Dear Ones,

Last Sunday, at MindRest, we looked closely at what keeps us away from fulfilment - not just fulfilment of our particular intention, but fulfilment in life altogether. For most of us, it is clear that it isn’t just circumstances - it is mostly our conditioned beliefs. At this point of the journey, different programs (including mine in the past), tend to offer different techniques of letting go of what doesn’t serve us. If you have tried this for long enough, you will know that however much you shake it, burn it on sheets of paper and remove it out of your consciousness, it doesn’t work. Here is why. Here is also a different, more loving possibility.

What keeps me away from fulfilment?

Recognising the nature of these perceived blockages is the beginning of a beautiful healing. Although this wasn’t the most joyful session we’ve had, times and times again through different programmes I facilitated, it has become very clear that this is the most powerful part of the journey. Some traditions call it “facing your shadow”, but a more accessible and relatable way of naming it is simply laying out everything that you perceive as an obstacle.

Often people start with the circumstances - the more “solid” part of our blockages. Many of us perceive life as imposed on us and certain circumstances are believed to be standing in our way towards fulfilment. For instance, if I really want to live in nature, but I feel stuck with a corporate job in the city, I tend to blame this job for my current situation. These circumstantial “obstacles” can be summarised for most of us as “me being at the mercy of life”.

Making them explicit (I recommend journalling) is a powerful step as it forces us to have a deeper look at them and ask “Is this really true?”. In my example above, which was my reality a few years ago, what became evident was that I said I wanted to live in nature, but what I really wanted more than that was safety (a solid and consistent income, even if that made me miserable). It sounds stupid but it was a huge step to admit that as some of the internal battle could stop and precious energy could be directed at the feelings underneath that were avoided.

Then come the more subtle blockages of negative thoughts and beliefs. We all have many of these - “I am incompetent, unworthy, unlovable, [fill the gap] - it’s a very easy gap to fill if we are honest and it is a gap that is suspiciously common to all of us. In my specific example, I thought deep down that life was supposed to be sweat and tears, hard work and survivalism. I also believed that I was undeserving of a fulfilled life - that happiness was a mirage reserved for other people, but not me. I believed deep down that I was cut out of joy at a fundamental level. Gloomy, isn’t it.

Verbalising these negative beliefs is half way there. Painful they are - this is a recognition of how we speak to ourselves internally and ultimately how unloving, unkind and frankly brutal we are to ourselves.

How to let it all go?

Now that we’ve recognised them, it is time to let them go, right? Not quite. This is where the process of letting them go, burning them on sheets of paper, locking them in cupboards, shaking them and consciously releasing them fails.

It fails for a very simple reason - these beliefs are not some demons that want the worst for us. Quite the opposite - they are Love itself, but disguised in a way we may not like. They were formulated in the first years of our lives, at a time where we were less well equipped to make sense of a chaotic world. Incidentally, they insured our survival, suppressed emotions that we couldn’t deal with as young children and, even more than that, they compensated (very intelligently) for our parents’ inability to hold and mirror some of our experience as safe harbours.

In other words, these mechanisms intelligently met an important need. The problem is that they are still trying to meet this need, but their methods are a few decades too old. If you are reading this, you are a mature grown-up, which means that you have full capacity to meet this need in a different, more resourceful way. It doesn’t feel good to begin with, but it is so worth it - I promise.

If you can’t let it go, what then?

What’s the positive intention of your negative beliefs?

It is essential to uncover the need that is fulfilled through the negative belief first. A very useful question is to repeatedly ask yourself “What’s the positive intention of that?”. Through this inquiry, I recognised that many of my negative beliefs fulfilled the important role of safety - they kept me steady (read “stuck in my job”), they kept me humble (read “self-doubtful and therefore small and unthreatening to others”), they insured my survival ( read “I saved money, worked my ass off, overachieved and had a home”), they allowed me to feel unlovable, before anyone else proved that to be the case (so again, it was paradoxically safer to be ready for the worst).

However painful the negative beliefs are, they are just a surface-level avoidance of a much deeper pain. They are a distraction - a horrible one, but still merely a distraction. What’s underneath their surface is what truly needs to be met. For me, it was the feeling that I am utterly unsafe, not held, with nothing to hold on to in life, all alone.

Here, there is an essential choice that one can only make when one is ready. It is a choice that feels horrible to begin with, but it is revealed to be a present of exquisite beauty in the end. It is deeply uncomfortable as we have spent a life running away from it. But this running away for some of us has failed to work - instead, it has revealed itself as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, compulsive behaviours and so on. Believe it or not, this failure is the greatest blessing - I am here to testify to this.

We can choose to run away in our thoughts, our stories, our identities once again, as we’ve done for 20-30-40-sometimes 90 years. Or we can try something different - turn towards it.

How can I meet myself fully?

By stopping to run away from yourself. By stopping the urge to fix yourself, embellish yourself, punish yourself…All that is required is to turn your attention towards that deeper pain and allow it to be there. In my case, it required feeling unsafe, broken-hearted, desperate ultimately. No, it’s not pretty, nor recreational as all these layers bubble up. They are called ego.

But this meeting is the most exquisite one in a lifetime. At the bottom of what looks like intolerable emotional vortex is discovered “the great good news” as my mentor and teacher Jared Franks says - a ground of unshakable peace, unconditional love, untainted joy and infinite capacity. And THAT is who you really are.

If you are willing to stay still, you will discover that what you have been running away from is what you have been searching for all along. And in that, there is true fulfilment. You might wonder what staying still means. It means allowing the experience fully without having an agenda about it (e.g. get done with it soon), without indulging in it (e.g. feeling sorry for yourself), without analysing it (which is basically avoiding it), without getting caught up in the stories around it (e.g. “he did it to me”)…essentially, not moving away from the direct experience of it.

If this resonates with you on some level, please reach out. I have started offering True Friend Therapy sessions, which are really just a gentle, but firm and loving support for you in this discovery. They combine the wisdom of the Enneagram of Character Fixation, advanced hypnotherapy and self-inquiry as taught by my beautiful Teachers Gangaji, Eli Jaxon-Bear, Mooji, Jared Franks and Lisa Schumacher.

I feel so blessed beyond words to share what I truly embody and love for the first time ever. It feels very different from all the rest of my life, which was effortful, led by my mind and emotions. It is as if this life starts from scratch, open, fresh, unfixed, joyful and I would love to share this joy with you.

The final Lockdown MindRest is happening this Sunday at 5pm. This time, it is an invitation to open to the joy, fulfilment and mystery that is already and always here. Join us on the mat from the comfort of your home if you feel called.

1:1 Mindfulness

Do you feel called to mindfulness but you struggle to develop a daily practice? I’m a certified Mindfulness Now teacher and would be honoured to share my love for this practice with you. I offer in person and online mindfulness sessions in a 1:1 therapeutic setting. I infuse them with sound healing and self-inquiry. Through this intimate format, I meet you wherever you are at. Not sure this is for you? Book a free online consultation and get a feel for my energy.

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