Let me begin with two questions: Do you know how to be yourself? Do you grant yourself permission to be fully human?
The first time I experienced the AUM Meditation was seven years ago. I remember it being an experience of being all over the map as emotions were intentionally conjured up, shivered through my body; and it was okay. I experienced parts of myself in full self-expression like never before that at times scared me, took my breath away, brought me to tears and left me feeling spent and connected to being alive in the healthiest way I had ever felt.
I remember being most uncomfortable with the negative emotions I was asked to embody with all of my voice and self that I could muster. I remember feeling ashamed that I was holding back--if I knew I was. I remember feeling relieved when it was time to play at something considered pleasant, desirable and socially acceptable.
Most of all I remember the "emotional weather" of that day and I remember seeing "for a precious moment" my full self complete with imperfections and a tear-streaked face that was still declared to be beautiful and loved for what it was by my community.
I could say that the first time I spent the day with all of me and was loved for it as is, I was 40 years old/wise/young/living.
Really?! What is wrong with this picture and why the heck is that not my/our experience from the beginning?
"Why must I go through life living like a trained seal seeking to please my parents or my teachers or my friends or my community or strangers? Will I ever be allowed to just be me?"
Saturday night I again partook of the AUM Meditation with a small group and a skillful pair of facilitators. We wholeheartedly responded to the cues and prompts of a gifted and graceful facilitator whose own first experience of the AUM Meditation was in 1995 in Sweden--when it showed up for him just when his soul needed it.
As a practice for developing self-awareness and sense of self, for me this dynamic mediation is simply the most accelerated experience of feeling and accepting all of myself and my fellow beings that I have ever felt. It's liberating. It's unnerving and asks a lot of a participant and the community that gathers. For many the AUM would be difficult if even possible, but we all deserve to know our self and be ourselves, and the sooner the better.
It strikes me that a person has to be in a willing place and wanting something that feels absent to “take what may feel like a risk.” One can’t experience the AUM (aka Life) for all that it is, if they are not there by their own choice.
Saturday night’s experience now lives beside that first one--and they are comparing notes (smile) like school girls. I choose to be real when I do a practice like the AUM and it is scary at first. Imagine living life this way--all the time. Could you? Would it be safe? Would there be support, acceptance, and a family of mirrors?
I settle more deeply into my own sense of self, my essence, and I feel more potently my own power to Be My Self. And then comes that wave of fear at the idea of my power and I think next, well that is silly to fear yourself.
But a lot of us do, don't we? And we hide from ourselves even before we attempt to hide from others--when we aren't trying hard to be approved of by someone.
The dialogue among the tribe of my parts and roles becomes like the floor of the Stock Market, with transactions happening that I am not fully aware of. Who or what is running this place called me? I want again to feel immersed in that sweet silent stillness that came at the end of the AUM in a dimly lit room that was throbbing with unbridled aliveness. (The way it should be? Could be?)
How come it feels like the state of bliss we may feel is so fleeting? How far will we go to feel good about self?
I again literally feel differently inside. I feel more purely again; every emotion bumping about inside my skin (and it is okay.) I AM at choice to hold onto to the thoughts, the feelings, the sensations of having them (be they pleasant or not). I AM also at choice to release it all to the ethers, embrace the empty space and stay open for what is next to land a while in the space that I occupy--for now.
So what does being in touch fully again with my sense of self feel like?
My body is awake: I am both tired and not.
My heart is tender: I am both tentative and willing.
My spirit is both spent and in renewal.
The Watcher is alive and well and alert and already sees the many masks of my potential Substitute Sense of Self: The Critic, the Judge, the Thinker, the Lover, the Daughter, the Mother, the Girl, the Woman, the Child, the Adult and so many other roles I answer to--all trying to assert themselves and claim a number one position. I will have none of them though. This morning my simple essential Self is given first dance and the Watcher facilitates with more grace and compassion than has been present in this vessel that I am, in a long while.
I AM in service in the name of love.
There awaits for you a gentle introduction to the Theory of a Healthy Sense of Self and we invite you to claim yourself in all your glory--be it gently or as quickly as you feel able and in due time. The first step is realizing you want to be you and all of you.
