During my 30+ years as a teacher, I’ve had the opportunity and good fortune to get to know and in some cases spend significant time with many of the top personal and spiritual growth teachers in the world.
If there’s one quality these top teachers share it’s that they’ve developed their awareness.
As difficult as it might be to believe this, you might even say that awareness holds the answer to nearly all personal challenges. Awareness is closely connected with both intuition and creativity. The more aware you are, the more obvious the solution is to any problem, and the more the daily problems and challenges of life automatically sort themselves out.
The less aware you are, the more it can seem as if there is no solution to the challenges in your life—and, the more likely it will be that you’ll unconsciously attract people and situations into your life that you don’t want. Zen master Genpo Roshi once said to me that what you’re unaware of will inevitably be the place in your life where you’re stuck. Becoming more aware, then, is an extremely valuable undertaking.
As I said in my last post, there are two main ways to increase your awareness. One is meditation, and of course I’m partial to Holosync meditation because it’s faster, easier, and actually allows you to meditate more deeply than traditional methods. I meditated in a traditional way for 16 years before I stumbled upon what eventually became Holosync, and though I received a lot of benefit from my years of traditional meditation, I have to say that I experienced more positive change in the first year of Holosync than I did from my entire 16 years of traditional meditation.
Holosync speeds up your growth, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In addition to being a huge benefit, this is also the main drawback to Holosync (or any kind of deep meditation). When you meditate, or do anything that causes you to open up to aspects of yourself you may have been unaware of—if you see a therapist, or attend a personal growth seminar, for instance—you discover things about yourself that you may not like. We then resist these aspects of ourselves that we don’t like.
Resistance, though, is something you DO, not something that just happens to you. You “do” resistance by making internal representations (internal pictures and internal dialog, for instance) of what you don’t want. When you do this, you feel bad, because internal representations directly create your feeling state. And, to make matters worse, your mind figures out a way to unconsciously attract more of whatever you focus on—in this case, what you’re resisting.
The second way to become more aware of how you’re creating your experience of life is to watch your mind and observe how it works, which was the subject of my previous post. Since the internal representations we make lead directly to our feelings, our behaviors, and which people or situations we attract or become attracted to, becoming aware of how we do that gives us choice. It allows us to stop creating our experience of life automatically, based on the past and, instead, to create our life by choice, in the moment.
Observing your internal representations takes some practice, but it is well-worth learning how to do. So, again, awareness is a major key to living a happier, emotionally peaceful, and successful life.
One of the things that makes awareness more difficult is our tendency to push out of our awareness certain things we think are wrong or inappropriate. Though we sometimes feel better in the short run when we do this, over the long run it creates all kinds of problems. What we repress or push into the basement of our awareness is eventually expressed anyway. Even worse, what we repress or disown is expressed in covert and dysfunctional ways, creating serious problems.
An extreme example might be a straight-laced fundamentalist preacher who is caught having sex with underage church members. In repressing what he thought was his sinful sexuality, he ends up expressing it anyway, but in a covert and dysfunctional manner. This is also an example of how focusing on what we don’t want causes us to create more of it. By focusing on “I don’t want to be a sinner,” the preacher ends up creating or attracting more of what he thinks of as sinful. His sexuality ends up hurting himself and others.
We all repress or disown normal human qualities that we think are wrong or inappropriate. Many of the difficulties we have in life are the result of these disowned parts, which many psychologists refer to as shadows. When repressed, these shadow parts come out in immature and dysfunctional ways. By repressing them, we actually end up creating, attracting, or expressing more of them.
In working with hundreds of thousands of people over several decades, I’ve found that nearly all human unhappiness is connected to disowned or repressed human qualities. If a certain area of your life isn’t working, you can be sure that there is a shadow part involved.
Shadows are areas where we are unaware, and re-owning shadow parts creates more awareness, which gives us more choice. Increased awareness turns out to be the key to making your life better.
In this post I want to share an interesting way to look at this phenomenon, a game we teach all new members of the human race, called The Game of Black and White. As you’ll see, when you become aware of how you play this game, you’ll be able to choose how to play it, and in doing so you’ll eliminate a great deal of the suffering in your life.
In every society there is social agreement about which aspects of us are “wrong” or “bad”. There is, of course, variation from family to family. What one family sees as “wrong” might be okay in another family. Excellence might be a positive quality in one family, while in another the child who excels might be told, “Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re better than other people?”
Whatever our family’s values, we received negative reinforcement when we exhibited certain qualities and positive reinforcement when we exhibited others. We learn that it isn’t safe to express what our family or our culture consider to be negative qualities. To keep ourselves from expressing them, we disowned them, which means that we pushed them into the basement of our consciousness, out of our awareness.
As I said earlier, we don’t ever really get rid of these repressed shadow parts. They leak out anyway, appearing in our life in covert and dysfunctional ways. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that pretty much everything that bothers you in life is the result of your disowning some aspect of life.
Let’s say that for you anger is a bad thing. Because it’s bad, you resist it in others, and you resist it in yourself. However, like a balloon, which when squeezed in one place pops out in another, the anger expresses itself, in one way or another.
Perhaps you’ve made anger wrong or bad because your father’s anger was painful for you when you were small. It also wasn’t safe to show your own anger toward him. He was bigger and stronger and he didn’t like it when you disagreed with him. So, you repressed your anger. You also decided to avoid angry people. After all, you don’t like them. And, they scare you.
Ironically, when you disown anger in this way it becomes a central feature of your life. You see angry people everywhere. And, when you encounter an angry person, you’re strongly (and negatively) affected by him or her. Angry people really bother you, even if you aren’t the one they’re angry with. You’re afraid of them and you’re angry about them.
A person with no anger-related trauma, however, and who therefore has not disowned his or her anger, sees the same angry people—after all, they aren’t invisible—but isn’t triggered by them in the same way you are.
For you, though, life seems to be a constant stream of angry people. How do all these angry people find you? By disowning your own anger, your attention is drawn to the angry people, and you’re less likely to notice or be attracted to people who aren’t angry. Because your father’s anger traumatized you, you’re on the lookout for it, so you can avoid it.
As I’ve said many times, focusing on what you don’t want actually causes you to create or attract more of it. So, even though it’s the last thing you want, you attract angry people. And, when you encounter them, you’re powerfully affected by their anger.
Everyone can plainly see that you have a lot of anger—everyone but you. You, however, don’t acknowledge—or even realize—that you’re angry. You’ve disowned it. It’s a shadow. For you, it’s out there, in others. You don’t see it in yourself. You’re against anger, because it’s such a bad thing.
Ironically, even though you’re against anger, you often express your disowned anger to others in covert and dysfunctional ways. Perhaps you’re late for things you really didn’t want to do, or fail to do what you say you’ll do because you really didn’t want to do it. You may avoid responsibility, make excuses, or blame others. Perhaps you’re “conveniently forgetful.” You might complain a lot, use sarcasm, make cutting jokes about others, or be sullen or stubborn. And so on. In one way or another, your disowned anger is expressed.
In other words, you’re passive-aggressive. You express your anger, but not directly. You can’t express it directly because you’ve disowned it. It’s still there, though. And, in addition to being unpleasant for others, you suffer, too. Your own disowned anger eats at you.
Believe me, I know. Anger was a huge shadow for me before my years with Holosync. Not only did I attract angry people—who really pissed me off—I had so much anger that passive aggression wasn’t enough for me. I lost my temper often, and defended my anger when it was pointed out to me. Those other people were being assholes when they were angry, but I had a good reason.
And, of course, anger isn’t the only thing you could disown and repress. I’ve just been using anger as a common example. You could also disown fear, or selfishness, or thousands of other qualities. You’ll likely disown anything your parents or other authority figures didn’t want you to express: wanting, happiness, sexuality, joy, sadness, aggression, pride, intelligence, the urge to be noticed, neediness, being good at things, feeling like a victim, or thousands of other human feelings and urges.
A positive quality can also be a shadow. When you see a negative quality you’ve disowned, it triggers you in a negative way. When you see a positive quality you’ve disowned—for instance, charisma, kindness, leadership, talent, or intelligence—you’ll put the person who exhibits it on a pedestal. You’ll adore or admire that quality in others, but you won’t see it in yourself. You’ve disowned it.
In fact, it’s a general rule that all qualities—disowned or not—exist in all people. And all of them, no matter how positive or negative they seem, are normal human characteristics.
In the last post I made an extremely important point, that when you’re unaware of something you don’t have choice about it. When you’re unaware of a shadow, you don’t have choice about your emotional reaction to it—you just react. And, you have no choice about how you express that reaction. And, you’ll also attract—unconsciously—a constant stream of people who exhibit the shadow aspect you’ve disowned.
When you become aware of a shadow and re-own it, you have choice over it. You move from unconsciously being it to consciously having it. As I gained awareness of my disowned anger, angry people stopped triggering me, and I stopped attracting so many of them. I still notice them, but now, instead of being triggered, I feel compassion for them. That doesn’t mean I like to be around them, or that I don’t see the harm they sometimes cause—or that I might not intervene if I see an angry person abusing another person.
The difference is in my own emotional state. Angry people no longer throw me into a negative emotional state because I’ve re-owned my own anger. I’ve also stopped expressing anger in covert and dysfunctional ways. Anger, which used to be a huge problem in my life, is now just another normal aspect of being human. It happens now and then, but it doesn’t run my life.
Here’s another key point, and it’s connected to what I said a moment ago—that all qualities capable of being disowned exist in all people. When you re-own a shadow, what seemed to be a negative quality matures into something positive. Immature, reactive anger, for instance, might turn into a mature and reasoned unwillingness to tolerate injustice. Narcissistic selfishness matures into mature self-love. Every shadow has a mature form, and re-owning a shadow allows you to express that quality in a mature and positive way.
Now that you have a basic understanding of shadows, I want to introduce you to a game we teach to every new member of society as soon as they’re old enough to understand it. The game is called The Game of Black and White, and the main rule of the game is that White Must Win. This game is actually about shadows, so let’s take a closer look at it.
To play the Game of Black and White a person first must learn to divide everything in the world into separate things and events. We learn to do this so well that once we’ve learned it we never question whether separate things and events actually exist other than in our mind. Your common sense probably tells you that of course the world is full of separate things and separate events. All you have to do is look around.
But let’s look at this idea more closely, because it has a lot to do with the Game of Black and White, with shadows, and with your own happiness and inner peace.
As soon as you were old enough, your parents taught you the names of things. This gives us the idea, first of all, that there is something called a “thing,” and also that a thing and its name are synonymous. Let’s look at why this actually isn’t an accurate way to see the world—useful, in many ways, but not accurate—and why this way of thinking leads to some basic life problems.
Think of a bee and a flower. The flower is rooted to the ground and the bee buzzes around it. Everyone knows that a bee and a flower are two separate and individual “things.” But are they? You never see flowers unless there are bees, and you never see bees unless there are flowers. They go together. Bees and flowers need each other. They’re one, interconnected, organic system, what a physicist might call a “unified field.” You can’t have bees in isolation, nor can you have flowers in isolation. Bees and flowers exist in relation to each other. In that sense they could be seen as one organism.
Then, of course, there is the soil the flower is planted in, and the bacteria and worms that live in the soil and contribute to the nutrients the flower pulls from the ground. That’s part of the system, too, as is the air, with a certain mixture of gases needed by both the flower and the bee. Of course we also need a planet a certain distance from a certain kind of star, with the right temperature, and the right amount of light, the right amount of air pressure, and the right kind of cosmic rays that allow the flower, the bee, the worms, the bacteria, and so on, to exist and thrive.
And, that star is found in a certain kind of galaxy, which is part of a system of galaxies, and so on and so on. Pretty soon you begin to see that this bee and flower system actually includes everything—that the entire universe is one organic, interconnected system, flowing along like water. Mentally dividing the world into separate things and events has its uses, but those divisions are ideas about reality, not the reality itself. In truth, everything is connected to, and dependent upon, everything else.
Thinking of the world as consisting of separate things is just that—a way of thinking about it. In fact, as philosopher Alan Watts used to say, a “thing” is a “think”—a unit of thought, as much of reality as you decide to get your mind around in a particular moment.
Again, I’m not against dividing things up. In fact, it’s obviously very useful. It’s when we forget that all the divisions are actually made-up, though, that we get ourselves into trouble. In fact, though it might not be obvious to you right now, whatever difficulty you might be having in life can ultimately be traced back to the illusion that the world consists of separate things and separate events. Stick with me here and I’ll explain what I mean.
The next thing I want you to understand is that where we make these divisions is arbitrary. Where a division is made—how things are sliced—is really just a matter of social convention and utility. The divisions we think of as being so real are not intrinsic to reality. They are extrinsic. We add them, from the outside.
Let’s look at an example. How big is the sun? In other words, where does the sun end and something that’s not the sun begin? Usually we say that the sun consists of its visible fire. Once you get past the visible fire, you get into something that isn’t the sun—outer space. But you could also say that the sun consists of the extent of its heat. Doesn’t that make sense, too? By that definition, the Earth is actually inside the sun, and the boundary is somewhere out in space, at the point where there’s no more heat.
But we could also say that the sun consists of the extent of its visible light. Under that definition, the size of the sun extends one light year for every year it has been shining, and it’s becoming larger in every direction at a rate of 186,000 miles every second.
So where the sun ends and something else begins is entirely arbitrary, something agreed upon by social convention. There’s no such thing, in isolation, as “the sun.” Putting a boundary on it, just as with the bee and the flower, is a way of thinking about it, not an intrinsic characteristic. And, in fact, all supposed “things” could be seen in the same way. Your skin could just as well be seen as what connects you to the rest of the world as what divides you from it.
What about separate events? As an example, let’s look at the question of when you began. Was it when your mother gave birth? Maybe. Or, was it at conception? Or maybe it was when you were just an evil gleam in your father’s eye. Or, when your parents were born. Or when their parents were born. In fact, we could keep going back in this way until we get back to Adam and Eve.
So you can see that when an event begins—or ends—is also arbitrary. In reality, everything is one huge, interconnected, multi-dimensional ongoing event, flowing along like water in a river. What we think of as separate events are all connected to each other and all go together, just like the bee and the flower. It might be convenient to chop things into separate things and events, but nothing is really separate from anything else.
So now let’s get back to the Game of Black and White. Once we’ve fallen for the supposed reality of separate things and events, we’re taught to divide those supposedly separate things and events into two basic piles. Some things and events go into the “appropriate,” “good,” or “White” pile, while others go into the “inappropriate” or “bad” or “Black” pile. Then, we bring in the main rule of the game, which, as I said, is that White Must Win.
When White—what we think of as appropriate, desirable, or good—“wins,” we’re happy—at least temporarily. But when what we’ve put in the Black pile seems to win, we feel unhappy, frustrated. If you stop and think about it, most of your life—most of everyone’s life—is about trying to get White to win and trying to avoid having Black win.
Here’s the problem with this game: White can never overcome Black, though we play the game as if it must. Good must overcome evil, we think. Life must overcome death. Having must overcome not having. Happiness must overcome unhappiness. Health must overcome illness. What we want must overcome what we don’t want. Pleasure must overcome pain.
You may have already realized that just as the bee and the flower go together, Black and White also go together. In other words, “good” is defined in terms of “evil.” Without evil, how would you know what is good? Good only makes sense in contrast to evil. In the same way, “having” makes no sense except in terms of, and in relation to, “not having.” Life makes no sense except in terms of death.
The same is true of happiness and unhappiness, pleasure and pain, health and illness, clarity and confusion, here and not here, light and dark, empty and full, and all the other Black and White pairs of opposites. They’re all defined in terms of each other. And, they all go together. You can’t have one without the other any more than you can have a one-headed coin.
In each case, you wouldn’t know that the White side even existed if it weren’t for the Black side, in the same way that you don’t feel your stomach unless it feels bad, or you don’t experience your eyes unless there are spots in front of them, or something else is wrong with them. Until its opposite comes into play, things are invisible, unimaginable.
Now it’s certainly possible in any given moment to have more of one side of the equation than the other, but you’re never going to totally get rid of the side you don’t want. That would be impossible, in the same way that you can’t have buying without selling, or up without down. Just try to make everything in your house “up.” You can’t, because up and down go together.
You can, though, have more good than bad in your life. This depends, as you might imagine, on how aware you are. Those who are unaware unconsciously attract more of what they don’t want. But you’ll never get rid of one side of any polarity, because both sides go together.
What is more, as I described earlier, where one side of each pair of opposites ends and the other begins is totally arbitrary. Where does up end and down begin? Where does good end and evil begin? In reality, they’re one thing.
(Just as an aside, let me give you the real secret to all metaphysics: opposites look as if they’re completely separate and at odds with each other, when they really go together and depend upon each other for their very existence.)
Any division you make, then, is conceptual, not real, and where the division is made is just a social convention. So, as I said before, it might be useful in some cases to divide things, but to avoid problems you must remember that you’re making it up. All divisions are ideas about reality, but not reality itself.
And please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you should just passively allow bad things to happen, either to yourself or other people. I am saying, however, that when you make certain things wrong, you disown them in yourself. Then you attract more of them, create bad feelings for yourself, and exhibit these disowned qualities in covert, immature, and dysfunctional ways. And who wants that?
So why am I making such a big deal about dividing things up, and especially about this Game of Black and White? What’s wrong with wanting things to be a certain way? Well, nothing, if you do it gently, but most of us don’t. The truth is that to be here, to be a human being, you’re going to prefer certain things to other things. I’m more concerned about my children than yours. I’m more concerned about my car than yours.
To be human is to want certain things. Without desire you wouldn’t eat or come in out the cold, or procreate, and the whole human race would come to an end. But when you play a really hard version of the Game of Black and White, where White must win, and where you strongly resist what you’ve placed in your Black pile, you set yourself up for suffering.
Why? For one thing, you’ve put yourself in a double-bind, an un-winnable situation, where you’re trying to get rid of or defeat something that can’t be gotten rid of or defeated. What you’re resisting is, first of all, just an idea, and second, can’t be successful resisted anyway, since it’s one side of a coin, and you can’t get rid of it without getting rid of the other side, too.
Disowning a certain aspect of your self—what I’ve called creating a shadow—is a result of playing the Game of Black and White. If you’ve experienced some sort of trauma, what you associate with that trauma will go into your Black pile. You’ll disown it in yourself and dislike it in others. And, unless you’re aware, you’ll focus on avoiding it, which will cause you to attract or create more of it and express it in covert and dysfunctional ways.
The more trauma (fear, anger, shame, disappointment, etc.) you suffered during your childhood, the more likely it will be that you’ll play a hard version of the Game of Black and White—in other words, the more likely it will be that you’ll have a lot of shadows, disowned parts. You could also say that you’ll be more easily pushed over your threshold. This means that you’ll focus on what you don’t want more often—which, if you’ll remember, you do by making internal representations of what you don’t want.
When you focus on what you don’t want, you feel bad, because all bad feelings are caused by focusing on something you don’t want. And, because your mind take what you focus on as an instruction to create or attract more of it, you’ll unconsciously attract or create MORE of what you think is Black, more of your shadow, more of what you don’t want.
If your father frequently yelled at you and then spanked you when you were small, this was probably a traumatic experience. If, in the present, another authority figure—your boss, for instance—yells at you, it’s very likely that you’ll mentally attach the traumatic memory, particularly the negative emotions, to your boss. You’ll drag the past trauma—or rather, your idea of it—into the present and associate it with your boss. When he yells, you’ll feel the same fear you felt as a child.
Authority figures, then, particularly those with more aggressive personalities, are part of your Black pile. Focusing on avoiding them causes you to feel bad. It also causes you to do subtle things, outside your awareness, that actually attracts them into your life and draws their attention to you.
Even worse, if authority figures are a shadow for you, you’ll exhibit the same qualities you don’t like in authority figures, but in a covert and dysfunctional way. You might be bossy, stubborn, arbitrary, controlling, merciless, or opinionated. These qualities will come out in covert and dysfunctional ways, and everyone will see them—except you.
If you re-own this shadow part (in other words, if you acknowledge that like all humans you have these qualities in yourself, and stop playing such a hard version of the Game of Black and White around authority figures), the immature version of these negative qualities will mature into something else—leadership, perhaps, or wisdom, or mentorship.
What causes you to re-own a shadow part—or, you might say, take a particular game-piece off the game board in the Game of Black and White—is awareness. As long as you are unaware, this entire dynamic will operate on autopilot, and you’ll suffer the consequences. Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind process, where you allow a disowned voice to speak, is an effective way of re-owning a shadow part of yourself, which is one reason why I’ve strongly encouraged you to attend one of our workshops.
When you speak from a disowned voice, you become aware of it. Once you become aware—once you’re able to see how your shadow expresses itself, internally and externally—this awareness causes it to mature. You stop expressing it in a dysfunctional way and begin to express it in a mature way (since all voices exist in all people, you will express it—you might as well express it in a mature way).
As I said in my last post, you can only do something that isn’t resourceful if you do it unconsciously, without awareness. When you become aware of something you are doing—when you are able to observe it as it happens and see the consequences, as they happen—it becomes very difficult to keep doing it if it doesn’t serve you.
Also remember that awareness is not the same as merely knowing something. Awareness is watching the actual creation and seeing the consequences as they happen. Knowing is just an intellectual activity. Knowing is the booby prize in personal growth.
I would suggest that you spend some time discovering some of the key shadow elements in your life, so you can re-own them. Or, to put it another way, to identify the major aspects of life you’ve assigned to the Black pile in the Game of Black and White, and to begin to notice how you play the game. That awareness will cause you to re-own the disowned parts. In the language of the Game of Black and White, you’ll stop playing such a hard version of the game around certain aspects of your life.
So sit down and make a list of the “negative” qualities that really trigger you emotionally when you experience them in others. You might be triggered when someone else is sloppy, stupid, dishonest, sexually perverted, selfish, conceited, angry, stubborn, controlling, disorganized, critical, unreliable, show-off, etc. What really bugs you in other people? List these, then put them in order, with those that trigger you the most at the top of the list.
You might also create a list of the main qualities you have in your “White pile”—what you think of as good, desirable, and appropriate—and those qualities you’ve assigned to your “Black pile”—what you think of as bad, undesirable, and inappropriate.
Then, take each quality that triggers you (or each quality you’ve put in the Black pile) and speak from it, either out loud or in writing. See what that disowned part has to say. Let it out of the basement so it can express itself. If you’ve disowned being a victim, let the victim in you speak. Everyone feels like a victim once in a while, so let the victim speak. Whatever the disowned voice is, it has something to say, and allowing it to speak gives you awareness about it. And with awareness comes choice.
When you do this, the areas of life where you tend to experience a lot of bad feelings, or where you repeatedly experience outcomes you don’t like, will shift. Believe me, this is possible, and when it happens, it will blow your mind. The positive change in your life will be huge, I promise. As I’ve done this in my own life, I’ve changed in ways I never could have imagined. Negative feelings and outcomes I’d lived with for decades faded away. My sense of well-being increased tremendously. Decades later it still continues to increase.
The same thing can happen for you.
Before I go, I want to remind you to come and be with Zen master Genpo Roshi and I in Los Angeles on March 7th and 8th. Because of the difficult economic times, we are offering a huge discount for this workshop. Those who have attended the others we’ve done have described them as “life changing.”
Though we seem to be facing tough and challenging times, and you may not be able to do a lot about that, you can do something about your response to what is happening around you. The two things I’ve found to be most powerful in allowing a person to remain happy and peaceful regardless of external circumstances are Holosync and Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind process.
Please do come and spend a weekend with Genpo Roshi and I that is sure to change your life. I want you to be one of the truly resilient ones who make it through tough times easily. Just go to www.centerpointe.com/bigmind to reserve your spot. If you bring a friend you save even more.
That much!!
Ok, i walked into that one.
Just the general idea of Trad med none and Holosync being different.
Will
This great post makes so much sense but I am still confused with how to deal with my ‘issue’. My greatest goal in life is to be a non smoker which I am but not a ‘permanent’ one. Everytime I am in a social situation with certain people I seem to drink too much and resort back to the old party girl I used to be and end up smoking because it seems like a good idea at the time. As a result for the next few days I beat myself up endlessly and feel absolutely hopeless instead of a successful person. It sounds pathetic but it really feels like I make this same mistake over and over and I feel at a loss as to why it happens when I hate being that person so much. I love my life when I am fit and healthy and loathe myself in those situations. So why do I keep sabotaging myself? I am just at a loss other than to socially isolate myself to remove those obvious triggers from my life. 95% of the time I feel like I have this under control and then I just seem to end up back at square one again. I think because I know how good life is as a non smoker, it makes the smoking thing particulalry gross to me. So why why why do I do it?? Insanity!
thanks so much, Carolyn
FROM BILL: There is no benefit to figuring out why this happens, at least in terms of ending it. Most people endlessly analyze “why this?” and “why that?” but knowing why is the boobie prize. Knowing how is much more valuable. This involves awareness, not intellectualization.
There are various ways to deal with this situation, but all of them involve awareness.–in other words, becoming aware of HOW you do it. One could be observing the internal representations (internal pictures and internal dialog) you make when you are “under control” vs “not under control” (in actual fact, you aren’t under control in either situation, because being under control involves being aware–in both cases you are operating automatically, but in what you’re automatically getting the outcome you want and in the other you’re getting something you don’t want). When you start smoking, etc., there are certain internal representations you make that lead you to the feeling of wanting to smoke and the actual behavior of doing it.
You need to watch and find out what these are–in other words, HOW you do it. You can only do something that doesn’t serve you if you do it unconsciously, which is what you are doing now. In response to certain triggers (something you see, hear, etc at a party) you make certain internal representations–you say certain things to yourself, you make certain internal pictures–which lead to the feelings and behaviors you don’t want. Right now it’s all happening automatically. The only way to have CHOICE about it is to do it with awareness, which means watching HOW you do it.
Another way would be to speak from the voice of the “party girl” or the “smoker’ or whatever aspect of you does this. Then speak from the opposite voice, whatever that is, maybe “the non-smoker” or “the voice of good health”. Speaking from these parts of you also creates awareness.
A third way is to figure out what you are proving is true by doing this; in other words, what do you believe about yourself that you get to be right about when you do this? Most people are busy proving that what they believe is true, about themselves, about others, and about the world. I would guess that what you say to yourself when you beat yourself up represents something you strongly believe about yourself. To be right about that believe, you attract certain people and situations, interpret what happens in certain ways, and behave in certain ways. As with internal representations, you have to watch yourself believing whatever you believe, watch yourself proving that you are right, which again involves observing your mind, as you do it. My next blog post will be about this.
Hi Bill,
Thank you for the post, and for the cd’s of Big Mind Big Heart that came two weeks ago with my newest set of Holosync CD’s. You and Roshi are wonderful, and without this, I don’t think I would have understood your post as well.
I wanted you to know that after thinking about and working with the repressed and suppressed voices, I came to “forgiveness”. I have worked on forgiveness in the past, but this was a breakthrough where I could not even think of any part of my life where I or anyone else still needed forgiveness from me. I felt clean….
Now, I know that there are still shadows. But, for that one moment, one day, everything was in the light and it felt great. I credit Holosync for this, 68.73%!
And, thank you for all the honest posts of my fellow Holosync users. I look forward to these “gatherings” each month. and to your questions as well as to your insights.
I have been struggling with defensiveness. Whenever I am “corrected” or “criticized” I immediately, knee jerk response, defend myself. I don’t want to. I know it’s better not to. I intellectually have many other responses that are much more “mature” but it pops out of my mouth before my brain, heart or self awareness can intervene. And, I know where it came from, but that doesn’t help.
My father was a perfectionist. Winning a championship was not good enough for him unless it was a perfect race…. I spent my life coaching myself that an A- or B+ was fine as long as I learned what I wanted to learn. I let go of my anger at him a few years ago, but there’s still something, apparently. Would you recommend speaking from the voice of the perfectionist, or the failure?
Love to you all. You are a great group with whom to feel connected.
Nancy
FROM BILL: I would speak from the voice of defensiveness, and the opposite voice, the one who accepts feedback. I would also speak from the perfectionist, the failure, and the one who does her best. Other great voices in this “family” would be “I don’t give a shit” (this is a great one) and “the one who has to care”. Then, speak from the apex of the triangle, the one who transcends and includes I don’t give a shit and the one who has to care.
And come to our next workshop, in LA in March. http://www.centerpointe.com/bigmind
Just wanted to say how awesome my holosync experience have been so far. I’ve been using it for just under two months now and I can honestly say it feels like I’m learning from my envonriment at the speed of light.
Also, I’m about to have a baby and I’m having contractions as I’m typinng this but the program has helped raise my threshold and communicate with my body so much that I change the pain to something pleasurable and just laugh when it comes.
I’d recommend this to anyone.
FROM BILL: That’s awareness for you. “Learning from your environment at the speed of light” is an interesting way to say “awareness.” How about naming the baby “Holosync”? Or Bill? (Good grief, did I really say that?)
Bill,
Why is it that some people project a certain disowned characteristic by hating somebody and others by admiring somebody too much. for example if I disowned sexuality I can either dislike sexual people or idolize sexual people.
Also if I a person disownes a certain characteristic is because it was unacceptable to be that way growing up how come in this case people project by admiring people who exibit that trait?
Carlos
FROM BILL: If you think it is a “good” trait and you have disowned it, you’ll arise and put on a pedestal those who have it. It you think it’s “bad,” you’ll make it wrong and express the shadow by not liking people or being triggered in a negative way by those who have it.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for all the value you provide to us and I will be with you again soon!
just wanted to say that I finished that I finished Level 2 last year ( although I am still listening to the discs) and I am waiting for funds to become available for my next level, I havent deserted you yet my friend!
Take Care for now
Bob
Hi Bill,
On a slightly different note, I recently watched a question and answer session with the Dalai Lama in which he was asked by an audience member ‘What is the difference between self-realisation and God realisation?’ To my astonishment, his response was ‘I don’t know’.
This stunned me because I felt like the answer was really obvious. Namely, if we accept the idea of the essential unity or oneness of all that is, then to fully embody one’s true nature (self-realisation) and to know God (God realisation) are one and the same.
What do you think?
FROM BILL: I think His Holiness is hinting that self-realization is an IDEA. So is “God”. So is God Realization. So is “one’s true nature”. So is the IDEA (you said it) of the essential unity or oneness of all that is. Buddhism is about reality, not about ideas. Though people just have to express themselves, everything they say consists of ideas ABOUT reality, but those ideas are not the things they represent.
Reality is what happens, not what you say about it. This is one of the central problems of being human: we use language to communicate, but forget that the premises behind language (that there are separate things and events, that a doing needs a doer, that a happening needs a thing to which it happens, etc) are not truth, and in fact are untrue. There is a gap between reality and what we say about it, but we don’t see that gap, and fall prey to the delusion that dualistic ideas can describe a reality that is multidimensional.
You can’t even describe a carrot, really. If you refer to one, and I have tasted one, I know what you mean, but if I haven’t, no amount of talking about it can possibly help. There is nothing wrong with ideas about the world, IF (a big if) you know the difference. The Dali Lama does. apparently.
What stands between you (or anyone) and awakening are your ideas–about everything. Realize that they are ALL bullshit, and something marvelous happens–after which you can take them back, but in a way where you realize what they are and what they are not.
my Holosync experience has been dismal – absolutely non-existent. Nothing at all has happened. I have been listening for 3.5 months now. Maybe my level of threshold is much higher than you presume. How can you place everybody at the same threshold level when you start us out on Awakening Prologue? Maybe some people have a much higher “threshold” and your cd is just not strong enough. Now what?
FROM BILL: Call support and trust what they say.
Beautiful as always Bill.
It occurs to me that we can explain the 4th rank in terms of shadows too, let me explain what I mean from my own experience (which has been hugely influenced by you and Genpo)
After a beautiful opening in a NY Big Mind workshop, I had been walking on air for several months. I was even in the ER room and frankly didn’t care about dying, it was just another experience in the middle of the perfection I was in, there was no separation at all.
At first my mind was very empty most of the time, but then little by little I started to conceptualize the experience. I started to see it as attaining the goal I was reaching for many years, and that I was finally “there”, no anxiety, no fear, I would be just pure awareness and I would be the witness for ever, free from all suffering.
But then more and more I started to feel separate again, I went from total clarity to tremendous confusion, I was anxious again, and worried about the future, in other words, I was suffering (actually I am still suffering).
I would say that the difference is that now I am more aware of it, I feel it SO MUCH, so concretely in my body, it really hurts.
By reading this post I suddenly realized that this intense spiritual seeking has been in someway a trying to escape the relative world. As a boy and teenager I always felt that the “success” people were striving for wasn’t the answer to ending suffering, so I unconsciously put it in the black pile.
However it came out covertly as a “spiritual success” I loved it when people told me “you are so unattached from the world” BIG SHADOW.
So the way I see it, what happens in the 3rd rank is that we in someway disown our seeking mind, our separate self, we can see through it, but then deny it and it becomes a shadow.
I believe what is happening is that we are unconsciously trying to get rid of one side of the polarity, there is no confusion and no separation, but clearly to be in this universe there HAS to be confusion and separation.
We think we are above the game of black and white, but actually are playing a VERY HARD version of it.
That’s why the fall is so tough, we disowned suffering, so when it comes back it hits us with full strength.
I believe that there is no end to our ability to be more and more aware. I see that you sometimes use the term “fully enlightened teacher” but there’s really no such thing right ? No one can be “fully” enlightened, that would be denying one side of the polarity, that would be saying “white must win”. There has to be awareness AND unawareness. At least for us human beings.
We can’t even say when someone has reached enlightening or awakening in a concrete way (one second I’m not enlightened and the next I am), that would be setting a limit, creating separation. But of course we need language, we need a map, that’s why I think you don’t really mean it when you say “fully enlightened”, or when you say that we can be happy and peaceful “all the time”. No one is “fully” aware of everything all the time, not even Genpo, Wilber or you right?
I think I am a little less deluded though (in great extend thanks to you) and would love to hear your take on this, especially in your experience integrating the relative and the transcendent in the must practical way (I guess is almost impossible to do that in practical terms, but you always surprise me in explaining the unexplainable).
All the love Bill, you are the best.
Santiago
FRO BILL: Santiago is referring, for those of you who are new to the blog, to two posts I did a while ago, called The Five Stages of Enlightenment, and There You Are, Enlightened.
Santiago, I agree with everything you’re saying. You have had another great insight. Bravo. That Holosync and Big Mind combination must have some value. What you cite is one of the reasons why people speak of reality, and of being a human being, as an unfathomable mystery. On one hand, we are impermanent. We come, we live, we fall apart, we disappear. Our bodies are tender and vulnerable, which allows us to feel and experience, but also makes us vulnerable to pain and injury.
On the other hand, the separate me that does this is really just an idea–the entire universe is really all one thing, and when “we” disappear it’s no different than a wave sinking back down into the ocean. The wave was just the ocean waving, and we are just the universe peopling. It doesn’t matter at all when the wave disappears, and it doesn’t matter when we disappear, either. It was all one thing all along, and being separate is just an idea.
But since we interact with the world through our mind, we’re going to divide the whole into supposedly separate “things” and “events” and then become attached to some of them and have aversion to others. The 3rd rank, as you say, is an attempt to escape from this. Quite frankly, all spiritual seeking is such an escape attempt. When someone “wakes up” they see that both the relative and the transcendent exist, that they are one thing, and that to be human you have to live in the relative. Otherwise you aren’t really human. As you say, such a person is trying to get rid of one side of the polarity. Whenever you try to do this (for you can’t really do it) you create a shadow, and all shadows bite you in the ass.
The awakened person realizes that to be human you have to live in the relative, but such a person is aware enough to choose what to become attached to, knowing the consequences. There is no escape from cause and effect, but in the 3rd rank we delude ourselves that we can. This shadow eventual creates the fall, and the more deluded you are, the harder the fall. Then, over time, you hopefully integrate the relative and the transcendent–even though both are ideas and are already “integrated”. You really just realize that they ARE integrated already.
Bill,
Bravo!!! I have been using Holosync for 4 months; what a great program! East meets west; meditate like a Zen Monk in the heart of capitalism. What a concept. Great Stuff.
During sessions, as awareness increases, I tend to direct my attention towards the feelings that underlay the achievment of some of my most important life goals and objectives. In your opinion, is this an advisable way to experience the sessions?
Thanks again,
Evan from N.Y.
FROM BILL: Being aware of any human quality or activity you’re exhibiting is a good idea.
Hi Bill,
What I understand from your words is that shadows are the repression of our feelings. Those repressed feelings become stocked in our minds in a way that we do not know them: we are not aware of those material. Even though they have a powerfull effect in our actions. This unknonn material cause suffering and constrain our actions in terms of not allowing us to be free. That’s the reason why a eastern Guru told me once that if I want to be free I must first of all throw up the past, includig “the shadows” that live in my mind. This process is also the cure proposed by psychology: let the unconscious trauma become known by the mind. Yes, I agree, this is the way to become free
Thank you
Hmmmm….I think I just identified something that’s in your black pile…..disagreeing with the Dalai Lama. Do I get a prize?
FROM BILL: Something is in the black pile when it triggers you. I just happen to agree with the Dalai Lama in this case.
Bill – re your response “just call support” yes I had already done that – they just said that they can’t tell how long it might take for a change. Your website states that you will experience ‘remarkable changes’ within a short period of time – days or weeks instead of months or years. Well it has now been 4 months – and still nothing! Is this normal? Am I the only person in the thousands of HS users that has experienced no change? As you are the originator of the program I was hoping that I would get a more concrete answer than just talk to support! What happened to this “I really really want you to get this” statement?
FROM BILL: Ultimately, your experience with Holosync is a function of who you are, the way your Internal Map of Reality is structured, and so on. Holosync creates awareness, and when you are more aware about something, you have more choice about it. When you are unaware, your internal processes just operate automatically and unconsciously, creating whatever they were set up to create. Using Holosync can’t help but create more awareness, but if for instance you have a huge vested interest in staying the same–usually because it involves emotional safety–you can keep doing things the same way despite the increased awareness.
You don’t say what the issue is, or what you want to change. I will say that if something in your life is happening that you don’t want, several things are true: 1) it is the result of something you are DOING, inside, that you are probably unaware of, and 2) you are focusing on what you don’t want in that area of life. The reason people focus on what they don’t want is that when growing upi the had to. There was danger in their childhood and they had to watch out for it. The danger could be something as seemingly insignificant as not triggering Mom or Dad’s anger, not wanting to be ignored, or ANYTHING that to a child is a danger.
Once we decide that something is a danger, we keep finding more and more evidence that we’re right, and we become even more convinced that it really is a danger. Many of these things are only dangers because we’re small and powerless when we’re children. Once we’re adults you’d think that we would no longer feel powerless, but when certain things trigger us we reexperience the same powerless feelings and for all intents and purposes we might as well be powerless.
So if you still feel unsafe enough about something, you might continue to respond to it in the same way–a way that creates problems for you now, but you needed to do when you were small–and despite the increase awareness you aren’t dropping it. You have to SEE what you are doing (in fact, first of all that YOU are DOING it), and HOW you are creating the result you don’t want. And, you have to get that the imagined consequences of being unsafe are not as great as the real consequences of continuing to meet the world in that old protective way.
On another note, we’ve had some people over the years who have said what you are saying: I not getting any results yet. Sometimes those people just quit, and we never get to see what would have happened if they had stuck with it. Many times people do keep going though, and many have told us that all of a sudden something shifted–AND, once it happened they had this realization that things had been shifting all along, but somehow they just didn’t notice it.
Another thing: I have found two charactaristics shared by people who say what you are saying as they use Holosync: 1) They have not bought into the idea that somehow, even if they can’t see how, what is happening, both in their life and with Holosync, is something they are DOING–that it is coming from something in them, in their internal processes; and 2) that they chronically and unconsciously focus their attention on what they don’t want, what they are worried about, what they want to avoid, what they are afraid of. Before anything changes, you MUST at least say, “Okay, I don’t know how, but somehow, what happens in my life, and particularly my reaction to what happens, is coming from ME, from something I am doing inside. Right now I can’t see what it is, but I am REALLY curious to find out.”
Holosync use can create all kinds of positive changes without you intentionally doing that much, but for it to really work you have to realize that your experience of ANYTHING comes from you, including your experiences while using Holosync, and you have to participate in the process by directing your awareness to HOW you’re creating your life the way it currently is. Some people get the attitude, “Okay, change me.” The changes with Holosync happen because the person becomes more aware. Usually this new awareness creates a lot of changes, but if the person has a strong vested interest in not changing, for whatever reason, they can, at least for a while, block themselves from changing. It could be, as I said above, because on some level (often not consciously) it feels unsafe to change, and it could be (and maybe this is a way of saying the same thing) that they’re proving they’re right about something they believe about themselves–I can’t change, nothing works for me, etc.
Stick with it.
Hi all,
i have been listening to Holosync for some years now, and although I am generally much more balanced, I sometimes have periods with backdrops.
Just recently I had a deep feeling of wanting revenge, and I started pursuing the person in question – making him pay for his dees, by publicly declaring him a fraud on the internet.
Now, even if that is true, it just doesn’t serve me, or anyone else. Thanks to Holosync, it is much easier to see and experience balance, as well as understanding the bigger picture. We are all one, and when I see you, your are me – mirrored.
FROM BILL: A perfect example of a shadow that you need to re-own. See my previous post. Come to a workshop with Genpo Roshi and me (www.centerpointe.com/bigmind)
Well I’ve given it some more ‘thought’ (not exactly true – more that I’ve given it some more feeling), and I now feel that you’re both right and wrong.
I see that language cannot adequately describe reality – that one can only know reality on a feeling level and not a discursive or thinking level.
But that notwithstanding, it is clear to me that to truly know one’s self is indeed to know God. And therefore it was a mistake for the Dalai Lama to not point that out when questioned.
So I agree and disagree with you.
Until the next time,
Terry
I’ve been listening to holosync (Awakening 1, 2nd CD) and started taking your first class. I stopped your first class because of timing and the intensity of the experience, but plan to resume and finish over the next few months.
Your material about shadows and Genpo has really fascinated me for this reason – before I came across your term for it – shadow – I actually experienced shadow (a vision and feeling associated in an area of my body). While holosyncing, an experience of a black cloud near the bottom of the left side of my torso began to come into my awareness. This sounds so wierd to me writing about it now. As soon as I became conscience of it – a “What is that?!” knee jerk reaction came with it – and the experience quickly left me. Then I ran across the “Shadow” idea and have been focusing in that area – I have made some progress. . . I am aware that I have stored my anger and feelings for revenge there. I do not act on these feelings, but they are quite strong and severe. The feeling/vision has changed now, it is redish brown. I have noticed that when I go to focus directly on it, it disappears and I can’t access again while meditating. (Sort of like a very nervous cat that wants to come out and connect with you, but as soon as the cat is aware that you are aware of it, the cat goes back into hiding). I have used the suggestion about giving it voice, but it really has not helped very much. What is the counterpart to vengence? Forgiveness? Peace? Also, are there visions I can use instead of words? Would you give more details to rounding out the Big Mind process on this particular subject of “Revenge”? Are there any good books or cd’s that you recommend that I can use on this particular subject. I would love to go to the workshop, but I simply do not have the money to do so at this time.
FROM BILL: Though I suppose that you could represent a shadow aspect in some visual way that lacks content (a color, etc), this isn’t really what a shadow is. A shadow is a part of you, an aspect of you–or somethng about the world–that you think is not okay. Because it’s not okay, you have repressed it, disowned it, pushed it out of your awareness. You can’t get rid of it, though. It appears in various immature, covert, and dysfunctional ways, especially in your being triggered by that quality in others.
These disowned aspects need to be reowned, and you do that by letting them speak. You don’t look for the opposite quality–though sometimes it’s good to have that speak, too. So let the voice of revenge speak. Use words. See what that part of you wants to say.
I would STRONGLY suggest that you come to one of the workshops Genpo Roshi and I do, where you will get a lot of practice doing this. http://www.centerpointe.com/bigmind
Hi Bill,
I’ve been wondering about something for a while… Why don’t you appear on Oprah’s show?
I think you’d be an exceptional guest because you would be able to recommend a daily practice that supports what the other great spiritual teachers are advocating, and it would bring holosync to millions.
I’ve seen a few of your friends on there like Mike Beckwith and Byron Katie, so why not you? You’re not shy are you?
T
FROM BILL: She hasn’t asked me. Why don’t you write to her and tell her why you think she should have me on.
Trust me, shyness is not my problem.
Do you plan to have such a workshop on the east coast, say in the Washington D.C. area? This area is perfectly situated between the north and the south. The tuition I can afford, but the travel expenses put the workshop out of reach financially. I would be happy to scout out different locations for you or get some suggestions. Also, there is a very neat plantation in Southern Virginia (http://www.berryhillinn.com) that may be even less expensive and is in a very beautiful area.
I believe that I have represented visually my anger and desire for revenge and have suppressed it there. I was taught to silence my “voice” to unpleasant emotions like anger (many females experience the same thing when they are socialized to be “good little girls”) I know that when I am triggered by people who I feel are acting in that same state, my emotions (fear and anger) rise up out of that area – its a physical sensation attached to the emotions and thoughts. It’s like my blood boils and the heat starts there – but it still happens very quickly. I have not yet caught (witnessed) the thoughts between the stimuli (incoming experience) and my blood begins to boil – even though I don’t act on it, I know the emotions are written all over my face. I have probably stuffed many things about myself that I want to disown there – when I was young I remember being overwhelmed with negative emotions and would visually think about stuffing these emotions – pushing them down, closing a lid, and putting a lock on them.
I have been in this place before when trying to give voice to grief, I couldn’t do it. I had journaled all my life, earned a B.A. in communications, but could not write a single word about my grief. Either all the grief came at once and I just cried, or I was numb and had to seek relief in other ways – so I played the piano and learned to draw. The words – giving voice – is a pointed, linear process – while music, drawing, visualization . . . they are more rounded processes.
Thank you, Bill, for your response earlier, and your work. I love your Holosync CD’s, my family and co-workers have noticed a change. The information you give through your blog, your classes, and your support letter are so valuable and helpful to me. Thank you for your honesty in sharing your experiences in dealing with anger, finding a loving relationship, and on achieving success. I have had the same experiences of things falling apart, then achieving some success, and things falling apart again. I was at the point of giving up. My options were limited. I had tried meditating on my own, but did not do it consistantly. My practice with holosync is much more consistant. I had done years of therapy and read many self-help books and CD’s, but nothing has helped as much as your information and holosync.
Wishing you much success,
Amy
FROM BILL: Not being able to give voice to something that is creating pain and dysfunction is a good reason to get with a skilled facilitator, such as Genpo Roshi. Another alternative is to work with Denise, my wife, who does phone consultations where she has people speak from shadow voices. She is very skilled and I’m sure she would be able to help you access these voices. 949-375 3043. The people she works with rave about how good she is and the huge changes they experience.
Hi Bill I hope this blog finds you well. I really get it about the flower analgy
I have had some issues with this shadow stuff, but as you said it takes time
to learn it. I love the ideal that I do have time and I am still teachable. I love the step by step process and connections. I have been waiting all my life i guess for someone to say , just have fun with it. no details right now. This topic of shadow is so ah ah for me in fact it’s all just about. When I was a little girl. I use to hear my grandma say “give me the patients of jobe. Well I discovered puzzels and was facinated how life, and patients are both learned at the same time. I want to tell you how greatful I am each day for you, and your staff. blog on blog well. Alemenia
Hi Bill. I often read these blogs out loud and my grandson listens. He was sitting on the floor beside me the other day and said grandma you know that the abc song and mary had a little lamb has the same music. and the way we learn is by repetition hit me like a ton of bricks and it came together for me about stress of getting it right and being perfect, picking everthing apart. seeing the connection, having fun with it, don’t get stuck in the details and from a 3 year old. Menia
I meant to say in my last blog that my grandson may have not gotten it exactly right with the songs but he hit the nail on the head when he kept singing the songs over and over again. MENIA
Thanks Bill for all this. As you discussed about disowening anger, it made me feel that I have disowned fear. I am using Holosync and am at flowering level two and have cleared a lot of stuf but fear still keeps coming in a form like if my son just goes out to in a car or if I see a fast running car with heavy engine kind of things, makes me so fearful and I start making internal representations although I have started to notice. So Bill please can you talk more about fear in some other article if possible. Holosync made me a totally new person but something about fear is still there. Thanks very much.
Bill, I just watched the dvd on your workshop in NY on Big Mind. It was
very good and I have a question about addictions. Makes sense that addictions are a distorted way of handling repressed shadow and I wonder
what voices you would ask to be present? Beth
FROM BILL: I think that would depend upon the person. I’d have to talk to the person and find out more. You are correct, though, that addictions are a way that disowned voices express themselves in a covert and dysfunctional way.
hey Bill,
just wanted to let you know about a little experiment i did with holosync and big mind. I purchased the book Big Mind Big heart, set up my voice recorder and recorded all the parts where Genpo speaks as the facilitator. I then transfered that recording to play along with holosync. All I can say is WOW! I had some big Ah has. I’ve tried it a couple of times and each session gets better, and deeper. This is really powerful stuff! I can hardly wait to experience the Big Mind process in person. See you soon.
Hi Bill I do not have access to ask questiona on my on line course, but I just had to make a comment about what is happening with me. I just finished the 3rd lesson of the on-line course part 2 accelerator and the word accelerate is a understatment. I have always loved passing the buck. and letting someone else take responsibility for things infact all thing ajust about. I accept responsibility for what I creat. It kind of melts into one bigh pile and it helped me see that we ar all a part of the whole. I have had some people challange me with the letting what ever happens be ok thay think I am heartless uncaring. but I can also se how I still have a part of me that bleleives the illusion. For the most part I feel so good about all this stuff. I passed the buck to God for all that is gong on and I will be a willing actor in as much as I am awake to see that it is all just a bored (know it all) he wants a suprise and I know that I why I feel like I was created to play this part. I could and have always acted my buns off and enjoyed most of it. I see that realtion to Sharespear’s poem “ALL THE WORLD IS A STAGE, AND WE ARE ACTORS” It sure takes a lot of the fear doubt uncertinty out. I have always loved puzzles,mysteryes,figuring out how things worrk and seeing how others play their part to intrance me and to challenge and lift me up to a level of excitment that I have come to this life experience, my role sometimes requires that I feel dread,fear,dpubt,sadness,allone, I see that now I hope to play my role to the hilt. so with my next life experience I can be even more enlightned and more enlightned. The prospect excites me. When I leave this experence It wil be as if I never existed. I can sure use that ace in the hole. there are a lot of things I want to forget I did. If nothing but for the embarresment of it. I love you Bill Harris. Tell your wife I said thanks for sharing you.
Well to answer your question “WHAT HIDING IN MY SHADOWS?” Well I use to think people would think I was nuts if I told them what was in the shadows, because I was scared to look there. but everything you want need care about think of love hate both sides of the coin are there and you can see that the see that there is really is a monster if you think it is. but most of all the struggle that I thought was a struggle was written into my script like that. I can not really define it becaue it really is beyond mind. so called creator is really and I mean really us. I have a thick vale in front of my mind most of the t ime but I play it that way I don’t want to know it all. It will take all the fun out of life experience I am having. and that is the point after all. well for me anyway may not be for others, but they have to wake on their own. I love You Bill Harris.
Hi Bill, I have a Big Mind question. When working with shadow, such as anger, fear, and lots of very ‘young’ stuff, etc., I often like to do one voice at a time……..as it comes up…….not a long session.
…….doing this, with such voices, is there one voice one can go into on the other side of the triangle to help facilitate going into the dual/non dual integrated state, without having to do a long process of many voices?
i have occasionally just gone right into the integrated state without touching into the other side, which is so wonderful, but I am by far, not always present enough for this to happen.
thanks!! Lynn
FROM BILL: You need a facilitator who can help spot the best voices to speak from. I suggest calling Denise Harris, who is extremely skilled at doing one-on-one Big Mind. She will help you have a huge breakthrough around this. Her number is 949-375-3043.
Bill:
I just wanted to say how amazed I am at how much Big Mind when combined with Holosync has helped me so far. Its really amazing. When I think I’ve owned a voice I see later some way more profound and deep way that I could own it more and I gain some deep insight that I was missing before. I started doing Big Mind for at least fifteen minutes a night close to a year ago now. At first it kind of just made me more spontaneous. At this juncture it has helped me to totally turn myself around. One of the biggest breakthroughs I’ve had is I’ve noticed what was triggering my own covert anger where I wasn’t noticing it before. When people would start yelling at me or look at me with angry faces before I started doing Big Mind heavily I would just react by getting extremely angry and then fearing my own anger. I did a lot of work on re-owning my anger and fear with Big Mind and the 3-2-1 process and I then started noticing the faces people were making at me and other things they were saying and doing that was triggering my anger while still remaining calm. This has given me a lot of power to then choose my reaction rather than at least emotionally having no control over my reaction at all. From there I just took off increasing my awareness expodentially in all of the voices. There have been a bunch of places where I basically made an ass of myself where I then used Big Mind to find the seed of an equal or greater benefit and where I just came out of it ten times more enlightened, ten times more brilliant, and ten times more aware. So I just wanted to say thanks for all of the help. I know in a year from now I’ll be somewhere even further along but I also know it doesn’t even really matter because I can enjoy the moment right now just as it is.