forward to sharing it with you! It will feature fresh content and a new community portal.

In the meantime, here is another excerpt from my book Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie. This is the opening of the chapter entitled The Dirty Work.

Image courtesy of Erwin Plug

Amma speaks of how, when we sweep a floor, we may think it is clean, but then upon washing it, we find more dirt. We go through a similar process in purifying our minds. We may feel that we have “gotten somewhere” and no longer have a certain tendency, only to discover that it still exists within us in a subtler form. We may even feel that our negative tendencies have increased after we have been doing spiritual practice for a while. As we cultivate inner light, our vasanas will arise to be witnessed, understood and released.

We do not need to be discouraged when we discover that there is yet more to be done in the process of purification. Our attachments will naturally be brought to our attention in subtler and subtler ways as we continue along the path.

To avoid becoming a yoga junkie, we must be willing to accept that we are imperfect beings in an evolutionary process. We don’t have it all figured out. Byron Katie has the wonderful remark, “Don’t pretend yourself beyond your evolution.” When we try to hide the dirt of our tendencies from our self and others, we only create suffering and greater complication.

This section and the three following are an invitation to begin to wade into the muddy areas of our psyches, roll up our sleeves and start the “dirty work” of unearthing our tendencies, understanding them for what they are. Once we see them clearly, we can practice witnessing them as they arise on a moment-to-moment basis, so we may ultimately release them.

Until we become fully enlightened, we all tend to resist the moment in some way. Throughout the day, our minds are busily working out creative ways to keep the illusion of separateness alive, so that we may feel temporarily important, in control and powerful. Our ego loves to build and sustain the mirage of divisiveness to keep itself alive. But the fullness, perfection and beauty of life is unfolding all the while beyond our self-sustained delusions.

There are four primary ways we resist the moment: defending, holding onto, justifying or relishing in “mine”. Some of these we do passively, other aggressively, while others through stasis. Each will yield the same result: temporarily supporting the illusion of being separate from this moment and from our true divine nature.

Anger is easily seen as an active defense of “mine”. When we get angry, we mark our territory and defend what we feel is ours with vigour.

We passively hold onto “mine” in various ways. When we resent, for example, we hold onto the idea that life is “happening to me”. We feel victimized and powerless by a situation or a person. Resentment passively incubates the feeling of “mine” more deeply into our psyche.

Similarly, when we feel jealous, we hold onto the self-perception of “mine”, because it feels threatened and unfulfilled. We are convinced that someone else has what we feel we lack.

In shame, we are attached to our shadowy self, as though it were our identity. We passively hold onto the shadow, which we feel we deserve, eclipsing the truth that we are divine light.

When we are depressed, we feel helpless beneath the weight of our identity. We hold onto it, listlessly afraid of letting it go, because we are attached to it being who we are.

Both justifying “mine” and relishing in “mine” are driven by the same static energy, that is, by the desire to keep things unmoving. When we judge, we justify “mine”. We maintain a divisive perception by either putting our self above or below another.

We relish in “mine” when we are proud. Through pride, we attempt to maintain a lavish, over-inflated self-perception, which we feel we need to boast about to uphold. This keeps us ultimately feeling alone in our ivory tower.

Whether we are defending, holding onto, justifying or relishing in “mine”, each is a way we keep unhappiness alive in our lives. These tendencies, when left unchecked, can even develop into addictions, in which we find it very difficult to renounce certain behaviours – or even realize they are a problem - because we have a deeply ingrained sense of our self as flawed, dirty, incomplete, incapable or bad, and in need of something external to take away the pain of it all. It is only through the willingness to to bring these tendencies to the light that we free the energy stuck there within. In so doing, we find the fulfillment we have been wanting all along.

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The second edition of Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie will be available soon. To add your name to the pre-orders list, click here. 

Wishing you peace and joy on your journey,

Parvati

Mind Body Spirit Festival and Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie

Dear friends,

 

I leave early Monday morning for London, UK where I will be performing and teaching at the Mind Body Spirit Festival. Waiting for me in London will be the freshly printed copies of my new book Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie. I thought you might like to read another sneak preview:

 

In the yoga community, we have come to a place that is like spiritual adolescence. We know the basics and we are out in the world. Wal-Mart sells yoga mats and Costco sells Eckhart Tolle’s books. We can express lofty ideas and speak beautiful things. But in order to grow, we must go deeper. We know how to fool our parents, as many teenagers do. But we cannot fool nature. Eventually the teenager realizes that to be responsible means to understand the consequences of his actions, just as the junkie needs to discover the wanting at the root of their addiction in order to heal. If we are to address the pervasiveness of greed and wanting in our lives, we need to start talking about and becoming aware of our shadowy habits that support them, including the ones lurking in our yoga practice.

We need to mature as yogis and as people. We are not being truly honest with ourselves if we say we are yogis because we go to a stretch class once a week, but feel unable to find that center at any other time. We are not being the best we can be if we feel we are conscious because we watch Oprah or tweet the words of wisdom of the latest pop guru, but then become immediately impatient and yell at our spouse, friends, co-worker or children.

Yoga was surely not designed 5000 years ago by the ancient rishis (sages) to be the next fad after the 80’s aerobics of Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda. Yet it seems to have been co-opted as such in an attempt to fulfill our desire for perfection by consuming something “out there”. We need to embrace yoga in its totality, rather than just appropriating aspects of the practice that suit our ego. We must take pause and learn to move from stillness by going within and meeting this moment as it is. Until we do so, no matter what kind of bendy exercise we may do, our lives will continue to be driven by an unconscious desire to resist the now and keep our personal sorry stories alive. By letting go of the story and of the feeling that the world is somehow against us, we release the attachment to feeling separate from life. We let go of our perceived need to carry around the weight of our illusionary self. We begin to experience yoga, that is, union, or oneness with all that is.

We need to talk about the pitfalls on the yogic path and the shadows of spirituality, because they are our shadows. They will show us where we are stuck so that we may return to our true home. When we find the self-love and courage to do so, we move, in a more grounded, humble manner, into the fullness of life, and become the unaffected beings of light that we most naturally are.

 

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Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie will be available for purchase at Mind Body Spirit Expo in London next weekend. It will be available in Canada soon after.

Coming Soon: Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie

Dear friends,

Today I am busy at work finalizing my upcoming book "Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie", about the pitfalls I experienced on the yogic path and how you can avoid them. The book will make its debut at the Mind Body Spirit Festival in the UK later this month. In the meantime, though, here is a teaser for you to enjoy:

We use the word “junkie” loosely. You can hear it uttered with enthusiasm when someone expresses particular zeal for something. They may be addicted to that thing. But the offhand use of the word can easily mask what may be a shady underbelly lying in the darker recesses of their psyche.

The word “junkie” ultimately refers to someone who is an addict. As such, it points painfully to a human being who erroneously identifies with some elusive external substance, person, place or thing as his or her source of permanent happiness. There are many forms of addiction deeply interwoven into the fabric of our culture. Addiction is somehow a part of the modern, human psyche. The popular, casual use of the word “junkie” seems to give us unspoken permission to broadcast our compulsions in a way that does not ask us to look more deeply at them. Inadvertently, the word illustrates how we culturally enable repeated choices that do not bring us lasting joy.

We can see these cultural shadows easily if we look at the prevalent, and often socially accepted (or at least tolerated), addictions rampant today, such as, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping, sex, food, overworking, and overworking out. We encourage this fight and flight to perfection - the perfect house, the perfect mate, the perfect body, the ideal sublime - through a deep-seated, often unconscious distorted relationship to our self, to each other and to the divine. This in turn, feeds our sense of dissatisfaction and attachment to the perfect something out there that we “need” to make us – finally – feel happy.

When I was in architecture school, some of my fellow competitive, rise to the top, type-A classmates seemed to exhibit a fascination with insanity and compulsive behaviour. Somehow, the weirder, wilder and more off your rocker you were, the cooler, more avant-garde, edgy and creative you had become. This fascination was not born in a freshman architecture studio. It may have come to the forefront there. But in each student who showed those characteristics, a previous tendency for such already existed in their personality. It could have been incubated at home, at school, in institutions, through the media, in society at large or perhaps with friends. Wherever it had been fed, the drive and work ethic that my classmates and I shared illustrated a tendency that is socially prevalent and highly encouraged, yet whose shadow is seldom discussed.

Because of a deeper, spiritual malaise, our lives are driven by restless wanting. They seem to go on and on, as though we were helplessly tied to a merry-go-round built on façade and temporary pleasures. We may be too numbed out to willfully pause, take stock and embrace positive change, until something dramatic happens that shakes us from complacency and wakes us up from the spell. We conveniently float in a stew of short-term getting by above a dark underbelly, until our lives come to a crashing halt due to illness, injury, failed marriages, job losses, even death of a loved one. It is only once we have been knocked to our knees and are closer to the ground, that we can see the shadows we have carried with us all along.

I have seen overt addiction destroy marriages, ravage careers and occasionally take a life. But I have also seen covert addiction to an ideal sublime wiggle its way into the lives of spiritual aspirants, who have shifted the focus of their driven personalities from social or cultural success, to a spiritual drive for what is perceived as “good” or spiritual. In the same spell-like state, they too may feel above it all, but the same shadows still lurk below.

Whether or not one is an addict, in the spiritual community it is surprisingly easy to make a lateral move and appropriate a spiritual identity in exchange for one we deem less desirable, all the while sidestepping our shadow. I know, because I did just that.    

Enjoy the gift of this day,

Parvati

Ask Parvati 43: The Present Is The Present - Part 1: The Bounty of Boundaries

Problems May Actually Be Opportunities

Dear Parvati,

Someone said to me the other day that even the things about myself that I don’t like are actually gifts. How can this be true?

Sometimes it’s easier to learn about ourselves by observing others. I have found watching people in my life, (at times working my way though judgment, blame, anger, guilt, envy or jealousy - the whole range of emotions one can project onto another), I have been inadvertently taught by those around me.

Take one friend of mine, let’s call her Suzie. She is a wonderfully sensitive person who loves the arts, nature and has a real affinity for healing. She also is an addict. Suzie courageously goes to SLA meetings (sex and love anonymous) to face her co-dependency tendencies and to help her find the inner strength to look at and heal her addictive patterns. Through her friendship, I have found myself learning to be present for her ups and downs, finding new ways to express understanding, compassion and patience. I have also had a powerful mirror to face parts of my shadow, such as tendencies to judge, become self-righteous or impatient.

Recently Suzie and I were talking, when suddenly I found myself suggesting that I felt her addiction could be seen as a tool, or even a gift, along her spiritual journey. I have seen how her movement towards sobriety provides her with a great opportunity for self-discovery. I have also seen how her addiction has been the perfect soil in which she has had to learn to grow into fullness.

She is one of the most gifted people I have met in terms of sensitivity to the unseen. She feels energies, presences in people, plants and animals like few people I know. Yet she also has problems with boundaries. Perhaps her challenge with learning healthy boundaries has also left her more open to the unseen. As she learns to heal her tendency towards broken boundaries, not only is she becoming more capable of having healthy human relationships, but she is even more able to navigate the unseen.

Some may see Suzie’s addiction as a hindrance for her to find lasting love and healing. At one level, I would agree it is. It has brought her to her knees, broken her heart open and continues to challenge every part of her being to grow. Through her healing, something bigger is going on. By the very fact that she is challenged to find clear, powerful and subtle boundaries through her recovery process, her addiction has been the fertile ground in which she can learn the subtle skill to maneuver in the unseen world, and in turn, amplify her natural gifts and sensitivities there. Her addiction on one level is a problem and must be healed. Yet by embracing it as an opportunity, it becomes a gift that also empowers the evolution of her unique soul voice and natural gifts.

EXERCISE

We all have gnarly bits and negative tendencies that seem to create pain and havoc in our lives. What are yours? Are you willing to embrace them without judgment and somehow consider them gifts? What is your soul learning through them? By lovingly accepting your shadow, ask yourself how it can be seen as fertile soil for your unique soul growth. Make a list of your painful tendencies and see if you can dig deeper into you heart wisdom and see the gifts there.

More tomorrow with “Turning Drama Into Fierce Discernment”

Ask Parvati 42: Healing Shame - Part 2: Bringing the Wounded Bits to the Light

(Continued from "Toxic Shame")

The misperception that we are fundamentally flawed, which feeds our sense of shame, does need healing, but not because we are wrong, bad, ugly, awful or damaged. The misperception needs healing simply because it is untrue. It is an illusion perpetuated by our wounded self-perception. It exists because we give it power. We fear that it's the truth, so we hide it away.

As we reveal our broken bits from the darker recesses of our psyche, we eventually see that we are all beings of light that cast shadows, on an evolutionary journey back to the One place of undivided consciousness of pure love. In every moment, no matter what shame binds our perception temporarily, we are loved and supported beyond what we can habitually and consciously see.

If you feel you suffer from debilitating shame, other than reading John Bradshaw’s book, I would recommend professional help from a skilled therapist who can help create a safe place in which you can allow your feelings of low self-worth to emerge, without judgment. Because shame exists in the severed places in our self that we fear, the process of revealing them in a safe environment is powerfully healing, just in itself. We need to be seen, just as we are. When we bring our wounded bits to the light and we see we will not die, we will not be punished, we will not be annihilated but are loved and accepted, we feel more alive and whole than ever before.

If you suffer from an addiction of any kind, the twelve-step programs are very powerful and transformative. If you have not yet given a meeting a try, then please look up your local AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) or NA (Narcotics Anonymous) or SA (Sexaholics Anonymous) or OA (Overeaters Anonymous) or WA (Workaholics Anonymous) – depending on your particular tendency - and show up for a meeting. When you go, you likely will feel that you don’t belong and will want to turn around and leave. This is natural. Many other people at the meetings likely feel the same way. But this is also part of the denial that keeps you acting out and feeding the shame that binds you. That inner voice that whispers “I don’t belong here” or “this is not me” is spoken from that severed places in your psyche that keeps you feeling disempowered, broken and doing things you really don’t want to do. Children of addicts often too develop either borderline or addictive tendencies and would benefit from groups like Al-Anon, where meetings are specifically designed for friends and families of addicts. I discuss addiction more in Ask Parvati 27.

Healing your inner child is an essential component in healing toxic shame. You can read about how to do that in a variety of blogs I have written, such as my recent post on the power of the inner child. Once you open to your inner child, you will be more inclined to follow your bliss, and create the life you truly love.

Most of all be gentle with yourself in this deep and powerful healing process. The pain that caused you to bury the shame deep in the recesses of your psyche was real for you. There is an essential grieving component to healing shame and healing your inner child. This takes time and patience. As most addict support groups would say, “easy does it” and “take it one day at a time”.

Thank you for this week’s question. Please send me your questions by Thursday this week so it may be answered in this Sunday’s post. Until then, be very well.

Ask Parvati 42: Healing Shame - Part 1: Toxic Shame

Dear Parvati,
My life looks good on the surface - I'm intelligent, good looking, have a decent job, a good relationship - but I feel like a loser. I can't seem to stop doing things I'm not proud of, like spending evenings playing World of Warcraft instead of working on my writing (I want to publish a novel), or letting the vegetables rot in the fridge while I eat chips for supper or order pizza... meanwhile I'm paying $100/month for a gym membership and not using it. I think most people who know me are really fooled and they think I have it so much more together than I really do. I'm afraid that if they found out the reality, they'd all get disgusted and drift away from me. My significant other has brought up the idea of living together, but I'm afraid I'll lose her if she sees how I really live. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in shame for not being a better person. How do I fix this?

Thank you for your question. Hiding is hard to do at any time, especially on an ongoing basis. Hiding our true self from our self and the world is extra hard, even painful. You may think you are the only one who does things you want to hide from others and your self. But in truth, many people struggle with similar feelings of personal shame and self-disgust. Because hiding supports shame, it's important to remember that the more down on yourself you feel, the more you feed the shame, that is usually fueled by feelings of low self-esteem or a wounded sense of self-worth.

Shame is quite common. It is a fundamental motivator behind our pain-driven behaviours, such as compulsions, co-dependency, addictions and the drive to over- or under-achieve. These compulsions can break down families and friendships and destroy our personal lives. To some extent or another, most people suffer from some degree of shame, hidden in the recesses of their psyches. That is what shame does. It hides in the dark where we cannot see it. Yet out of our conscious sight, it wreaks havoc on our lives. Shame undermines the expression of our authentic self and our ability to live our true potential.

John Bradshaw, author of “Healing the Shame That Binds You”, reminds us that there two kinds of shame: toxic shame binds us into toxic behaviors; healthy shame helps us feel balanced remorse for things we do, think and say that do not support our highest good or the good of all. The shame I address here is toxic. It is the kind that thwarts our brilliance, joy and fulfillment in some capacity or another.

If you feel you suffer from toxic shame, you may consider reading John Bradshaw’s very helpful book on the topic. Written 17 years ago but still selling more than 13,000 copies a year, the book is considered a classic authority on the subject. It has helped millions identify their personal shame, understand the underlying reasons for it, address the root causes and release themselves from the shame that binds them to their past. I would recommend it for pretty much anyone who is on a personal, healing journey and wishes to live a life of balanced wholeness.

The roots for toxic shame can be traced to our youngest years, when our true self was judged not good enough by our primary caregivers. We were made to feel that there was a fundamental lack in our being, that we are fundamentally flawed at our core. Because of this, shame exists because of our fundamental misperception that we are flawed. So thoughts of “fixing” shame, as the question suggests here, only exacerbates the notion that we are broken.

Shame is not to be fixed, but gently revealed. The energy caught in our hidden, severed and disowned places needs to be slowly brought back from the dark and moved into the light. As we learn to witness our hidden, shameful bits with self-love, kindness and understanding, we integrate them into who we are. In that place of whole self-acceptance, the grip we have around them organically releases and our sense of internal split is healed.

 

Continues tomorrow with "Bringing The Wounded Bits To The Light".

PS - the latest Parvati Magazine is live. This month's issue is on love, including self-love. Please go and check it out.

 

 

Ask Parvati 29: Art As Soul Food - Part 5: Who Or What Is Creating?

PART 5: MULTIDIMENSIONAL CO-CREATORS: WHO OR WHAT IS CREATING?

(Continued from A New Generation of Multi-Media Artist: The Multi-Dimensional Co-Creator)

Ok. Buckle your seat belt. You may read this last entry in response to this week’s question and think, “uh oh, Parvati has drunk the kool-aid. What IS she talking about?” Well, in the spirit of sincerity, transparence and honesty, here it goes…

Many of you know me well enough by now to know that I see things in terms of the multi-dimensional. We are spiritual, infinite beings in a temporal body with a temporal personality returning back to the infinite. Our soul is a reflection of the divine, merging back to pure consciousness. Our personality is being purified, the aggregates removed so that we may be vessels of unconditional love.

Have you ever seen a show or looked at a work of art and wondered, who was actually creating? Sometimes, it is not only the voice of the artist’s soul. Sometimes, the work can feel superhuman, like other energies stepped in and participated in the creative process. You know what I mean?

I believe that we are not alone by any stretch. We are part of a vast, intelligent universe. Just like we can observe in Nature, there are energies that need healthy space, light and food to survive, and there are those that feed off of debris and decay. So it is in the unseen realm.

Each one of us has a shadow. We are human. We err. We cast a shadow upon the ground. The wise begin to know their shadow and welcome it into their field of awareness so that they may witness it and it may ultimately dissolve.

When we expand into the beings of light we are, we may co-create with unseen energies that are luminous and expansive, such as angels. This is an idea most of us like. Angels are pretty cool!

When our shadow remains unseen, hidden from our conscious mind, it can begin to rot in the dark. Like any wound that is not in clean air and open to the light to heal, festering can begin. Sometimes even bugs can come to feed on the decay. In the same way, there are energies in the unseen that feed on our shadow when we are in denial about it.

Why is it that so often artists turn to drugs? Could it be that the pressure to create draws them to find sources of instant power to propel their creativity forward? What if an artist was drawn to create for egotistical reasons, like fame and personal praise? The artist may be in denial about their shadow. What happens when they taste praise, would they not want more? Wanting only stops when we see it for what it is and choose to look at our shadow with humility.

If a person is attached to being in denial about their shadow and insists on wanting, energies in the unseen will latch on to amplify that reality. Soon, the source of inspiration is not the soul, but the personality plus free-loaders, subtle beings that are not exactly angels. So then what or who is really creating?

Now, I have always been one with a particular affinity to the unseen, so perhaps this may seem far-fetched for some. But I speak of my experience just like I am sure you have your own. I remember one artist I saw arrive on stage bringing with her an entire entourage of astral beings. The friend I was with had just returned from a ten-day silent meditation retreat. After the artist sang her first song, he left the auditorium running. Others in the audience were mesmerized. For others, the show was otherworldly, and to me, it quite literally was!

A couple years ago, I was on a plane back from an international music conference. I sat with some well-established musicians who were on tour with a top industry singer. I remember one of the guys had this vacant look in his eye. He was sweet and kind, but I could not get out of my mind the emptiness that was looking back at me. The singer he was touring with was to me a tragic black hole, an active addict who was lost and in denial about the depth of her addiction.

What I saw in this man was how the entropy of her artistic career drew towards it others of the same. He too had that specific character combination of black hole emptiness and gravitational pull. Just like the artist he toured with, he had a certain stickiness that felt like he would make it solo some day. But just like the singer he supported, that “it” factor that likely would make him famous, was not from the expansive sparkle of his soul, but from an entropic pull. It was not expansive, but constrictive.

When we listen to music or when we engage in any art, we must ask ourselves, “Does this make me feel expansive? Does it make me feel constrictive?”

We are organic beings, connected to a vast universe. We have free will. We can easily move away from evolution just as much as we can move in alignment with it. It is entirely up to us to manage our consciousness and evolve. When we evolve, we move away from suffering. When we remain attached in the dark, we suffer. The character Cypher in the movie “The Matrix” reminds us of this. He says:

You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite of steak] Ignorance is bliss.

Just like the idea of eating the steak in the Matrix tasted good only in the mind because in essence it was not real, art that is based on surface gratification will satisfy only the surface personality temporarily but will not ultimately support your freedom. Only when you have the courage to go deeper and touch the eternal does suffering cease.

Anything we take in through our sense organs has a vibrational presence. We must make sure that what we ingest is in our highest good as ultimately, that is what is in the highest good for all. My suggestion is, ingest only deliciously, nutritious, rooted, expansive and vital art that makes you want to sing at the top of your lungs: “YES LIFE!”

My next post will be on Sunday. Until then, have creative fun!

Parvati

Ask Parvati 27: Addiction - Part 6: We Attract What We Know

PART 6: WE ATTRACT WHAT WE KNOW

(Continued from Helping Versus Enabling)

I believe that we attract people into our lives who reflect aspects of ourselves. Until we have taken a look at our childhood, our relationship with our parents, and how we felt growing up, we will either unconsciously attract a “mommy” or a “daddy” into our lives, from whom we still hope to get the love we feel we lack.

If you are attracted to a life-partner with an addiction tendency, it does not necessarily mean you too are an addict. But it may mean that one or both of your parents were and you are still trying to heal the childhood pain you likely felt. Perhaps your coping mechanism as a child was to be a fixer or a good kid, as a means to avoid the inevitable ups and downs of your addict parent. Perhaps you do the same with your partner. You tiptoe around his or her addiction and sidestep your own self, because fundamentally, you feel unsafe. Whatever the story may be, the relationship is a mirror for you to see yourself more clearly.

I believe that we all benefit from counseling and psychotherapy. I believe we are here, on this planet, to grow, to evolve, to become whole. The partners we choose are a powerful mirror into who we are. In relationship, we can see with greater clarity our compulsions, our tendencies, our fears and our desires. We can hide more easily from our shadow when we are on our own. In relationship, after the honeymoon phase is over, the proverbial shit hits the fan. We see our stuff. We are either willing to work it, or we leave and find likely another situation in which we will be faced with the same stuff until we heal.

I don’t necessarily believe there is the “right” partner out there. More important is the right attitude within. Of course, we need to be with kind people who are willing to grow and evolve. We must not stay in abusive situations that jeopardize our safety. We need to look with greater depth at ourselves and what we attract into our lives as a reflection of who we are.

I don’t necessarily believe we attract partners who are a literal mirror to ourselves, however. I once heard a woman say to me that she was supporting a partner who was going through issues related to being sexually abused as a child, and she felt this meant she had to uncover issues with her own sexuality. I don’t believe it is so cut and dried. Only ourselves, our relationship to the divine and our soul know exactly what we are learning in any given situation.

As is the case when we are in relationship with someone who struggles with addiction, we are likely learning more about boundaries, self-care, and letting go, if we are not dealing with the same addiction issues. So be gentle with yourself. Stay true to your word. Treat yourself and others with integrity, honesty, steadiness and respect. Make sure your actions meet your word. Be around those who have the same commitments. Above all, know that you are love. You are loved.

EXERCISE:
1) In which way do you respect your needs and honour your boundaries?

2) Are you true to your word?

3) Are your actions and words in alignment?

4) In which way can you be kinder, more loving to yourself?

5) Are you getting the help you need?

My next post will be this Sunday. Thank you for your submissions this week. If you would like to be considered for the following week’s blog topic, please send your questions to ask@parvatidevi.com.

Much peace to you,

Parvati

 

Ask Parvati 27: Addiction - Part 5: Helping Versus Enabling

PART 5: HELPING VERSUS ENABLING

(Continued from Getting Help)

For those who love a person who struggles with addiction, it is so very painful to see. Ultimately, we too need to admit that we are powerless over the addiction. We want to help. We see those we love in pain. We want to take that pain away. But we cannot make changes for anyone but ourselves. It is often hard enough to make changes for ourselves. We are powerless to make the changes for those we love.

Often addicts find themselves close to people that enable. Enablers are harder to see sometimes than addicts, because enablers seem kind and helpful. They are ever wiling to help, cover up, make excuses, clean up the mess, tippy-toe around addicts. There is a powerful yet very subtle ego force at play with enablers. They are doing “good deeds”, so they are “good” people, “helping” those “poor souls” with the problem. But they have a problem too.

Unfortunately, too often these good intentions end up feeding addiction and not in any way helping. Because addiction is based on consumption and wanting, it is insatiably hungry. It needs attention. It needs to ingest, to buy, to take, to feed. It feeds on attention as well. When we tippy-toe around it, the addiction energy feels powerfully important. When we cry for it, yell at it, rage at it, pray for it, plead with it, fight it, we are in fact feeding the addiction.

Tough love, clear boundaries and a no-nonsense attitude are the only way to be around anyone with addiction. Whether you are around someone with an addiction or whether you are questioning whether you yourself are an addict, a powerful tool is to ensure that your actions and your words are in alignment. Those with addictions are used to spin doctoring, twisting the truth, or outright lying to try to get their way, to try to satiate their feeling of wanting, to get the hit their disease needs.

This does not mean we need to be cold or cruel. Tough love means being rooted, clear and strong. And in fact, these are also qualities that you can find in compassionate action. When we are sentimentally involved, we become entangled. When we are compassionate, we are a clear witness to what is: present, open, available, but rooted in self-love. We must stay rooted in who we are and what we want from our lives, because we can easily get sucked into the vortex of addiction. Addiction has a gravitational pull. If we are too close and not grounded, soon we will get sucked into the drama too.

We must stand at a safe distance from someone with an addiction, be present for ourselves, available to support him or her, and get on with our own life. Ultimately, we can change ourselves. We cannot change anyone else. Too often our lives get put on hold while we focus on trying to fix the one with the problem, not realizing that in fact, we too have a problem.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Sobriety begins with taking a step towards self love, self worth, valuing yourself enough to let go of things that drag you down. People who are not addicts have the brain chemistry to know the difference between habits that are not useful and habits that are. Addicts have a harder time with that and must learn this discernment. The brain is plastic and can change. New habits are possible. Health, sobriety and a life that works are possible for everyone, even for an addict. As for everyone, we must be willing to admit we have a problem, look at our shadow and embrace the fullness of who we are.

EXERCISE
1) Are there addicts in your life that you are enabling?

2) In which way have you allowed someone’s addiction to rule your life?

3) What do you need to do to take the self-loving steps to focus on your own life?

4) If you find it hard to separate yourself from an addict, perhaps because you feel guilty, then you need professional help. You likely need to go to Al-Anon and/or work with a professional therapist that specializes in addiction.

REMINDER: Don’t forget that today submissions are due for this week’s Ask Parvati blog. Send your questions to ask@parvatidevi.com

(Continued tomorrow with We Attract What We Know)

Ask Parvati 27: Addiction - Part 4: Getting Help

PART 4: GETTING HELP

(Continued from Hitting Bottom)

In the case of people who have not yet hit bottom, such as Amy Winehouse, it is very hard to help them at all. An example of resistance to admitting you have a problem are her famous lyrics, “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no’”. Sadly, she did not hit her personal bottom before she died.

This is tragically the case with many addicts. The disease that is about consumption, insatiable wanting, consumes its host. It does not have to be that way. Step one in an addiction recovery program is to admit that you are powerless over your addiction and that your life has become unmanageable. It takes humility to get to step one, because the addict must come to see that the choices her or she is making are in fact not working. No one wants to admit that their life is a mess. Whether you are an addict or not, you need to admit things are not working as they are if you are going to make changes.

For some, bottom can be very ugly. It can involve losing absolutely everything, loved ones, friends, family, possessions, career, and reputation. For some, it involves even losing your life. But if you come close to the edge and wake up to see that you do not want to go any further, you are lucky. You have hit your bottom. For some, that bottom is a near-death experience. For others, it is the reality of losing what they love.

Only when the addict has hit their personal bottom, which is different for everyone, will that person be willing to get the professional help they need for a serious, potentially life-threatening illness. Addicts need professional help.

Deep wounds, fear, rage and shame are at the root of addiction. These shadow emotions when unmet become the feeding ground for addiction. There needs to be a willingness to embrace the darker side of ourselves so that our shadow does not run wild in addiction. Everyone has painful emotions. Everyone can experience fear, rage and shame. The addict must find the courage and humility to open to these painful parts within their shadow so that those places no longer fuel their addict behavior. Looking into these painful places usually requires the support of professionals who are used to supporting addiction recovery.

If you are an addict, the 12 step programs are very powerful and effective. I have seen many, many people benefit from them. But they only work if you are willing to go and do the work to heal and change. There is a saying in the program, “It works if you work it. So work it! You’re worth it!”

You may feel tremendous resistance to going to getting help and to going to your first meeting. That is normal. But just like with any growth edge, we must face our fear and walk through it. If you know someone in the program, call him or her up and ask if you can go together. If you have a friend who would be willing to go, ask him or her to join you. Or simply go. This would be the best thing you would have done for yourself so far.

When there, you may have thoughts like, “I don’t belong here. This is not me. Look at all these losers!” Tell yourself that this is your addict speaking. There is a part of you that has fed on your shadow for likely years. It wants to still feed. But your sober self knows better. You want to make different choices. You want to empower a different part of you now.

You must find the inner strength to no longer feed that part of your psyche. You know that allowing your addict to rule your life does not work. You can hear the voice that doubts and ridicules your healthy choices, but you must give it no energy. Keep going, move towards sobriety and health. There will be ups and downs. But this will be the most important journey you have ever made in your life. At the 12 step programs, you will meet some of the most inspiring people you will ever meet. Those people are a reflection of you.

If you are the child of an addict, I would suggest you to go to an Al-Anon meeting or a support group to help you find the freedom from the pain you likely experienced growing up. You need the support just as much as the addict does. Being around an addict, especially as a child, we tend to internalize the pain they feel and take it on. This also needs professional support. Get the help you need.

EXERCISE

1) Ask yourself, do you need to do any therapy? Could you use more emotional support to help you transition through different aspects of your life?

2) Do you need to go to Al-Anon? If you are a child of an addict, the answer is, yes!

3) Do you need to go to a 12-step meeting? If your life has become unmanageable due to addiction, the answer is, yes!

REMINDER:Don’t forget that tomorrow (Thursday) is the last day for submissions for this week’s Ask Parvati blog. Send your questions to ask@parvatidevi.com

(Continued tomorrow with Helping Versus Enabling)

 

Ask Parvati 27: Addiction - Part 3: Hitting Bottom

PART 3: HITTING BOTTOM

(Continued from What Is Addiction?)

Pot smoking and drinking are just things people do. Most people my age don’t question them. They are often at parties. We can smell pot walking down the street. The fragrance wafts from the windows of my neighbours’ house. Many people partake, in some form or another. We often don’t question what is really going on when someone is drunk or high. We accept that they are doing that as a way to blow off steam and loosen up. But is it?

Though I have never been into it, I have been around many drugs and alcohol for most of my adult life. Growing up in the art scene and being in the music industry, I have seen how often what we praise as radical or brilliant behavior, is often creativity induced by drugs and fed by addiction.

I think most recently of the tragic death of the talented British singer Amy Winehouse who struggled with the power of addiction. What would her life have been like with different choices? If people around her understood more about the nature of addiction, would she have died so young? As was the case with Elvis, were there social, fan and business pressures that fed her addiction?

In the creative arts, it is easy for people to turn to alcohol and drugs for inspiration, as the alternative reality provides temporary fresh insight into their creative works. In a recent 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Lady Gaga is quoted as saying, "I still smoke a lot of pot when I write music. So I'm not gonna, like, sugar coat it for '60 Minutes' that I'm some, like, sober human being, 'cause I'm not.” But soon, users find themselves trapped into dependency and in need of new means to escape the escape. The cycle continues. Drugs and alcohol are not the solution or even a stopgap.

I am fond of the work of award-winning poet, playwright, and filmmaker Julia Cameron whose groundbreaking book The Artist’s Way opened the door to help many find an authentic creative voice, free from drugs and alcohol. The book was the result of her sobriety as she faced her addiction, which had fueled her creative works.

Addictive patterns develop in those with certain tendencies as a means to avoid pain. Part of sobriety is developing the humility to understand that we are powerless over the force of addiction. In accepting powerlessness, we come face to face with the pull of the addiction and begin to let go of the seduction of its power. We begin to find space between the addiction and ourselves.

It is common for addicts to think they are the addiction, but in fact they are not. That is part of the problem. The habit has become their identity. They cannot see the forest for the trees, so to speak. They cannot see their light because they are so focused on their darkness. They cannot see that it is just a habit that has become an identity, but is not in essence who they are.

If you are an addict, it is a lifelong path to maintain sobriety. It is not something that just goes away. Once an alcoholic, one is always an alcoholic, even if that person has not touched a drink for 30 years. The tendency towards addiction remains.

When addicts begin to admit they are powerless over their addiction, they begin to let go of its power. They begin to step backwards, away from the edge of a black hole that can only consume, and move towards personal choice and the ability to manage destructive habits.

There is only one way to face addiction, and that is to have the humility to admit that you have a problem.  Addiction has a gravitational pull that will draw to it other energies in an effort to consume. Addiction is selfish, because the nature of addiction is to consume, to pull, to feed, to take.

The need to consume comes from the identification with lack, with emptiness. Only when the addict has consumed so much that the pain gets too great, will he stop and realize that there is a problem, that his way of avoiding pain is only causing more pain. Then, the desire to change begins.

EXERCISE:

1) Everyone has problems. Everyone has habits. Addicts have made habits into an identity. Ask yourself, if you struggle with addiction, what is your personal bottom? How far are you willing to go before you realize that you have a problem and are willing to get help?

(Continued tomorrow with Getting Help)

 

Ask Parvati 27: Addiction - Part 2: What Is Addiction?

PART 2: WHAT IS ADDICTION?

(Continued from Where Is Addiction?)

Addiction is a serious disease that affects millions globally. The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as "a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry." In the truest sense, addiction is a compulsion to be involved with a substance or activity despite the negative and harmful consequences associated with it. As such, addiction alters brain chemistry, making users dependent on either a substance or an action in order to sustain and maintain that particular chemistry.

From a psychological perspective, addiction is a compulsive activity that hinders the quality of life. When do you know, for example, if a few drinks every day after work, makes you an alcoholic? People with this habit are likely to say that they can stop at any time. Perhaps they can. So then what makes them an alcoholic?

To find out if a habit like that makes you an alcoholic you need to see if the habit is negatively affecting the quality of your life and the close ones around you. In order to see if it is negatively affecting the quality of your life, you need to be willing to look honestly at yourself. The notion of “negative effect” can be overt, like bankruptcy, divorce, contemplating suicide. Or it can be subtler. For example, perhaps you feel that having a drink is more comforting than speaking with your children or spouse. The drink, which seems to simply "take the edge off", is in fact building a wall between what you feel and your ability to be honest with yourself. Because of that habit, your relationship with your spouse and children suffer. If this is the case, the alcohol habit is an addiction.

I adore the quote attributed to the Buddha, which I feel sums up so succinctly the way our minds work:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

There is an important difference between habit and addiction. When we are addicted, we are identified with the habit. That habit defines who we are. It is our identity. We can no longer differentiate between that action and who we are. We fully believe that that drink, or that joint or that hit will take the pain away. It defines our reality.

When we are sober and face a habit, we can see that it either hinders or serves us. We have the self-awareness, the discipline and the willingness to alter that habit and choose healthier ones. In the case of addiction, we identify with that habit as who we are and cannot see it or the possibility of being free from it, so it continues.

In this way, I understand that addiction to a substance may not be the root of addiction. Addiction can come in the form of thoughts, such as a perpetual core belief with which we have fully identified. For example, the idea “I am ugliness” or even “I am darkness” could be so all-consuming that we end up acting in ways that feed that identification. Feeling like a victim would feed that identity. Feeling others are against us would feed it as well. We can believe that we are empty and need to be filled. We then may turn compulsively to substances, work, sports, people or even to religious practices as a means to try to fill ourselves up. We have identified with darkness and act in ways that only feed that reality, until we wake up to the reality that we are not darkness, but are in fact beings of infinite light.

This form of psychological addiction can come in any form. Perhaps it is the idea “I am not enough”, or “I am a nobody”, or “I am incapable”. Any of these kinds of self-effacing thoughts, when we identify with them as who we are, become an addiction. These distorted, root thought forms, when they become our identity, then in turn fuel secondary addictive behaviors, such as substance abuse.

EXERCISE

1) Take a look at what actions in your life are compulsive. See if they negatively affect the quality of your life.

2) Go within, go deeper and ask yourself, are there any core beliefs that seem so pesky that they have become the way you simply see yourself and reality?

3) If you have identified yourself and your reality in impossibilities, are you wiling to see otherwise?

(Continued tomorrow with Hitting Bottom)

Ask Parvati 27: Addiction - Part 1: Where Is Addiction?

ADDICTION

Dear Parvati,

I have recently been coming to terms with the fact that my parents were alcoholics and I have many tendencies that are typical for adult children of alcoholics. As I come to grips with this, I'm also beginning to see that my partner behaves like someone with an addiction - yet he does not use alcohol or drugs. What is addiction? Is it the inability to stop using something known to be addictive, like alcohol, drugs or cigarettes? Is it addiction if I spend a lot of money on clothes? How can I best support my partner and myself if I am in relationship with an addict? Or if I am one myself?

PART 1: WHERE IS ADDICTION?

Thank you for these important questions. Addiction is very prevalent in our society, I believe far more so than most of us realize. We live in a society with many contradictions. We can praise behavior and habits that may in fact support addiction, and also publicly acknowledge the harmful affects caused by addiction. We consciously speak of the harmful effects of addiction, yet we often bury our heads in the sand when faced with its painful expressions, root and ramifications.

Years ago, there was an excellent article in the Yoga Journal (Nov-Dec 1996) exposing the world’s largest private cancer treatment and research center for heavily investing in the tobacco industry. On one hand, we strive to eliminate diseases; on the other hand, we encourage them. We celebrate many leaders in our entertainment industry, admiring their lives, wishing for their successes; yet too easily ignore the often accompanying struggle with addictions and deviant behavior. Indeed, we are a culture full of paradoxes.

As a musical touring performer who is immersed in the music industry, I have seen how the old paradigm of sex, drugs, rock n’ roll and excess has been glorified. Addiction has taken the lives of many young artists; yet, for the most part, it is the addictive behaviours that seem to make them more popular.

We may think of addiction and think only of someone strung out on crack or someone who lives at a bar. But addiction is much more pervasive and insidious than these more extreme cases. Often unseen and unheard, addiction can seep its way into our lives for years before it becomes a blazing problem we can no longer ignore. I believe this is partly due to the way we socialize, the way we accept and often encourage behavior that feeds addiction.

We commonly accept cigarette smoking as part of society, not questioning it much, not necessarily seeing it as an addiction, yet we also publicly acknowledge its addictive and lethal qualities. Much of our income thrives on the manufacturing and sales of cigarettes and alcohol, which ironically feed addictions that in turn increase medical and social complications.

Though tobacco has a place in the herbal healing arts, as all herbs do, the way it is consumed socially is not medicinal. It feeds addiction and debilitates health. In the same way, though some can argue that small amounts of alcohol can be medicinal, and some like the taste, I believe that the general tendency is to consume alcohol in an attempt to medicate psychological and emotional issues that require clear headed sobriety in order to heal. Native Americans historically called alcohol “fire water”. That was no accident. Alcohol embodies a seductive energy that has the power to fool its user into thinking he or she is in control and can even destabilize an entire culture.

Addictions come in many forms. People can be addicted to drugs, alcohol, pills, sex, gambling, shopping, over- and under-eating to name a few. At the root of addiction is wanting, a hungry force that is never satiated. When we are fueled by wanting, we attempt to medicate and dull uncomfortable emotions though external distractions. Happiness cannot be found this way. Wanting can rule our lives to greater or lesser degrees. Most people have wanting. For an addict, wanting is the way he or she identifies, the way he or she perceives life. If we are to explore addiction and addictive energies in our life, we must be willing to see in which way we have allowed wanting to run our lives.

EXERCISE:

1) Look around you today and observe the way we socially support the notion of wanting in our advertising, in our media, in our interactions, in the way we think.

2) Go within and explore in which way wanting drives your life.

3) Notice the ways your wanting is co-creating with the wanting images and messages around you.

4) See if you are willing to open to the possibility that there is an entire reality beyond wanting, beyond feeling disconnected and lacking. See if you can allow yourself to rest into the notion of perfection in this moment, of being ok with what is.

(Continued tomorrow with What Is Addiction?)