INQUIRY & INNER GUIDANCE

About Meditative Inquiry.

As humans, we didn’t come fully programmed.  As we grow up, we receive messages about ourselves, sometimes harmful, that shape the way we operate.  We also have challenging experiences, many of which remain unresolved.  These messages and unresolved experiences stick in our subconscious like psychic thorns.  As we go through life, new experiences can activate these psychic thorns, and as a result, we may find ourselves in pain or reacting unskillfully.  Until they are resolved, these messages and unresolved experiences affect our mood and capacity to navigate life’s challenges.

This is where the practice of meditative inquiry comes in.  To resolve these stored unresolved challenges, during meditation, we can replay the old situations that brought them about and then do it in a new way that resolves the situations.  One’s younger self needed someone to help them through their challenging experiences.  They needed a parent or another adult attuned to their needs,  Someone who understood the situation and could help navigate it.  The one most capable of helping the younger self is often the adult self, as the adult self knows intimately what the younger self was (and is) experiencing and has the wisdom and discernment of what the younger self needs to move through challenges and come out with a sense of well-being.

A Story of Meditative Inquiry

I wanted to share an experience that has been extremely powerful for me.

When I first started meditative inquiry, my practitioner guided me in establishing a relationship with my younger self.  Reaching back, it was around age two years where there was a sense of ease and caring for my younger self.

Over time, repeatedly revisiting through visualization, I developed a sense of deep love and care for her, and my younger self began to feel a sense of delight at the attention and care I offered.

From there, I started the process of moving forward in time, replaying other experiences that had been challenging one by one, which deepened our relationship and brought a greater sense of peace and ease to my little one.  Eventually, we reached a significant family event, which occurred when I was 8.  Never having the opportunity to discuss the situation with anyone, I relived the situation over and over again, sometimes daily, often for months at a time.  Each time I relived it in my mind, I also experienced it in my body as if it were actually happening again—each time deepening my sense of shame.

Together with my practitioner, during a session, I replay the situation.  This time, my present-day self was in the room.  As the event transpired, I stepped in to protect my 8-year-old self.  Most importantly, I was still there in the aftermath to comfort and hold my younger self, who had been left feeling afraid and isolated.  There to provide the genuine love, care, and guidance she required to heal.  The feelings of peace, love and care I experienced as the session ended brought much ease.

However, the profound gift of that inquiry session was not realized until several weeks later when, while walking in the woods, I realized I had not thought about that event once since that session.  As the memory came at that moment, there was no activation in my body at all!  The memory had no power, and I felt calm in its presence.

It’s been about two years, and I remain fully released from the memory.  What I once fixated on is just a story with a start, middle, and end.  Along with a new sense of freedom, I have a new lens through which to see my brother and mother and a new container to hold both in compassion.

Individual, one-on-one sessions are held via Zoom.

$80/hr

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