Transcript
[0:00] Okay, we're going to do a few viewer
[0:02] comments, viewer questions.
[0:05] These come from the videos. Uh the
[0:07] comments underneath the videos I do
[0:08] read.
[0:09] I don't read them all, but I read a lot
[0:10] of them.
[0:12] Uh sometimes I read them all, depends
[0:14] how busy I am.
[0:15] But uh
[0:17] yeah, feel free to leave comments. I do
[0:18] appreciate it. It does help the
[0:19] algorithm. Uh but it does also give me a
[0:22] sense of where you are, and occasionally
[0:24] I'll read them aloud. Sometimes I will
[0:26] even make a whole video about them. So,
[0:28] the first one comes from J Firebird.
[0:31] I went through a few years of, quote, I
[0:33] didn't ask for this, didn't consent to
[0:35] this,
[0:37] and its variations. And yeah, it's not
[0:39] funny. It feels as real as it gets. This
[0:41] is from one of my videos called
[0:43] Developmental Wounds and Feeling Unsafe.
[0:46] Uh
[0:47] yeah, I get that.
[0:50] It's it's one of those things that comes
[0:51] up for some people very poignantly,
[0:54] and for others
[0:56] uh it doesn't seem to be an issue.
[0:58] But they'll say something like,
[1:00] just coming into this life, feeling all
[1:02] this intensity, this pain, and certainly
[1:04] trauma, right? Uh I didn't consent to
[1:07] that.
[1:08] Like I just didn't give my consent.
[1:10] Um and there's a kind of resentment
[1:12] around that, and so forth.
[1:14] So,
[1:15] I think the simplest thing I I want to
[1:17] say first, and that is
[1:20] this won't fully resolve if that's the
[1:22] way you're perceiving, that's the way
[1:24] you're hooked up, so to speak. This
[1:27] won't fully resolve until deeper
[1:29] realization.
[1:30] Um
[1:32] and also until a lot of the shadow work
[1:34] has has been done. And or,
[1:38] if you do a lot of shadow work, really
[1:39] thorough shadow work, you may come to a
[1:41] place of equanimity, reasonable
[1:43] equanimity,
[1:45] without that sense that something's been
[1:48] put upon you you didn't ask for.
[1:50] But
[1:51] it's really
[1:52] uh
[1:55] completely dispelled. That perception is
[1:57] completely dispelled
[1:59] when
[2:00] you
[2:01] non-dual
[2:02] and
[2:04] no self-realization
[2:06] um
[2:08] matures.
[2:11] Why is that?
[2:13] Because the the sense of being a
[2:15] separate one to whom things are
[2:17] happening
[2:19] to to be a victim of something that's
[2:21] not you
[2:22] whether it's a person, a situation, a
[2:24] memory, a a past
[2:26] or life itself
[2:28] uh will be seen through fully.
[2:31] And I don't just mean intellectually,
[2:33] although that can be freeing as well. I
[2:35] mean the felt sense of moving through
[2:38] the environment, the the felt sense of
[2:40] moving through life
[2:42] is
[2:44] unbound. It's unbound to any
[2:47] sense of there being a problem.
[2:49] It's unbound to any sense of there being
[2:52] another who can harm you.
[2:55] Um
[2:58] I also want to say and I point this out
[3:00] frequently because often if I say that
[3:02] somebody's re-response will be or their
[3:04] mind will go to well, how do you have
[3:06] boundaries then?
[3:07] Well, again, it's a paradox, but from
[3:09] that place usually boundaries are very
[3:11] easy.
[3:12] Conventional boundaries are not
[3:13] challenging because
[3:15] there's nothing at stake, right?
[3:17] Boundaries become a problem when there's
[3:19] a strong sense of self and other. That's
[3:21] when they're a problem.
[3:22] Because then the the
[3:24] construct of self and other gets
[3:27] co-opted and distorted by trauma.
[3:30] Yeah?
[3:31] Um but when the sense of boundaries, the
[3:34] illusion of boundaries external and
[3:35] internal is gone
[3:37] uh it's very simple and obvious how to
[3:39] construct boundaries. And often it's
[3:40] very it's a simple as something that
[3:42] just doesn't feel right about somebody.
[3:45] You may just
[3:46] turn turn the other direction and not
[3:48] interact with that person. Whereas when
[3:49] we're traumatized, we may become
[3:51] hyper-vigilant to somebody who gives us
[3:52] a a weird feeling, right?
[3:54] Just as an example. I'm not going to go
[3:56] into depth there.
[3:57] But
[3:59] to be as frank as I can about it, as
[4:02] honest as I can.
[4:04] That feeling of I didn't consent to
[4:06] this, I don't want this,
[4:07] um didn't ask for this, may not go away
[4:10] until deeper insights. Uh
[4:13] it'll soften, and it'll definitely
[4:14] soften with shadow work.
[4:16] Uh but ultimately what you want is you
[4:18] want peace. You want to feel at peace.
[4:20] That's very difficult to feel at peace
[4:21] when you're
[4:23] in a paradigm of this thing is happening
[4:26] to me,
[4:27] especially this global thing called life
[4:29] or being in a body,
[4:30] and I didn't want it, and I still don't
[4:32] want it, right? You're not going to find
[4:34] peace there.
[4:35] Of course. And yet, I understand you
[4:37] can't just wave your magic wand to make
[4:39] the view drop. Sometimes you can,
[4:41] but most of the time maybe not for a
[4:42] while. So, I understand it, um
[4:45] but just know it can work itself out,
[4:47] and it will work itself out.
[4:49] Keep looking more closely at your
[4:50] experience, at your beliefs. Keep
[4:53] feeling more directly into what's
[4:54] happening, and it will it will sort
[4:55] itself out.
[4:57] Uh this one's from Soul Trapped.
[5:00] It says, "Deep down, I definitely have a
[5:02] subtle rejection of the heaviness of
[5:03] life with a body." Well, this is related
[5:06] to the first one.
[5:08] This is no joke at all. Count me among
[5:10] the number. That's really where I'm
[5:12] working right now.
[5:15] It's all very subtle, but needs to be
[5:17] explored and integrated.
[5:21] Yeah.
[5:23] The heaviness of a body. So, here is a
[5:25] here is a territory where you may be
[5:27] able to do some exploration
[5:28] experientially.
[5:30] Um and what I'm going to talk about here
[5:32] is not specific to trauma.
[5:34] Uh and a lot of this could be related to
[5:37] trauma. It's certainly worsened by
[5:38] trauma, right? Things that happened as a
[5:40] child, as you were growing up that
[5:42] um intensified the the suffering of
[5:45] being alive, essentially. But
[5:49] even if there was even if there was
[5:51] trauma, um having worked through the
[5:53] trauma, you're still going to come to
[5:54] the place where you're going to do this
[5:55] kind of work I'm going to describe.
[5:57] So, the heaviness
[5:59] of life with a body.
[6:02] Uh as I said before, this does get
[6:04] dispelled in deeper insights with
[6:06] non-dual realization. When you when you
[6:09] experience that there's no body, not
[6:11] just believe it, but you experience it,
[6:14] well, you can see how that kind of helps
[6:16] solve the problem.
[6:17] But, short of that, I I will give you
[6:20] something that you can work out work on
[6:22] at any level of insight or realization,
[6:24] and that is questioning beliefs. And
[6:27] some beliefs are
[6:29] um give themselves away as beliefs.
[6:32] Other ones are more like labels we don't
[6:34] realize are beliefs and that are
[6:36] strongly
[6:38] uh influencing our experience. So, even
[6:41] heavy
[6:42] or intense, these are common words that
[6:44] come up. And I use them, too. I talk
[6:45] about intense emotion sometimes.
[6:48] But, I do that
[6:49] to
[6:50] relate to some people who are having
[6:52] those experiences.
[6:54] Uh
[6:55] when I'm talking about the inquiry
[6:56] around this, I will point that
[6:58] point out the fact that intensity is
[7:01] itself
[7:02] [snorts]
[7:03] a nominalization, or it's a
[7:06] label, or it's an interpretation. I
[7:08] think interpretation is the best word
[7:09] here.
[7:10] Uh
[7:12] Now, that doesn't mean that if you're
[7:13] feeling, let's say, what what someone
[7:15] might call emotional pain, intensity,
[7:18] contraction in the body,
[7:20] um just telling yourself that that I can
[7:23] let go of those labels and the feeling
[7:24] completely changes or goes away.
[7:26] That's not accurate.
[7:28] However, with enough repetition, it
[7:30] will.
[7:32] With enough repetition, you'll see that
[7:33] the feeling you're feeling,
[7:35] the sensations themselves,
[7:37] or I could say the emotion itself,
[7:38] that's not really what's causing you to
[7:40] suffer. It's not what's causing
[7:43] the feeling of I have to do something
[7:44] about it. It's not what's causing the
[7:45] feeling of wanting to run away from it,
[7:47] and running away from it, right? Through
[7:49] various means of distraction and
[7:50] dissociation.
[7:52] Um
[7:54] it's it's actually what's doing that
[7:57] is the interpretation
[7:59] and the reaction
[8:01] that comes from the interpretation.
[8:04] The sense it's a it's like a
[8:06] triangular experience. It's like the the
[8:09] sensation, the interpretation, and most
[8:12] importantly, the self reacting to it.
[8:14] Those three things in
[8:16] in
[8:17] um
[8:19] concert
[8:20] cause the the I'm going to just call it
[8:23] dysphoria.
[8:24] Because intensity is not a problem when
[8:26] you realize it's a thought. When you
[8:27] realize it's an interpretation, the
[8:29] sensations aren't a problem when you
[8:30] realize
[8:32] two things. One is
[8:33] intrinsically and in direct experience
[8:35] are not a problem. They can even be very
[8:37] enjoyable.
[8:38] And they're not going anywhere. Like
[8:41] they're they're just there, right?
[8:42] They're they're not a cause They nothing
[8:44] caused them. Nothing brought them about.
[8:47] Um they have no intrinsic problem.
[8:49] [snorts]
[8:50] And they don't mean anything specific.
[8:53] When that's clear, and the third part,
[8:55] very important,
[8:56] the
[8:57] the glue, the self. The this the
[9:00] suffering self, the separate self.
[9:03] That's the one that reacts to the
[9:04] interpretation. So, those three things
[9:06] are what's causing the dysphoria.
[9:09] So, if you see through all three of
[9:10] them, you're in a good place.
[9:13] Um to put it in terms of the aggregates,
[9:16] the five skandhas in Buddhism, this is
[9:18] three of them. So,
[9:20] um it's really all of them. All of them
[9:22] are required for this experience, but
[9:24] the three that are
[9:25] pointed out in this triangle I'm talking
[9:26] about would be form,
[9:29] which is essentially sensation or the
[9:31] sensation of a body.
[9:34] Seeing through the aggregate means
[9:35] seeing it's not actually there in the
[9:37] way we perceive it. That's what it means
[9:39] to see there is no body. Um so, that's
[9:41] form, the the felt sense.
[9:44] Uh and then um the next
[9:49] skandha in this triangle would be
[9:52] the third skandha, which would be
[9:53] interpretation.
[9:56] It's It's called thought.
[9:58] Uh which would be a label or an
[9:59] interpretation. And then the third part
[10:02] is the the self that's reacting. Well,
[10:05] the seeming self that's reacting is
[10:07] actually all five skandhas. That that's
[10:09] the the conglomerate of the skandhas
[10:11] that cause it.
[10:12] Um but it's a combination of the second
[10:15] fetter uh second fetter, excuse me, the
[10:17] second skandha, which is
[10:19] uh often interpreted as feeling, but
[10:20] it's hedonic tone. It's something that
[10:22] says this is uncomfortable. Yeah?
[10:24] And then very importantly, the fourth
[10:28] um and fifth. The fourth is is what am I
[10:31] going to do about this? It's often
[10:33] interpreted as volition.
[10:34] Um so it's like I need to do something
[10:37] about this. I need to do something about
[10:39] this contraction and this feeling of
[10:40] stuckness and this feeling of [snorts]
[10:42] intensity. Yeah? That That's the
[10:45] relationship I was talking about, the
[10:46] self that's relating. And then the fifth
[10:48] skandha is consciousness, and that's
[10:49] where this is structured, in my opinion.
[10:52] All of this is structured in
[10:53] consciousness. There's no You'll never
[10:54] find a separate self self outside of
[10:56] consciousness. You'll never find the
[10:58] illusion of form outside of
[10:59] consciousness, cuz it's a it's a
[11:00] thought. It's a belief. It's a
[11:01] reflection into the reflective apparatus
[11:04] of the mind. Yeah?
[11:05] So when all that's deconstructed,
[11:07] there's nothing here.
[11:10] It's it's like magic. It's almost like
[11:13] it's like a house of cards. If you look
[11:14] at the cards closely enough from every
[11:16] angle, you'll see there's nothing really
[11:18] there, nothing holding it up. Then the
[11:20] whole thing kind of collapses.
[11:21] And you see even that there weren't even
[11:23] cards, actually.
[11:24] So, it's like a house of mirrors. Okay.
[11:27] Thank you for your comment. This one's
[11:30] um let's see. Nick Smith.
[11:32] It's like there are just non-thinking
[11:34] phenomena appearing, reacting to itself
[11:37] like trees react to the wind.
[11:40] It's not even appearing really. There's
[11:42] no one for it to appear to. Exactly.
[11:45] Beautifully stated.
[11:49] This is on a video called responsiveness
[11:50] and reactivity, and this person's
[11:52] talking about what it feels like when
[11:54] reactivity is gone.
[11:59] Or when it's not there for the moment.
[12:02] May come back.
[12:03] But if you do the work of
[12:06] unhooking the beliefs around
[12:09] kind of what I relate to what I was
[12:10] saying in the last question, around
[12:11] intensity, around the reacting self, and
[12:14] all of it. Um then
[12:18] it will feel just like this person's
[12:19] describing.
[12:21] It's a self-responsive, seamless,
[12:22] spontaneous environment.
[12:25] With no self and no other and no parts.
[12:29] This one's from
[12:31] It's a Greek word. I can't actually read
[12:32] Greek name. Some really cool Greek
[12:34] letters, I think, but
[12:36] Uh it says, "Hi Angelo.
[12:38] If you like, could you talk about the
[12:40] beliefs that are associated with the
[12:42] belief that I have to react? Thank you."
[12:44] Yeah. Wow, all these are like really
[12:47] similar kinds of questions.
[12:49] Um
[12:51] the belief that I have to react. I'm
[12:52] going to just give you one thing.
[12:54] That is
[12:58] if you find the reaction gap,
[13:00] which is a reaction between response,
[13:02] uh excuse me, stimulus and response.
[13:06] So, it's the it's the gap between
[13:08] environment, what happens in the
[13:10] environment, the internal and external.
[13:12] So, someone cuts you off in traffic, or
[13:14] someone looks at you funny, or
[13:16] someone criticizes you, or
[13:19] you have a sense you have a symptom of a
[13:21] of a health crisis, and it reminds you
[13:23] of of having having a health crisis.
[13:26] Any of these can be stimulus.
[13:28] Response um
[13:31] Let me see what how they asked the
[13:32] question real quick.
[13:34] React, okay. So, response is not
[13:36] necessarily reaction. One response could
[13:38] be a reaction,
[13:40] but another response could be
[13:42] um
[13:44] someone cuts me off in traffic, so I
[13:46] you know, step on the brakes and get
[13:48] away from the person so that that
[13:50] dangerous driver is not going to cause
[13:51] an accident in involving me.
[13:54] That could be [snorts] a response.
[13:54] There's no There doesn't need to be a
[13:55] reaction, right? So, what is the the
[13:58] belief that I have to react? So, when
[14:00] there's the stimulus
[14:02] and the response turns into a reaction,
[14:04] what's happening is there's
[14:05] a moment in there
[14:07] where
[14:09] the discomfort of the conditions,
[14:11] the environmental
[14:13] presentation, let's say, being cut off,
[14:15] etc.
[14:16] There's a moment where that becomes
[14:17] uncomfortable.
[14:20] Maybe more than uncomfortable, like
[14:21] really uncomfortable.
[14:23] Often there's a belief that's causing
[14:25] the discomfort, and we would look at
[14:27] that if we would say do feather work or
[14:28] something.
[14:29] But I'm not going to talk about that
[14:31] here, but the belief would be something
[14:32] like
[14:33] that person is not respecting my
[14:34] boundaries, the car driving in front of
[14:36] me, whatever.
[14:37] More importantly though, when you're in
[14:38] the gap and it's really uncomfortable,
[14:41] you feel it. It's a physical discomfort,
[14:43] like a restlessness, like a wanting to
[14:45] just jump out of your skin and do
[14:47] something or yell at that guy or
[14:50] write a long letter to your boss or
[14:52] whatever, right?
[14:54] The the belief you unhook here,
[14:57] this is the crux of your question, I
[14:58] think, is because I'm feeling
[15:01] uncomfortable,
[15:03] I have to do something about feeling
[15:05] uncomfortable.
[15:06] Okay?
[15:08] That might sound like the same thing.
[15:11] But when you unhook this, they're
[15:12] actually worlds apart.
[15:14] And there's a huge amount of freedom
[15:15] that's
[15:16] revealed
[15:18] in the gap that used to feel like the
[15:20] opposite of freedom. Used to feel like
[15:22] it's containing you and forcing you to
[15:23] react.
[15:25] Now it feels like, oh, there's freedom
[15:26] here, even though I'm uncomfortable.
[15:28] I said it's very interesting, I said
[15:29] this in a small group a while back at a
[15:31] retreat, and someone who's very clear
[15:33] actually, uh very clear, still doing
[15:36] some deep shadow work type stuff, but
[15:38] um they said,
[15:40] "Well, of course I have of course I have
[15:41] to do something
[15:44] to change the discomfort."
[15:46] And it really struck me. I'm like, oh
[15:47] yeah,
[15:48] it's very convention it's a convention
[15:50] it's conventional wisdom that because
[15:52] you're uncomfortable, you have to do
[15:53] something.
[15:55] And you
[15:56] conventionally it makes sense, right?
[15:57] Like if something's uncomfortable like
[15:59] what what people will usually think is,
[16:00] oh, if my hand's on the burner and it's
[16:02] hot, I have to do something to take it
[16:04] off. That's So, if I don't react, then
[16:06] I'm like that doesn't make sense, right?
[16:09] But that's not what we're talking about
[16:10] because as Eckhart Tolle pointed out,
[16:12] if you touch the burner one time, your
[16:14] hand will move away from it very
[16:15] quickly, and you'll you'll do it again.
[16:17] You wouldn't even be able to force your
[16:19] body to do it because it's so automatic
[16:21] not to. We're talking about volitional
[16:24] reactivity.
[16:25] And what we're talking about is when
[16:27] volitional reactivity occurs and we
[16:29] forget that it's volitional or we
[16:30] totally overlook it. It is volitional
[16:32] but it's become it starts to feel like a
[16:34] habit and that's because of the glue of
[16:36] the self. That's the
[16:37] what the five aggregates
[16:40] come together to form the illusion of
[16:43] the self.
[16:44] That's it.
[16:45] [snorts] Good question.
[16:48] Hi Angelo. Thank you for the very clear
[16:50] explanation.
[16:53] Sorry, I'm just taking a look here.
[16:56] All right.
[16:57] Thank you for the very clear exp
[16:58] explanation.
[17:00] How exactly do I do the shadow work
[17:03] though?
[17:04] This is from a a video called shadow
[17:06] work made simple.
[17:07] How do I do the shadow work though?
[17:09] Well,
[17:11] it it well, it varies. It varies. I did
[17:14] in the video, I actually talked about
[17:17] a simple way you can do it from what I
[17:19] remember. Like
[17:21] beliefs, working with beliefs, working
[17:22] with feelings and so forth.
[17:25] But
[17:27] let me get further into this question
[17:28] and see what they're really asking. But
[17:29] yeah, how do you do it? Well, there's
[17:31] other ways to do it, of course. There's
[17:32] a lot of ways to do shadow work. Deep
[17:33] shadow process.
[17:34] You can do
[17:36] I don't some people do psychedelic work,
[17:37] some people do therapy, trauma therapy.
[17:39] There's a lot of ways, right? EM EMDR,
[17:42] TRE,
[17:44] other acronyms.
[17:45] Okay.
[17:46] Then the question continues.
[17:48] Does it begin somatically? Yes, usually.
[17:51] Although if you're really say reactive
[17:53] and you're really in your head, you
[17:55] won't necessarily notice it's somatic.
[17:57] It'll just feel like something up here.
[17:59] Right? Oh, I'm so pissed off. I need to
[18:01] do something about that. God, that
[18:02] person always does blah blah blah blah
[18:03] blah. It'll feel like a mental thing.
[18:06] But if if if you're able to just say,
[18:08] "Okay, well, where is that anchored in
[18:10] the body? Where am I feeling that?"
[18:12] And once you're able to have some
[18:14] somatic access, you'll be like, "Oh
[18:16] yeah, it feels like fire in my chest."
[18:18] And then once you do work more and more,
[18:20] it'll feel more subtle, but you'll be
[18:22] able to track it into the the somatics.
[18:24] So, does it begin somatically? Yes. Are
[18:27] you always aware of it? No.
[18:28] Next part of the question. Do I turn my
[18:30] attention towards a bodily sensation and
[18:32] just watch it until something happens?
[18:35] No, you don't need to do that.
[18:37] As I say frequently, you don't need to
[18:39] go digging around for shadow work. It
[18:40] will come to you.
[18:42] Unless you're totally dissociating.
[18:44] Yeah? It will come to you.
[18:47] Um
[18:49] Yeah, actually I'm going to
[18:50] backpedal a little bit. If In the case,
[18:53] like I said before, some people are so
[18:54] in their head
[18:56] that they're not really in touch with
[18:57] the somatic experience, then it may be a
[18:58] practice to just sort of
[19:00] you know, body scanning, staying in your
[19:02] somatic experience for a while. Not to
[19:04] dig up shadow work, but just to
[19:05] re-attune yourself to your own body, to
[19:07] your own felt sense.
[19:09] And once you re-attune yourself to the
[19:10] felt sense, then yeah, it typically
[19:11] comes up on its own.
[19:13] But how do you know when you need to do
[19:14] shadow work? I don't know. When you're
[19:16] lose your temper with somebody, when you
[19:18] feel contracted and dissociated, when
[19:21] you
[19:22] um
[19:23] do something a habit that you know is
[19:26] unhealthy and you keep doing it and you
[19:27] don't know why, but it keeps coming.
[19:29] When you are perseverating on a
[19:32] conversation you had with your mother,
[19:34] when you are anxious about a
[19:36] conversation you need to have with your
[19:38] boss on Monday. I don't know. I don't
[19:39] know. I'm just coming up with a bunch of
[19:41] scenarios.
[19:42] But the all of that stuff, reactions,
[19:45] um perseveration, rumination,
[19:49] emotional pain, like all of this is
[19:50] evidence that there's shadow work here
[19:52] now.
[19:53] So, you don't need to go digging for it.
[19:54] It usually comes to you. Yeah?
[19:57] Okay?
[19:58] Um
[20:00] Or do I think about an emotionally
[20:02] charged moment from my past and then
[20:04] watch the body sensations
[20:07] that arise from concentrating in the
[20:09] memory on the memory.
[20:10] I mean, you could do that.
[20:12] But
[20:14] again, like sometimes I say, why borrow
[20:16] trouble?
[20:17] I promise you the more you wake up, the
[20:19] more the shadow material that needs to
[20:21] come up will. It just will.
[20:24] So,
[20:26] let me say this. I don't I don't
[20:27] actually know this person. It's from Sly
[20:29] Guy.
[20:30] Um and I I don't know if this is where
[20:32] you're coming from, but just for anyone
[20:33] who could be, there are people out there
[20:35] who for whom
[20:37] they're they're so in their heads, like
[20:39] they really don't feel a lot of somatic
[20:41] stuff. And so, then this stuff could get
[20:44] really heady, actually.
[20:46] You know, you've heard that they used to
[20:47] use the term psychobabble and all that.
[20:49] Like, there are people out there who
[20:50] talk about shadow shadow work a lot.
[20:52] And they'll tell you they've done a lot,
[20:54] and they they might even tell you the
[20:55] shadow work you need to do and all of
[20:56] it.
[20:58] But, you kind of spend time around them
[20:59] and you're like, "Mm, I don't think they
[21:00] did, actually." Like, they they don't
[21:02] feel so equanimous and whatever. Uh
[21:06] not picking on anybody, but that that's
[21:08] people people are out there like that,
[21:10] and I'm using them as an example that
[21:12] anything can get distorted. Anything can
[21:14] get co-opted by the ego. Anything, if
[21:17] your mind identified enough, thought
[21:18] identified enough, anything can just
[21:19] become thoughts.
[21:21] So,
[21:23] rather than obsessing about shadow work
[21:25] or how to do it or really thinking like
[21:28] overthinking it or trying to dig it up,
[21:31] um
[21:33] take inventory.
[21:34] You know, just ask yourself like
[21:37] as I move through the next several days
[21:39] or next week,
[21:40] I'm just going to be as aware as I can
[21:42] of what's happening. That's it.
[21:45] And
[21:46] see when you feel contracted, when you
[21:48] react to somebody, when you want you get
[21:50] an argument with somebody, when you feel
[21:51] really uncomfortable around somebody.
[21:54] Um if you if you wake up in the morning,
[21:55] you're like, "Oh God, I don't want to do
[21:57] anything. I don't want to go anywhere. I
[21:58] don't want to go to work." Right? Uh if
[22:00] you start ruminating with thoughts, like
[22:02] just noticing when shadow work's coming
[22:04] up. Maybe that's that's more
[22:06] the practice.
[22:08] Is just sort of noticing if you've been
[22:10] overlooking something in that way.
[22:13] But, again, the more you wake up, the
[22:15] less you can overlook things. The more
[22:17] you wake up, the less you have access to
[22:20] that ability to
[22:21] fractionate your experience into,
[22:24] you know, mental
[22:26] um
[22:28] yeah, divided chambers or something.
[22:30] That's kind of how it works in the mind.
[22:31] And so you you just can't avoid it,
[22:33] right? Um so, again, deeper realization
[22:37] it people in deeper realization would
[22:39] tell you like, it's not it's not
[22:41] unclear. It's very very clear when
[22:43] shadow work's coming and it feels
[22:44] intense. Feels contracted. It feels
[22:47] fiery, you know, it feels like something
[22:48] needs to be done about this. Um
[22:52] yeah. So, so I kind of feel like that,
[22:55] you know? Don't overemphasize
[22:58] digging for it.
[23:00] Don't over intellectualize it.
[23:02] Um if you're just curious
[23:06] then I would be more interested in just
[23:08] waking up and trusting that it's going
[23:10] to come, yeah?
[23:12] Or, alternatively, just do something
[23:14] like come to a deep shadow process,
[23:15] knowing that it will come up cuz it
[23:17] usually does.
[23:19] Um
[23:19] you know, if you if you go engage in a
[23:21] relational process
[23:22] because you just want to see what's
[23:23] there or you think you probably have
[23:25] shadow work, you don't know what it is,
[23:26] that's great. But I just don't want to
[23:28] encourage somebody to spend the whole
[23:29] day like obsessing about
[23:31] shadow work
[23:33] instead of just really staying present,
[23:36] trusting that it will come when it needs
[23:37] to. Okay, hopefully I didn't muddy that
[23:39] up too much. And of course there's gray
[23:41] areas here. So, don't take anything I
[23:43] say
[23:44] as gospel.
[23:45] Okay, we've covered some ground. Uh
[23:47] thank you for your comments. Maybe I'll
[23:48] do more later. There's a lot of good
[23:49] comments up here.
