The Gift in Adversity

THE GIFT IN ADVERSITY

I just returned from being in England over the past few weeks. On a professional level, it was an excellent, full on time performing and teaching, moving my projects forward, meeting great people and finding out more about the world and myself. But what I learned was beyond all of this.

The day after my first show at the Mind Body Spirit Festival in London, I developed severe laryngitis. This may seem like a tragedy for one who uses her voice to perform and teach. But for one who has made a promise to the spiritual path, I know that the universe has an amazing way of keeping us honest and on path. Adversity is nothing other than a gift in disguise.

As I allowed myself to soften into the physical and emotional discomfort I felt having absolutely no voice, I found myself inundated with memories from what seemed to be a past life memory in London dying of consumption (tuberculosis). At that time, my lungs were full of fluid. I could not breathe, and I felt silent in my ability to voice feelings of powerlessness. In the present, what lingered was resentment of having died in a state of sorrow. So I welcomed these feelings as part of healing my laryngitis.

However, my memories did not stop there. As we toured through England, I was also reminded of another time in the UK when water filled my lungs. I had stones tied to my feet and was being drowned for my beliefs, likely when I was a healer, accused of being a witch. In that lifetime, I also died with water-filled lungs, with unspoken beliefs.

As my laryngitis moved into bronchitis, I had every opportunity to meet these emotions and send myself love and understanding so that I could deeply heal. In the bustle of the full on 18 hour a day schedule I had there, there was little room for formal sitting meditation practice, which I believe if I had had, I would not have fallen ill. I needed the inner space to process what was arising. Release through my body was the only way it could be expressed, due to my busy-body schedule. 

Being in England with fever and illness was an opportunity for me to forgive and let go at a deep, soul level. In the present, my business meetings were fruitful, people supportive, shows and workshops excellent (one was even sold out) and products sold. Spiritually, I was being asked to come more fully into the present. The fears I carried from those past experiences were colouring the here and now.

As I walked through the British streets, rode the London tube, watched the people come and go, I consciously had to remind myself it was 2013 and I was physically free and breathing freely and had the freedom to say what and how I felt.

I understand time to be like Russian dolls, each moment inside the other, not linear like we think time to be. There is no past or future, but an eternal now in which all unfolds simultaneously.

Whatever arises for us in the moment, as we practice mindful awareness, is exactly where we need to be. For me, it was in healing the past to be fully present and allow myself to grieve and heal.

Who knows what my next trip to the UK will bring. For that matter, who knows what the next moment will bring. That does not matter. I feel grateful for the opportunities I did experience and am open to what unfolds.

May we each have the courage in each moment to meet it as it is, without reservation, without judgment so that we may shine the eternal light we truly are.

Enjoy each moment,

Parvati

Success, Joy and Abundance

Everyone has his own personal definition of success. Culturally, we tend to consider success when we receive accolade and praise from external accomplishments, like fame and fortune. For the most part, our measures of success are external. 

 

Some people measure their success based on an internal compass, attempting to meet their own personal best. However, often, even these seemingly internal measures are driven by attachments to external ideas of success. 

 

I met someone recently who asked me, puzzled: “If I don’t want to be better, how will I ever become better?” Success for her was out there, and she was tired running after it. She felt there must be another way, but was unclear what it could be. She had lived a life driven by what she felt others wanted for her rather than fueled by her own personal joy. 

 

Joy often seems elusive, something we will get to eventually, once we complete this task or that one, or once we have achieved this goal or that one. To me, living like this is being the proverbial donkey that chases the carrot held out on a stick in front of him. It is an impossible chase. In that situation, our impulse to move arises from what we think will make us happy ‘over there’ and from feelings of scarcity in this moment, rather than tapping into the reality of eternal abundance.

 

Abundance is a bit of a popular catchphrase that seems to, in itself, contain external measures of success. For many, it often relates to financial wealth, whereas for me, it expresses a life of possibility and energetic opulence that is available to all and is not conditional upon the external. When we live by abundance, we feel we have enough, no matter what the circumstances may be. The notion of ‘more’ is a possibility, an organic arising, rather than a reaching or a wanting. We don’t need more to be happy. We are open to more, should this be the expression of life and of our highest good. In a state of abundance, there is no push/pull struggle, but a dance with life, in this moment, as it is.

 

Joy has a lot to do with abundance. Perhaps it is why the phrase “follow your bliss and doors will open where before there were none” became so popular, thanks to the late professor Joseph Campbell. When we follow our joy, we feel an impulse to participate in life. We feel an impulse to share, because we feel connected to our inner wealth. 

 

We can find temporal motivation through fear, feeling “if we don’t” do a certain thing, “then we won’t” get a certain reward (such as approval). Yet joy is also a tremendous motivator. But unlike fear, joy taps into a wealth of energy that far outshines the capacity of fear. By following our joy, our impulse to act comes from a deeper, more rooted and expansive place, and brings to our lives a vital force unlike any other.

 

As I travel across the continent to get to my next destination on the US tour of my show YIN: Yoga In the Nightclub and my yoga workshop YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine, I am thinking a lot about joy, abundance, vitality and success. I realize that for myself, my sense of success comes from the courage to travel inward to places I could easily avoid. And in this case, traveling inward has led to me traveling outward.

 

To me, success is about the courage to say yes to life, to joy, to all of who I am, to all that this moment brings. I do this work because it is what my joy calls of me. It is an impulse that arises from the voice of my soul and connects me to an energy far greater than my limited sense of “me”. 

 

As I evolve, there are aspects of my shadow that I must see in order to grow. I could choose to hide from and mask them by becoming distracted with passing pleasures. Yet it is my joy to go deeper, to go beyond the fear that says, “I can’t”. There I find the acronym for fear to be true: they are “False Expectations Appearing Real”. So I remind myself, “Be here. Be now. I have all I need. All is well. All is unfolding as it should.” This redirection of consciousness brings me to inner places that connect me to something so much greater than my ego, and my perception of the world shifts.

 

I don’t know what this tour will bring, but no matter what happens, I feel at some level I already have success because I am on the road to newness, I welcome possibility and I am open to the fullness of myself and of life.

 

May you touch your deepest expression of your version of success and may you live by it. May you follow your joy and share that light with the world.

 

Until next time, be well.

Parvati

Sacred Sexuality: Beyond Wanting - Part 4: The Body Channel - The Art of Love

(Continued from Wanting Fulfillment or Open to Divine Love)

What channel are we choosing to tune into and amplify when we mate? Whatever our state of consciousness at the time of sexual interaction, that consciousness is amplified by the act of sex. If we are wanting, seeking fulfillment and brimming with desire, we will feel satisfied temporarily from our climax, then ultimately feel empty once again and want more. The cycle of wanting then continues.

 

But if we approach sex from the point of view of the sacred, from a place of mindfulness and a practice of the release of wanting, most guys will say at first that they can’t get it up, and women will not know how to be sexy because they are so used to seducing or playing hard to get. Once the cat and mouse games or prey/predator games fall away, we are left with our naked self, our inner being, raw, vulnerable and real. Ok, you may ask, so what is so sexy about that!? That is when real lovemaking begins.

 

When we allow ourselves to let go of wanting the other to fill us up, when we let ourselves be real, as we are, another energy comes through our body and being. It will charge our entire being with a presence, a force that is absolutely free of wanting. We feel open, grounded, free, humble and powerful – zero and everything. It is as through our body, heart and soul simultaneously flower in reverential awe of the moment. This force is an exquisite expression of the flower of life itself.

 

Sacred sexuality is not about “me” wanting “you”, or “you” wanting “me”, or two people pleasuring themselves and each other. These temporary wants will come and go and will leave each person with the same sense of emptiness they were consciously or unconsciously trying to fill up through the other. Sacred sexuality is about the body being a vehicle for the divine. Beyond the grip of personality, the partners are open, present, and willing portals of the divine in human form. In this state, there is no desire to climax, in fact, perhaps a moving away from such. Should this force begin to arise, those who are keen practitioners of sacred sexuality will know that this is a sign that wanting is also rising, and interference has come. Practitioners must wait for that wanting to pass in order to proceed.

 

In sacred sexuality, there is the absence of desire, and the fullness of life itself. The whole body-being begins to feel like a sex organ, alive and pulsing with life. Spiritual bliss replaces orgasm and it is not limited to physical contact or genital stimulation. It is a spiritual lasting state that is not conditional upon action. The spine is a conduit for life force energy that pulses energy through every cell. There are no wild multiple orgasms that make you fabulously funky, and proud of your spiritual prowess. In sacred sexuality there is a genuine merging with the One. The mind is calm, clear and fully alert, yet relaxed. The body is present, open, gentle and very strong. This is a yogic state. This is a path to the divine.

 

Sacred sexuality is the expression of sexual energy without wanting. This is the embodiment of life force. It is a co-creation with the Cosmic Intelligence and Nature. It can be expressed with the self through the fulfillment of one’s destiny. It is when the Divine is incarnate. It can also be expressed through self with self-sex. But this may lead to trickiness because the physical body, being the heaviest vibration of our entire being, also houses and triggers our deepest attachments and our most profound wants.

The same is true with sex with others, be it same sex or heterosexual. Sex is to be free of wanting if we are to touch the divine. When wanting is absent, one has the experience of true presence, and this alone, with or without touch, can be soulfully orgasmic. It is a question of openness, readiness and willingness to be seen wholly, as we are without façade, fears and ego. A simple, connected gaze can lead our entire being into a different, expanded realm, one more real than what our limited perceptions and habitual personality would want us to see and believe. Sacred sexuality is not about or limited to genitalia. Sacred sex is about the force of life that flowers through the soul, meeting spirit through the body. It electrifies this moment into the fullness of being. It is living our fullest potential, realizing our magnificence and being divine incarnate. Sacred sexuality is not about the act of sex, but about reverential acknowledgement and humble awe at the spiritual force that flows through life, that we only know when we are willing to become quietly, lovingly spacious, unbound and free of all sense of disconnection.

 

Ask Parvati 29: Art As Soul Food - Part 2: The Power of Intention

PART 2: THE POWER OF INTENTION

(Continued from Personal Perception and the Universal)

I had to take a few steps back before I sent out the video of me singing and playing the piano the other day on 9/11. After walking away, taking some space, I looked at the take with as much objectivity as I could. Technically, it was not one of my best “performances” of the song “You Gotta Believe”, but there was a presence in the delivery that somehow I felt I wanted to share. I decided to send it out mostly because it gave me goosebumps as I heard it back. What was it that gave me goosebumps? I asked a couple friends to watch it, and observed their reaction. I saw them too shudder a couple of times. Why did they respond that way? I could guess, but ultimately, I don’t know. It just felt right to send it so I did. I feel very sincere in singing about 9/11, so much so that I cried after the tape was off. Perhaps that vulnerability and sincerity came across. When I put the video out there, I wanted to communicate with transparent honesty above delivering with technical perfection.

All art communicates, whether it is done through narrative, colour, light, mood or vibration. After we have spent time with a work of art, we either feel we have been touched or not. Why then does certain art make us feel invigorated and others depleted? Why do certain songs have us tapping our feet but wanting to run out of the room?

I believe that the power of intention is at least in part responsible for how music makes me feel. My life is dedicated to a spiritual honesty. I am therefore more likely to resonate with music that communicates sincerity and supports evolution, connection and expansion than music that comes from the ego. I find the style of music does not matter as much as the creative intention.

If someone is writing a song from a place of “gotta get it right” or “wanna make a million bucks”, I feel it. I have heard songs on the radio that, on paper, would be a song I would write. The lyrics seem positive, the rhythm catchy, and the melody imaginative. But the song either leaves me flat or makes me feel unwell and I need to change the station. If the songwriter and performers are creating from ego, to me, it comes across.

My body never lies. It has been a great teacher and friend. When my consciousness rests in a place of expansion, my body feels relaxed and expansive. When I am disconnected or spaced out, my body is tense or agitated. My body is like a litmus test for my state of consciousness. It keeps me honest, humble and tuned in.

So I usually go to my body for advice on sounds and art. I ask myself, how does it feel? Not just emotionally, but physically. If I were to look at a painting, does the collection of colours, textures, mood and tone make me feel expansive? Or when I look at it, do I feel like a flower that quickly fades?

In art, there is both the personal and the transpersonal. To me, powerful art is where the artist touches the realm of the transpersonal, when it goes beyond the ego of the creator(s) and accesses the timeless and eternal. Great art can become a vehicle to cultivate our human potential. It can remind us of our divinity. It can help guide our way home. It can help dissolve the ego so that we may be rooted in selflessness.

(Continues tomorrow with The Source of Creativity: Ego or Selflessness)

 

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE: A DEDICATION TO 9/11

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE: A DEDICATION TO 9/11

This week, I have been thinking a lot about 9/11, the horrors of that day, the suffering thoughts and acts that led to the crisis and the suffering in so many that followed the crash. I have also been reflecting upon the way music connects, heals, inspires and touches people. Sound can expand, amplify and support human potentiality or be a vehicle for energies that destroy life.

Since today marks the ten-year anniversary of the tragic fall of the twin towers, I feel I need to acknowledge this memorial before digging more deeply into the question that I was asked this week. Interestingly, the question relates to the power of art to heal or destroy and how to discern when the energy behind a piece is in support of the evolutionary flow or not. It is a topic very close to my soul-home, and one that ties in perfectly with what I felt I needed to express today.Tomorrow, I will post the full question and dive more deeply into the specific question. Today, I need to honour and acknowledge 9/11 through my own experience of songwriting and singing.

Witnessing the twin towers fall was an experience for me of tremendous tragedy that also birthed a song of hope and possibility. That thought still brings pause to my mind. Why did something so horrific spawn a song called “You Gotta Believe”? What arose from my soul, after having seen the towers fall in real time, was not aggression and hatred, but hope and the call for connection. The experience reinforced for me the power of music to heal. It could also be a messenger of hope and love to uplift those that heard it.

The song that was born for me the day the twin towers fell was a reflection of my soul experience of the tragedy. Consciously, I would not have said the words found in my lyrics (below). At the time, if I was asked how I felt, all I would have been able to share was shock, anger and fear. But behind those reactive thoughts, my inner knowing had a different message. My rooted focus deep down in the midst of horror was on the goodness of life. My soul was anchored in the notion that we must believe, despite the presence of revenge, hate and evil, in human potentiality and our capacity to love.

Song writing, like any art form, is a mysterious process. For me, it is a sort of creative free fall based on letting go of control and the knowing mind while opening in trust to a mystical possibility of interconnection. What arises from the process is for me never known, but a respectful unfolding of the voice of the soul. It does not necessarily express my personality, but is an opportunity to tap into a zone where we are all connected. The way it is expressed is a reflection of my personality, the style of music, the choice of words. But deeper, it is as though doors temporarily open to a sacred space where we are all one. I can peer into it for a moment, breathe in the beauty to then bring back and share through an expressive exhale the splendor and expansion of it all.

The 9/11 tragedy obviously changed the city of New York, not only physically, but at a soul level. I lived there for some time before 9/11 and often felt on edge, tense and jumpy. There was a dominant, tribal law, a pulsating bass note that seemed to throb below the streets and emanate through the city. To me, it was intensely non-negotiable. It felt harsh and invoked an attitude of the survival of the fittest, a bestial, aggressive energy that said seize or be seized.

After 9/11, the city was brought to its knees. In the brokenness, horror and shock, something opened.  I found people more raw, real and vulnerable. Connection, community, honesty, sincerity, kindness, care and love were like diamonds that had been excavated in the blast from the human soul. They were sparkling and could be seen and shared, brought to the light through the impact of the crash. Tragedy has a way of cracking open our ego to reveal a more humble self.
The day the towers were hit, I unknowingly was working on a piano riff at my parents’ home. My creative flow was interrupted by my father who came running down to the main floor to let me know I needed to stop what I was doing and go upstairs to see the TV.

Shocked, horrified, I could not believe my eyes. Still shaking, the dust of the buildings not yet settled, I went back to the piano with all the emotion swirling about, the piano riff still fresh in my mind. What came out almost immediately was this song, “You Gotta Believe”. I had the honour to sing it for the city of New York some time later at the world famous Madison Square Garden.

Even when I sing it today, I still shake. You may not see, but I did in the video I share here. What you do not see in the video is that after the video camera was turned off, I cried. Singing it, thinking of those that died, those who suffer from violent crimes, brought me right back to the images I saw when the twin towers fell. I also thought of my dad who is now gone and felt grateful for the zest for life he taught me. These are the lyrics from “You Gotta Believe”:

If this moment were your very last, how would you want it to be?
What do you need to do to be at peace? Do you need to make that apology?
There’s no better time than this moment we now have
To live the way that you want to be.
What will be in your heart when you leave?
You gotta believe in the good of life and what you feel!
You gotta believe in the power of love and what is real!
You gotta believe! You gotta believe!

Would you want to go in the midst of fear or having a temper tantrum?
Do you want to wait until it’s too late To say you could’ve or you would’ve or you should’ve been?
Are you brave enough to look within? It’s easier to point out others' sins
Than to see where we each have erred, how we could have shared, how we could’ve cared.
You gotta believe in the good of life and what you feel!
You gotta believe in the power of love and what is real!
You gotta believe! You gotta believe!

Life’s a wake up call how we’re all afraid to fall without the love we all need.
What will it take, more raising the stakes, for your eyes to fully see, for your heart to remember its divinity?
You gotta believe in the good of life and what you feel!
You gotta believe in the power of love and what is real!
You gotta believe! You gotta believe!

May we all believe in the goodness of life. May we all feel love. May we learn from these tragic reminders of our human frailty and live each day with fullness, gratitude and honour. Our human magnificence is a gift we are called to cherish, not take for granted. Our time on Earth is to be celebrated, not squandered mindlessly.

Yes, horrors happen. Sadly at this time in our human evolution, such atrocities exist. But greater than those who choose to live in the dark and act in suffering is the potential for human greatness and good. Those who live by suffering teach us to choose differently. When we look with humility, we can see through them that we choose not to hate, but to love, not to attack, but to understand, not to destroy, but to create. We each have a choice. It is in the way we face adversity that reveals our true self.

Parvati
(More to follow tomorrow)

Ask Parvati 7 – Cultivating the Sweetness of Humility

Ask Parvati 7 – Cultivating the Sweetness of Humility

Dear Parvati,

You mentioned in your last entry that a gem of a spiritual seeker will have a warm humility. I try to practice humility, but struggle with a tendency to go straight into self-loathing when I feel that I have done something egotistic. I feel this tendency is not humility. Can you explain a little more about humility and how it is different from beating yourself up?

I feel grateful for this question on a topic with which I am very much in process. I am no expert here, so I share some of what I have learned and witnessed so far on my journey. The lessons that have taught me aspects of humility have been among the toughest I have experienced, but also the sweetest. As the hard shell of the coconut cracks to reveal sweet meats, so too the hardness of our ego must dissolve in order to experience the nectar of lasting bliss.

Humility is an essential spiritual quality that we must all learn to cultivate if we are to walk the spiritual path. Because of the powerful strength found in the deep softness of humility, this topic is often easily misunderstood. I acknowledge its sweet immensity in wonder and awe.

Part of the process of evolution is learning to find a balanced relationship between the temporal and the eternal, the mundane and the cosmic. We are vast, radiant beings, like shining stars, learning to face, with grace and ease, situations and events that may make us feel constrictive.

Our life events are a reflection of our previous karmic tendencies (residue from our past) and an opportunity to flow within the divine play of pure consciousness arising. We learn to soften and welcome this moment, open to the teachings and the wisdom within it that give us what we need to let go of that which no longer serves, and embrace the fullness of who we are.

Just as a star eventually collapses and goes supernova, along the spiritual path there is a death of who we think ourselves to be, in order to become eternally free. The key elixir in the process of this death is the deceptively powerful force of humility. Humility has the alchemical power of transforming the base metals of our previous karmic tendencies into the gold of this moment.

The power of humility is a balanced dance within form and formlessness, where we understand that to meet this moment, to let go, to embrace what is, allows the stars that we are to be born into supernovae. As such, humility is a refined state of consciousness that both guides and teaches us on our spiritual path.

What makes humility so powerful is that it provides us with a balanced attitude of being an integral part within a vast and immense whole. Only in being humble can we truly learn to embrace this moment in all that it brings. Only in being humble can we truly learn to let go of how we want things to be, and learn what we need. Only in being humble are we rooted, vital and expansive enough to realize our true nature. We all cast shadows on this earth. The more we stand in pride, judgment and in illusions of grandeur, the deeper our shadow. By being willing to kneel in gratitude, bow in reverence, let go in wonder, the depth of our shadow decreases. And the death that we experience is the death of the temporal, the death of “me”, “mine” and “I”.

We commonly think of humility as a sheepish, apologetic state, which in itself speaks of a shadow of the ego. The ego is tricky, yet is also quite simple. It expresses itself in any feeling that makes us feel greater than or less than.

The Buddhist practice speaks of near enemies. For example, the near enemy of the sophisticated state of compassion would be sympathy. To be sympathetic for someone is a very different state than to be compassionate. So in the same way, nobodyness can often be misunderstood as humility. Nobodyness would be more along the lines of the ego’s tricky play of feeling less than, which is often rooted in self-loathing or shame.

Self-loathing can come in various forms. It can be an active aggression against oneself, or a more passive attachment to a sense of self-disgust. It is perhaps useful to think of self-loathing as the personality’s misguided understanding of the energy flow in this moment. This misguided understanding brings one into the experience of an emotional dead end, feeling trapped with no way out. The pattern of self-loathing becomes a self-sabotage technique that pulls us away from the fullness of the moment and into a disconnected, painful state.

Of course, there is the potential for the vicious cycle of loathing the self-loathing, which just generates more suffering. The opportunity for us is, once we realize we are in a pattern of self-loathing, to stop, to breathe, and allow ourselves to be right here, right now. It is natural to feel overwhelmed when we first start to practice this. It’s like a new muscle that takes time to develop. So continue to bring your awareness back to whatever this moment is for you.

And in that space, the tendency for self-loathing will likely return. But in that space, we can begin to witness it rather than react to it and give it energy. In the process of witnessing it, we can begin to make different choices, choices rooted in a more connected sense of self, choices inspired by the freedom of humility.

It takes humility to learn to release this misunderstanding of your true nature and begin to consciously choose different avenues of expression. Life is an ongoing opportunity for us to meet face-to-face the results of our previous actions. We can resist, dislike, judge and feel ashamed of what we see as a reflection of who we are; or we can choose to move a new way, out of the dead end and into the flow. The ability to see clearly that we have been self-loathing requires humility, asking us to soften to what is, to find a middle place that is neither mired in a painful tendency nor steeped in avoidance. This humility holds within it both the gentleness required to meet the moment and the alignment to an energy greater than the self, that is in service to evolution. So rather than fighting or avoiding self-loathing, humility teaches us to see it as it is, accept it in all its colours, and return to our connection, to our radiant star-like reality, and shine.

We can feel resistance to realizing that we are stars, let alone to knowing that we can go supernova. In the last blog entry, we explored the trickiness of the ego and how all that shimmers may not be light. So to even come into alignment with the realization that we are stars requires humility. To say “Hey, wow, look at me, I’m a brilliant star!” or to sheepishly avoid shining, are both expressions of ego-driven disconnect. Humility teaches us a relaxed acceptance of our true nature, that we are perfect beings within a perfect universe, with imperfect qualities that require conscious attention to refine.

We are perfectly equipped with everything we need to evolve. It takes humility to maintain a non-comparative, non-judgmental point of view so that we can just get on and do our work just as we are and be in a relaxed, celebratory state of awareness that we are within an intelligent, vast whole.

I cannot say whether one arrives into a permanent state of humility, because on my journey so far, I am very much in a deepening, ongoing evolutionary process with it. But sages remind us of a reality in which all aspects of the ego dissolve and we experience a continual flow of unity consciousness and bliss. May you find the light, playful wonder to meet the moment with humility so that you may realize the fullness of who you are.

Ask Parvati 2 - Family Relationships - Breaking Free of Feeling Judged

Family Relationships – Breaking Free of Feeling Judged

March 6, 2011

Thank you very much for your comments to my past post and for your submissions this round.

If you would like your question to be in a draw to be answered next Sunday, please send it to me by Thursday March 10^th at ask@parvatidevi.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Have a super week and enjoy the week’s read.

Parvati

QUESTION:

Dear Parvati, I have been brought up in a very controlling family, with very dogmatic religious beliefs. Even though I am an adult now and have been living on my own for a long time, I still feel this fear of being controlled and judged by them, to the point where I don't even want to talk to them or visit them anymore. How can I move past that and have a healthy, balanced relationship with them?

REPLY:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your sincere question. Many, I am sure, can relate. No matter what kind of family we are born into, good, loving, kind, abusive, indifferent, we have an opportunity to grow. At a soul level, deeper then the personality, our family members are very powerful teachers that I believe are perfectly matched for what we need to learn in this life. Whether or not you have a postcard happy relationship with your family, whether you speak to them every day or once in ten years, all that is in your life is there to support you learning and evolving.

Learning to see a situation as it is, beyond hurt and the grip of emotional reactivity, is to me the first step to finding healing. When you look deeper, you see that a judgmental person is a fearful person. We can all relate to being afraid. We all share deep, primal fear of not being loved.

Being able to see a person as they are helps us to understand what really is, and in so doing, we to learn to love. A judgmental person likely does not feel loved. Knowing that behind a judgmental person is a fearful one helps us to feel more connected to them at a soul level. Maybe our personalities don’t jive, but somehow, we can relate to another’s human experience. We too can feel afraid. We too can judge. Rather than falling into the trap of judging those who are judging us, which just perpetuates the cycle of suffering, we learn to be present for their fear of not being loved, which mirrors our own fear of not being loved. So in essence, you really are not dealing with judgment at all. You are learning to let go of identifying with the fear of not feeling loved and not taking someone else’s fear of the same personally.

Once we know what is really going on, we can find much greater inner peace. We can be more honest within ourselves about how we are afraid of not being loved by the people who were our primary caregivers. Biologically, our very life depended on these people when we were children. So we wanted and needed to feel loved – for survival. But as adults, our life no longer depends on them the same way. Instead, we learn to connect inwardly to the true source of love, which is not our parents, but the universal flow of pure consciousness that is in all things, all the time. We learn to see ourselves as a reflection of that love, and our family also.

So, you may ask, if my judgmental family is a reflection of that pure consciousness, why do they act in a way that I find hurtful? A judgmental person is not plugged into the reality that he/she is a reflection of pure consciousness. Nor is that person seeing you as such. The key is, it does not matter if they see you that way or not. You find freedom by seeing it yourself. You cannot control when they wake up to seeing things as they are. But you can control when you can. They may never see you as you are. But you can learn to see them as they are right now. In seeing them as they are, you are actually seeing yourself more clearly, because you are tapping into unconditional love. And your true nature is Love.

When you plug into the reality that you are love, that you are loved, when you choose to live in the positive possibilities, you can see that their fear is a reminder, a teacher that guides your choices. Their judgment shows you that acting in disconnect causes pain for everyone. So you learn not to do the same. Their pain teaches you to let go of the hurtful cycle of judgment so that you love yourself and others, something they, at this time, are not able to do, likely not because they are mean, but because they don’t yet know how.

We are geared to see our biological family as our safe place, as our source of love. As children, we needed our families to be that for us. But now, we learn to see ourselves as part of a much bigger family, the human family, and find our source of love from the timeless universal rather than from the limited personal. As we grow older, we must leave the nest to find our own expression of I AM. We can fear that we will surpass our parents, and that then we will not get the love we had hoped we would as children. But being able to see our parents and siblings as they are is essential in becoming who we are. As we see them for who they are, as they are, rather than as we want them to be, we learn to accept them as they are, and love who we are. Our source of love no longer is held captive within them, limited mortals that they are, but found beyond all things temporal. Life then becomes a co-creative dance with the timeless source of love, through the temporal expression of it. We learn to see that what is before us in our lives is teaching us to love better, but is not the source of love.

All that happens, happens for a reason. We are part of a much greater, intelligent infrastructure than what our little ego can perceive. As such, what happens in our life, offers us an opportunity to grow beyond the grasp of our ego. I believe that our family members provide us with the perfect setting to learn to truly love and realize who we are.

EXERCISE

1) The essential questions

No matter what happens in life, we can choose to grow. We can choose for life to break our heart closed or break it open. So as a starting point, I would be asking myself some key questions:

•  What am I learning here?
•  What is this situation gifting me with that only this situation could offer?

2) Seeing things as they are

We are distracted from the present by being attracted to what we like (thinking that will bring us happiness, however fleeting) and repulsed by what we don’t like (running from what we fear). Both attraction and repulsion are based on running: running to, and running from the fullness of life. When we allow ourselves to see things – as they are – without a story attached to it, we begin to experience that which is.

All relationships provide us with a very powerful mirror. If we like what we see, we tend to say: “I like that.” If we don’t like what we see, we say: “I don’t like that.” We tend to attract again and again similar people, who at some point we don’t like, because we have not learned to accept that part inside ourselves.

Perhaps, having grown up in a judgmental family, you may find yourself prone to being judgmental. Even when we tend to not like things in our family, sooner or later, we find they exist in us. Being judgmental about judgmental people is a quick and easy trap to fall into. Practice finding a neutral point of view, to the best of your ability. Practice seeing your family members as they are with no story attached.

For example, when you hear one of your family members being judgmental, do you immediately think, “Oh! There he/she goes again, being so judgmental!”? By reacting to another’s judgmental nature, in effect, you are judging. Instead, see if you can develop a point of view to see things as they are. So he/she judges and you say to yourself, with neutrality, “Ok. There is judgment.” As though you were saying, “The sky is blue.”

3) The power of raw and real

By learning to pause when you tend to react to feeling judged, you can begin to truly feel what you are feeling. Beyond the discomfort of feeling judged, you may feel disconnected from the person who you feel is judging you. And in that disconnection, you may realize that you feel sad and alone. In that aloneness, you may notice that you feel afraid. In that fear, you may doubt that that you will ever feel love or loved. In that feeling of disconnection you are left raw, real and honest in that moment. The reactivity of being judgmental was masking that vulnerability of your naked, open honesty.

The question you may be asking is, why would I want to feel naked, raw and vulnerable, any time especially around people who I feel judge me? True power comes from honesty, not from masks. We can say nothing to someone who hurts us, and pretend it does not matter, but all the while, our stomach is churning and inner pain builds within. Our masks grow heavy and are tiresome to carry. We think we are protecting ourselves, but in effect, we are hiding ourselves from ourselves and the world. How can we feel love in that state of hiding?

We hide because we are afraid that who we really are is not good enough. And that feeling of not good enough is easy to feel when we are around judgmental people. But the cycle stops cold when we stop giving it energy. In being honest, raw, vulnerable and real with ourselves and with others, we stop the cycle of disconnect. We have taken the leap into connecting with ourselves. And once we do, we can tune in, powerfully, to find out if it is right for us to share that feeling with others.

4) Share what feels expansive and witness the rest

It is not always right to share with another person all and everything that you are feeling. But it is always right to share whatever feels expansive to share of what you are feeling, from a place of personal connection and honesty with who you are. Whatever you say from that vantage point, everyone has the opportunity to gain, whether they decide to open to that opportunity or wish to continue to judge. What they do, you cannot control. But what you see and say, you totally can.

5) Manage your relationship

Define the relationship as it suits you. You are in charge of all relationships in your life. You never need to feel, in any relationship, that you are powerless. All relationships in your life need to work for you. So ask yourself, with regard to your family,

• What kind of relationship do I need in order to feel healthy?
• What changes do I need to make in my behaviour with them to honour my needs?
• In what way am I still looking for their approval?
• How do I give them power?
• In which way do I still see them as the source of my love?
• At what point do I start to feel like I am losing my energy when I am around them?
• Do I feel this way with all my family members or just a few in particular?

If you are learning new self-management techniques, let your family know that you are changing things in your life so they can expect changes. They may not understand. They may even react. That does not matter. If you need to, you can let them know that you need some space to figure things out and that it is not personal.

Take care of yourself first. Unless you have a positive possibilities relationship with yourself, you cannot have a healthy relationship with others. And just because you have a positive possibilities relationship with yourself, that doesn’t mean you will ever have a positive possibilities relationship with certain people. Those people just may not want to go there.

I do believe it is not possible or even healthy to have relationships with certain people. It is always healthy to wish people well, to sincerely wish them happiness. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is not interact. No one benefits when two drowning people cling to each other and pull each other down.

TIPS:

Next time you know you are going to interact with people who tend to judge you, see if you can set up boundaries that support you having space to keep tuned into how you feel. Also make sure you have the space you need to leave, if you need to.

1. Before you engage with any of your family members, prepare yourself to practice seeing their behaviour as a reflection of their own state of consciousness and not as a reflection of you.
2. When you feel people judge you, take a deep breath and go within to shift your perspective. It is not “happening” to you. Their judging reflects their own state of fear and subsequent desire to control.
3.  Ask for clarification. “You said [this]. Is that what you mean?”
4. Should you feel judged, take a deep breath and shift your perspective into seeing that the judgment is a reflection of their own disconnect and fear and has nothing to do with you. Then you can choose to voice, if it feels expansive to do so, that you feel judged by what was said. Not because you want their approval, but out of self-love; it is healthy for you to be honest with who you are. Being honest ultimately mirrors back to them how their behaviour makes you feel and provides them with an opportunity to see you better and to learn to love.
5.  If you do choose to voice how you feel, practice being not attached to what they say in response. Remember, you are doing it for yourself, not for approval.If you choose not to voice how you feel, continue to practice witnessing how the other is behaving. If you feel like you are losing energy by being in that environment, leave. Doing what feels expansive for you is best for everyone.

SACRED LAWS

• Everyone in your life is a teacher.
• Everything in life provides an opportunity for you to embody wisdom-compassion and realize your true nature as Love.
• Set healthy boundaries. You don’t need to hang out with anyone that does not make you feel expansive. Sometimes people come into your life to teach you to say no.
• Being real, honest and raw is powerful. The more honest you are with yourself, the more honest you can be with others. The more you live by honesty in all you do, the less burdens you carry and the freer you will feel. The freer you feel, the more love you will feel, and therefore, the more able you will be to share and enjoy living.