Entering the Wilderness (AHCW)

Entering the Wilderness

• Signs and symptoms of Unlived Life
• We mentioned the "speeding, etc" but there are other inner symptoms too where we avoid the unlived life. 
• When there is a lot of disassociation: 
• there is a lot of tiredness, a lot of fatigue.
•  less access to life energy.
• When avoiding something, we are blocking a flow. And by doing that there is more physical tension and pain.
• When avoiding the unlived life there is a chronic sense of apprehension. 
• How do we know? 
• Our bodies intelligence know there is something we are pushing away. That is anxiety. "Can I handle it?"
• When pushing away part of our life, we get identified that there is a defended self. 
• We begin to answer our "who I am" as controlling, defended, and not ok self. Identity gets very consolidated. 
• Valuing entering the wilderness and facing the things we have been pushing away.
• How is that possible? How do we listen more deeply and open more fully?
• Our tendency is so deep to leave. 
• "Sit, stay, heel" :)
• Prayer that illustrates what happens when we don't open to the unlived life. 
• Felt sense prayer: 

I am the pain in your head, the knot in your stomach, the unspoken grief in your smile, I'm your high blood sugar, your elevated blood pressure, you fear of challenge, your lack of trust, I'm your hot flashes, your cold hands and feet, your agitation, and your fatigue. You tend to disown me, suppress me, ignore me. You usually want me to go away immediately, to disappear. You mostly are irritated or frightened, at many times shocked by my arrival. From this stance you medicate me in order to eradicate me. Ignoring me and not exploring me is your preferred response. More times than not, I am only the most recent notes of a long symphony, the most evident branches for roots that have been challenged for seasons. So I implore you, I am a messenger of good news. As disturbing as I can be at times. I am wanting to guide you back to those tender places in yourself. The place you can hold yourself with compassion and honesty. I may ask you to alter your diet, get more sleep, exercise regularly, breath more consciously. I might encourage you to see a vast reality and worry less about the day to day fluctuations of life. I may ask you to explore the bonds and wounds of your relationships. I am your friend, not your enemy. I have no desire to bring pain and suffering into your life. I am simply tugging at your sleeve too long immune to gentle nudges. My charge is to energize you to listen to me with a sensitive ear and heart of a mother tending to her precious baby. You are a being so vast, so complex, with amazing capacities for self regulation and healing. Let me be one of the harbingers that leads you to the mysterious core of your being where insight and wisdom are naturally available when called upon with a sincere heart. 

• Our practice
• Whether formal or through the day - to have that intention to wake up from the trance, and have that willingness to enter the wilderness, to listen and let this aliveness of our being be our friend, to inhabit our fullness
• Metaphor of leaving earth: we go into into a mental movie, a satellite. Earth is presence. 

• The Liberating Practice of R.A.I.N.
• Helps guide us with compassion to what is here.
• Recognize trance 
• i.e. speeding, fatigue, anxiety, etc.
• Helpful to name what is going on (won't be lost in it).
• Allow it
• I'm not going to judge this.
• Let the whole situation be
• Pausing and allowing
• Investigate what is in the body
• Not mental, it is in the body
• "What is happening inside me right now?"
• With that inquiry you can begin to sense some contact with whats here.
• Nourish, bring a kindness and gentleness to above.
• Nourishing the fear we have had from living an unlived life for so long makes it safe.
• Spaciousness, warmth, and tenderness from nourishing our unlived life makes it possible to grow from it.
• After RAIN
• You stay. Rest in whatever is here. 
• Rest in that flowering state of being.
• When you get familiar with your beingness
• you can access the love, creativity, and wisdom of who we really are inside. 
• R.A.I.N.: One Man's Experience (Case Study)
• Young man feeling victimized  by his older sister. Stuck in trance. Caught in anger, blame, and rumination. Starts with avoiding sister, then the whole family. Sister beings to guilt him. Sisters daughter getting married and invited her uncle, and he began to obsess. He thought if he went he would receive more of this treatment. His trance was feeling like a victim, obsessing, being angry, and pushing away. Practiced RAIN. He came to a hurting/crying place and began to feel shame and identifying with his sisters message. He began to nourish this hollow ashamed place. All it needed was this presence and kindness. His hollow place began to feel alive and full of light. Next step, he just stayed. In that he felt energized and alive. 
• The unlived life in him, had been blocked in his body for a really long time. It was not a one shot thing, he had to do RAIN many times. Had to reenter into the wilderness many many times. 
• "What is it you are unwilling to feel?"
• The RAIN to becoming embodied takes many many rounds. 
• Take the time after RAIN, to rest and really let go. Not do anything.
• Remember the controller is where we disassociate. 
• That beingness, that spirit, are moments of freedom.  
• Practice: The RAIN of Embodiment.
• Meditation about entering the Wilderness
• This wilderness is our nature, our friend, our source of wisdom, healing, love.
• It is difficult, but it is our portal to wholeness.
• Pathway includes embracing the unlived life.
• How do you instinctively go into trance? 
• When you have a situation in mind, this is trance.
• Leaving, cutting off (thats recognizing)
• Allow, EVERYBODY leaves their body at times. Give it some space. 
• Investigate what its like in your body, feel what goes on. 
• We have spent millions of times leaving our bodies, by entering the wilderness we begin to decondition ourselves.
• Is there anxiety? Feeling of embarrassment? Just stay. Breath. 
• Enter with an investigating mind, and enter with kindness. 
• Breath with whatever is happening in your body. This is aliveness, however it is. 
• Feel from the inside out. The throat, the chest.. let it be washed through with kindness.
• In the last few moments, rest.
• Relaxing back and letting be. 
• Let this life live through you now.

"Here is calm so deep, grasses cease waving. Everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and; tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love."

Excerpt from The Sierra from Mountain Thoughts by John Muir

My notes:

Really really appreciating this online course. Learning so much about myself. A lot of this are things I thought I knew, but the coming back and reflecting with loving kindness is not something I have been doing all this time. The nurturing has been missing. I've also been in avoidance as well, this last year and a half a bundle of things have been happening. I've been trying, but really half-assing it. I used my boyfriend at the time as a crutch, also my friends. I wasn't recognizing, allowing, identifying, and  most definitely not treating myself with self-love and compassion. Been reflecting about so many moments in my life, and this past year of all the times I could have nurtured myself and entered this wilderness. I feel a little shame, and I've sat with it for a long time. There is always a possibility for opportunity in this life and in my personal endeavors with how I embrace life and myself. 

This "chapter" of the course mainly was on entering the wilderness. The wilderness being that uncomfortable unknown, that becomes this freeing and energizing experience. 

I really appreciated the part from the last section and the beginning of this part of the course, because it mentions something I can totally say I do. Rushing, caught in judgement, caught in anger, obsessing about solving a problem, being anxious and at the same time tired and fatigued. Also, that sense of "something is wrong with me, or something is going to go wrong." I remember telling my boyfriend at the time (who was my best friend at the time too, so I really confided in him and was very real, raw, and vulnerable) that "what's wrong with me?" He would reassure me I was doing good, and I was trying hard. Maybe I was? I think I was lost still in those moments, I wasn't being kind to myself. He was kind to me, and believed in me for a long time, but I needed to nurture myself as well. It all makes sense how I had to finally learn. To lose him. To finally understand that I haven't been entering the wilderness with complete openness. I was blocking the flow, I was afraid. I wasn't giving myself the love I needed, my love to me. 

Everyone who has been close to me knows how much I've struggled with this lately, and for a long time of and on - but especially recently. I think everyone was helping guide me, but I had to really break in some ways to really see what I needed to do. Obviously, Tara Brach and her approach helps a tremendous amount for me to see this clearly. It resonates deeper then any other way I've tried. Its backed up by science too. It makes sense to me, and I relate to so much of these examples she gives. Just glad to finally be back on this path of awareness.  

It is so true that our bodies are messengers. They are letting us know, "Hey, tune in. Something is up." When we block that flow (avoiding entering the wilderness) we really suffer, physically. I need to feel my body and tune in more frequently. Been practicing these last few weeks just by studying these talks and practicing throughout my day. I need the reminders, I am so thankful for these talks. The "felt-sense prayer" was just, incredibly eye opening for me. All these physical pains, and frustrations we deal with - they are flags, messengers begging to be heard out of love. They wouldn't exist otherwise. I need to read that daily, or weekly. I don't want to over commit and get overwhelmed, I am doing this in my time and in my way.

I do not want to to vent about this, but I do have to note the feeling of being judged but how I cope, and learn. It is not fair for others to claim to know what I need to do for myself. you can guide me,  but please don't assume that you know what is going on with me. You are welcome to ask. I'll tell you the truth. I'll share with you. 

Truth is, I can't think of another time where I felt so low and so sad. I know its life, and this stuff keeps happening, and I'm learning to see clearly and how to deal with this. Believe me, it took a break up to finally REALLY deal with the pent up stuff I've had for the last tough ass year and a half, but also stuff that I'm connecting with and tuning and understand from years of depression and anxiety. Things are starting to connect, link, and make sense to me. I don't want to be hard on myself in this "journey" but it has taken some time, to come back again and again. Just grateful I am back. Back to practicing throughout my day and my life. Practicing this mindfulness. 

Again.. for those closest to me. Who know everything that has happened, ALL the events and how they have unfolded. The friends lost, the accidents, the trauma, the identification, the observing of my family, watching my dad, the injuries, the limitations, the fear.. I've had jokes made like "don't wreck another car." Or "wow, you are a moving target." Or "you've been so unlucky." Those comments are not ok, and not funny. I know they don't come from a place to  harm me, but believe me it has been hard. I am not judging you on your path, please I urge you to not assume anything and not judge me on mine. 

Back to practicing RAIN. Where I would like to improve more is on the recognizing it. When I do, I notice my reactivity and "trance" (anger, sadness, obsessing, etc) is put on hold, and even freed. I would also like to continue regarding myself more with love, and nurturing after I can identify and sit with the feelings more. Ok one more thing I want to be better at, rushing. I have improved so much in regards to this speeding.. when practicing RAIN I want to sit with it more, and just be more. So much to gain when just staying in it, and breathing. Walking yourself through it is so much easier after you do this I'm noticing. Stay, be. Breath. Practicing to pause with interest and kindness. 

I feel so much lighter then I have since years ago. I want to say 2013 was the last time I really felt safe, loved, and freed from inner turmoil. Like I said, its been on and off, but I felt true inner peace then. 2012 was a hard year on me, I was able to come back then. 

And I'm coming back now. 

Have been improving a lot over these last few weeks. A lot of thanks to friends, family, colleagues, animals, Tara, and me. I'm doing this work. Thank you for supporting me, I love you. 

I hope whomever reads any of this finds some meaning, or insight. 

Namaste ;)