Showing posts with label letting go. Show all posts
Showing posts with label letting go. Show all posts

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Let go or be dragged...💚🪽✨️


“The universe is made up of experiences that are designed to burn out your attachment, your clinging, to pleasure, to pain, to fear, to all of it. And as long as there is a place where you're vulnerable, the universe will find a way to confront you with it.”
― Ram Dass

Smooth as the river we flow through our experiences in life, traversing rocks, clearing damns, bottlenecks, clogs, rapids, to effortlessly flowing streams. The attachments, good, bad, ugly, beautiful,  terrible, joyful, sad, ecstatic or tragic, endlessly pull at our flow, at our beingness, keeping us tied to the numinous, while restraining us from the luminous, only allowing us to see the shadows we are ready for.

All attachments must be forgiven and reconciled in self, with the little s, when bridging into Self, with the big S, to allow divinity in every moment. The self uses our fears, passions, pains, desires, or blind-spots to harden and solidify our prisons of reality. 

As all is mind, all is illusion and manufactured in the psyche. When we realize it was all a magic mirror, we forgive even the mirror as we reconnect to our Selves unconditionally.

"Do what Thou wilt is the whole of the law." -Aleistar Crowley

Taken out of context, Crowley enabled generations of magickal armies of self-serving megalomaniacal "me, me, me's," thus defeating his own mission to be the Aeon, by disabling his ignorant followers with the lies of self, with the little s. He has led those armies into "hell," depending on how far they are able to ascend passed his dogmatic soul trappings. That is why, if you know, You know. 

Maybe that was his plan, to lead those not ready for truth to where they will find what they are looking for, back to their own hall (hell) of mirrors of self, with the little s. 

When realized in the vein of his true meaning, it removes self from the equation completely. 

He continues to mock the profane with his message, knowing that you must be clear within to even understand those simple words, saving the truth for the sacred. Therein lies the mystery, to see beyond his words to the true meaning, which was always towards purity and harmony. The mystery is and was always about the clarification of tiphareth to bridge to the next level, or as Crowley named it, to face "Chorazom," the guardian of the abyss, or Da'ath, the hidden sephirot.

This guardian shows you the whole mirror, the Self mirror, with the big S, which highlights all of your indulgences, positive and negative attachments, and asks you why, to bring light to all illusions/attachments seen and unseen. This goes beyond just allowing love of self, with the little s. It encompasses allowing love of Self/self. 

This is the hardest part of the work, doing it by magnifying all parts of self, with the little s, to be deconstructed into the truth of Self, with the big S. This begins at the tip of the shadow work iceberg that so many avoid, including Crowley himself. 

This is the part that is often corrupted by those uninitiated in the light of understanding the mysteries. It works how you do. If you see it as a means for selfish gain and limited material gains, then that is what it is. When you see it as it was created, it is truth, but only if you have eyes to see it, ears to hear it, and a heart to know it.

Who is this Thou of which he speaks?
(Note the big T)

It is Self/self in union, yoga perfected, the All, Yahweh, Allah, Pravana Brahma, the Universe, Infinite Intelligence, Divine Spirit, and every other name for God. It is the understanding of merging self with Self and loving as that truth. 

If we are aligned with Source and act through source, then all is love and all is harmony. When alignment is present, we are acting as God, as Divinity in the physical. In harmony, Self, with the big S, guides all to the self, with the little s, that is needed for the Great Work to be completed. It rests on us to hear and answer the call of the All, and to step into our highest truth, beyond all attachments.

To hear God, we must know silence.

To see God, we must know darkness.

To feel God, we must know the void.

To accept God, we must know love.

To be God, we must know Thyself.

"My vulnerability is my strength." 
-Ke$ha

Accept all of your parts and allow love to be your now.

The more I learn, the more I realize, if it isn't the most simple and pure, it isn't what is essential. 

All is mind with a pure heart.

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." 
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Just be love.

It is.



#koansofbrien
#allismind
#allislove
#love
#justbe



 







Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Opening the flood gates and the cell doors...

Open to the infinite...

Take a deep breath,

Let yourself seep into the boundless,

the timeless,

What is beyond now if now is all there is?





Inner alchemy is transmutation of fear to love, 
of the timebound to the timeless...

Realizing the complete release of blockages can induce panic if you aren't ready to be vulnerable or freed. 

Do you want freedom?  

Then come with me...

Step away from your body with your heart out...

So many of us wear our chains like badges of honor, holding them and using them as crutches.

Stepping away from crutches is a terrifying experience when the hobbling world has become 
all you know.

Complexity grows exponentially when we step off the path, 
with layers upon layers flowing outward in ripples 
from those core events that started the issues and problems 
we agreed to work through before our incarnation in these physical prisons...

Will the lessons be learned?

Can we be introspective enough to transcend 
this beautiful facade we call reality?

What will we transcend to?

Can we even handle the truth and promise of infinity?

See yourself releasing what you think you know, 
so you can experience what you feel that you know is real...

Just be.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

A candle amidst the shadow...


"Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

-Stephen King 
(The Shawkshank Redemption)




This flicker, this flame of hope, spark of divinity casting away shadows into the light of reason and rebirth to be renewed and revisited once again.  

Hope can do this for us just as renewing our faith and spirit can do...  

Can we still be with ourselves and with that phoenix who rises from those ashes?  What comes with this rebirth?  Is it always peaceful?  What if it's not?

Sometimes and often as we find that candle in our dark times, that innocent flame of peace and renewal will ignite with the delicate shell of our current state of the ego to prepare us for major growth.  Now not all major change and growth is painful or earth shattering  or a bonfire of the psyche, but this has been known to happen from time to time...

It is as though we have surrounded ourselves in the kindling of our old way of being and thinking and interacting and this kindling catches fire and gets set ablaze into our being, purifying that which is holding us back from our truest and most sacred self.  

There is always beauty in these moments of utter clarity, though often it is almost impossible to find it amidst the chaos that ensues in our lives.  Room has to made to handle and acquire the proper energetic reception that is occuring.  We are forging a new skin, a new template of our being and at first it is terrifying.

That feeling of letting go and releasing  is usually accompanied by strife and struggle, for the ego's grasp on our reality is a very real and powerful thing.  

This growth and renewal we are experiencing is a trial by fire and the wrong mental attitude and stance will most definitely spiral out to let the ego back in and let it regain its comfortable spot where it is in control of your life.  Therefore this growth is typically accompanied by pains and difficulties.  We must push forward to realize that in this gutter of an experience, there are still stars in the cosmos stretching out into the infinity of space.

It is at times called a healing crisis for the illness or state of dis-ease we are in is one that must flare up and create panic and trauma in order to shake our spiritual and physical state to its core foundations.  This unfortunately can even extinguish that candle which started the process of growth.

Find your candle in the darkness of the char that remains when such a dark night of the soul occurs.  

Find the message.  Step back from yourself and your sorrow and pain and just be a silent witness to what is and to what can be.  Find the peace in each moment, the joy of releasing the old and embracing the new.  You may like what you find there.  It may bring back that once lost playful spirit from childhood, or you may discover that dream of this life you put up on the shelf until the next lifetime.  See the opportunity in your darkness, become your own flashlight by looking for the message, for the blessing hidden in the curse.  There is a silver lining in the cloudiest of days...


Keep hope in your despair and let the sun warm you in the ashes so that you may find those phoenix feathers of every color that had been dulled or sullied by the barrage of suffering in this experience.

May you find the brilliance hidden in the darkest of times...

Know that you are a being of light.



A light for your path...

Just be.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Falling in a Hole, chapter from the self-help book, "The Art of Falling" by Brien Egan (another book chapter I need comments on...)



***Chapter from The Art of Falling, by Rev. Brien Egan

 

Falling in a Hole




“When we feel stuck, going nowhere--even starting to slip backward--we may actually be backing 
up to get a running start.”               
                                          -Dan Millman


Ever feel like nothing is going right for you, like you are stuck and can’t get out of your rut? This feeling of lost hope can create overwhelming sadness or depression about the situation you are in. When you feel this confused about your direction in life all can seem lost. It is as though you are out of sync with life and you have fallen off your original path. Everything doesn’t always go as planned as we talked about in chapter 2, so let’s look at how we can climb out of our hole and keep on our path we had started. We may feel suppressed in where we are or maybe we aren’t claiming our vision or personal power and are letting others control our destiny.

First let’s look at how to analyze the hole we are stuck in to understand how we got to this point. We need to identify what derailed our train. Take a second to mentally back track to where these feelings originated, who you were with, what was happening. Did you not do something you were supposed to or should have? Did you let someone else dictate your actions? Did you not stand up for what you believe in for your dreams? Try to identify that moment where things began this unraveling. Now walk yourself through what transpired next in sequence. What inaction created your hole? Or was it something you did?

Can your hole be filled with a simple conversation? Or does it require an entire life style change? Finding the courage to step out of the hole may be the issue as well. Some people find comfort in theirs, it becomes like their default position. Sometimes the hardest part to a limiting adversity is the willingness to change it or even identify it honestly. Has it become your “acomodador?” Did you settle to create your distress of being trapped? Can you bring yourself to be strong enough to do something now that you can unlimit your dreams? Maybe you need to share these concerns with a partner or a friend so you can take those key steps and muster up the strength to move on to where you truly wish to be.

Personal power can be what is creating these limits for us if we are afraid to step out of our comfort zone and really reach for those goals and aspirations. Others can help encourage us but ultimately it is up to each person to find strength deep within to make major changes and to alter our path. When hope feels lost it is even harder to pick up and move on.

Perhaps disillusionment with the outcomes is keeping you stuck. You might have too much faith in a broken system or a dream someone else has that may be different from your own. If this is the case it may require a revisit to the shared vision or a revisit to what you really desire. This is not to say we should settle, but a refocus on what is essential may be all that is required to get you back on track. When you get to this point the best point of view is to know your real desire and this may require a significant bit of introspection. Once you rediscover your intentions, you can push forward just as we talked about in chapter four in order to reaffirm your personal truth and your self worth. Soon you will have filled in your hole and be ready to rewrite your plan or to reconfigure the path you are on. Having a renewed vision on your journey will make it easily attainable to ignite your drive with new fervor.



The key here is to realize that we are never stuck in any situation. There is always a way to climb out and keep our march to victory under way. Stepping out of a hole and away from a situation that is against your dreams is a safe thing to do. We need to have trust in what we are doing and that it is moving us in a direction we feel is heading toward our goal. Everyone has moments where they feel like there is no way out of something and we need to find the personal strength to not be tied into something that goes against who we are or against the direction we are heading. This hole you are in may just be a divot in the road or it may seem like a bottomless pit but that lies in your perception of it and your abilities and strengths in doing something to climb out of it.



Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

“I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.”




Portia Nelson











 




Summary and Reflection
 



How do you realize you are stuck in a hole?
·         Loss of freedom, feeling suppressed
·         Distrust in a situation
·         Fell off of your original path
·         Losing hope
·         Confused about direction to go


How can you find a way out?
·         Regroup your vision
·         Rediscover your intentions
·         Back track through your life to find where the hole was to begin with
·         Feeling adequate worth for efforts
·         Rekindle your drive to succeed
·         Rewrite your path/plan for success
·         Reaffirm your personal truth and aspirations








 Visualization


Take a deep, full breath in, all the way down to the bottom of your lungs. Notice your breath, now take another deep full breath, feel your lungs stretch out with the quiet path of your breath. Each breath that you take now is releasing more of your tension and tightness, relaxation is flowing in with the in-breath, and tension is released with the out-breath. Picture a shimmering light come in to the top of your head and with each breath it will slowly go down your body relaxing you as it moves into your neck and chest, down your arms, going down further now with the out-breath into your hips and legs going into your calves and out your feet...
 

Now imagine that you are sitting on the edge of a very deep well. You lose your balance and fall backwards towards the water deep below. See the bricks as you fall farther and farther into the well. Splash! You are drenched. You notice handhold spots throughout the entire wall back up and out of the well. As you grab each one and move up further you notice that each handhold makes you realize a step to correct your slip, and the further you climb, the more confident you feel about your goal at the top of the well walls. As you get to the top you are overcome with joy at having overcome your fall and rekindled your efforts towards you goals and desires. You head off down a road emitting a yellow glow and you feel a renewed sense of direction. Picture yourself now in a violet bubble as you float down the yellow brick road towards your dreams...

When you are ready, be back here in the room, at peace, knowing that you are on your way to wholeness...




Light for your path.
 
Just be.

Friday, January 1, 2016

Visualize, mesmerize, materialize!!!

'Tis the season!

                 Don't wait!  

                             Do this now. 

                                           Let's begin...

Now follow along and visualize this to yourself, picture it in your mind, as you read along with me. First take a deep, full breath in, all the way down to your belly and let it out slowly now, and spend a few moments just focusing on your breath as it comes in and out slowly and calmly.  Now picture the sky up above you with the bright sun high up overhead.  Feel the warmth of the sun on your face as you continue to take deep full centering breaths calming and relaxing you now as you bask in the light of the sun.  Just be still in this moment.
  
Now as you are quiet and still notice as thoughts about your day, worries about deadlines or any of life's difficulties just spill out into your stillness, almost as though you are holding back a levee of thoughts and its slowly seeping out.  Now see in your mind these repetitive thoughts, some negative, some not, these thoughts you have about who you are and what you are, how you feel and what you think of your surroundings.  You know those thoughts that play like a tape recording throughout your day.
  
Watch now as the thoughts transform in your mind into clouds as they fill up the sky and block the warmth from the sun.  So now picture yourself safely rising up into the sky through those clouds of busy and negatively patterned thoughts.  Seeing them separate from oneself now you know in this moment, you are more than your thoughts...


Realize that as you are coming out of the cloud cover up back into the brilliance and warmth of the sun that you are moving beyond these limiting thoughts back to the you that is eternal.  You are transcending to the witness, that infinite part of you that is not attached to any emotions or preconceived notions of what the world is like.  It is being in that childlike innocence.  This is where you are now.  See the clouds below you now as they drift past and feel the powerful connection from the warmth of the sun revitalizing your true self.  Feel the textures of the clouds, realizing again that you are more than these senses.  You are the still small scribe to this infinite sea of experiences.  Know that you are beyond your emotions.  You are connected to your source, aware, alert.  Now slowly bring yourself back into this space, the room you are in, feeling comfortable and relaxed in your body, knowing in a deep place that you are better for this, and it is so...


Are you presently present now?  

If not, take a second to remember who you are, where you are and why you are... 

Do you have goals?  


What is it you truly want?  


What is keeping you from being there now?  


Will you save yourself in time?  


There is only one lifetime we are currently aware of  so we must capitalize on our experience of the present in order to harness the full potentiality in every instant of our perception...

Presence can be experienced in a great number of ways from some deep breaths to simply being in your body.  

Create a mantra consisting of a few things you are working to create for oneself...

Here's how you do it:

Simplify whatever your goal is into a few words and just keep the saying or phrase that you can run in the background noise of your mind, repeating on autopilot while you are mentally focused on the outside world, being aware of one's own body as such is a difficult undertaking...


Create now in this new year whatever it is you can envision with all of your senses.  See yourself presently in perfect awareness of your consciousness, being in the flow.



Happy 2016!!!!

<3



Light for your path...


Just be.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Timeless awareness

To create healing now we must be in this presence to embody our past in order to move through it...

This awareness of now is the key to release, the key to peace and moving away from a life lived in the past or for the future.  So what does that truly mean, being in the now, living for today, or staying fully present? 

Being present isn't just about being aware of where you are physically, although that is a factor. A main secret to it's mastery is in the embodiment of being in the now emotionally as well.  So what does that mean?  It means being beyond the emotions, knowing that they are but passing states caused by events in the past or future oncoming events we are focusing on.  The release of this pent up storage of feeling puts you beyond hurt or worry, to a place where it is easy to see that everything will work out in the right and perfect way.  We will see things as Thom Yorke from Radiohead put it with, "everything in its right place."

So just as I have been bringing back in over and over in these posts, a major part of emotional presence lies in embracing or acknowledging these feelings or emotions so that they can be let go of.  This isn't just referring to the negative feelings either, for good must be released as well.  When we let go of them we do not enter into some emotionless state though, if that is where your thoughts were taking you.  No, rather the opposite takes place really.  We go into a hyper-emotive state where we can more objectively see others emotions clearly as well as understand our own motivations for our feelings as well. 

It's like stepping back and pulling the wool off of our emotional eyes so that we can understand all the "Whys" to our emotive experiences.  

It gives us a clear picture of who we are without all of our emotional baggage that everyone gets buried under whether through suppression or from over expression.  Remember, suppression of emotions doesn't make them go away, they only fester and well up.

So let me give you a shovel so you can start to dig yourself out of this emotional grave...

An easy mental exercise to help you identify these aberrant emotions we are working to be beyond lies in seeing the emotions as detached from your highest self.  So how do we check in with this true self, with our "silent witness," as Deepak Chopra would call it?

Taking about ten minutes each day on your own to do this visualization will help to become more aware of yourself and your emotional states so that you can work to transcend.

Now follow along and visualize this to yourself, picture it in your mind, as you read along with me. First take a deep, full breath in, all the way down to your belly and let it out slowly now, and spend a few moments just focusing on your breath as it comes in and out slowly and calmly.  Now picture the sky up above you with the bright sun high up overhead.  Feel the warmth of the sun on your face as you continue to take deep full centering breaths calming and relaxing you now as you bask in the light of the sun.  Just be still in this moment.  Now as you are quiet and still notice as thoughts about your day, worries about deadlines or any of life's difficulties just spill out into your stillness, almost as though you are holding back a levee of thoughts and its slowly seeping out.  Now see in your mind these repetitive thoughts, some negative, some not, these thoughts you have about who you are and what you are, how you feel and what you think of your surroundings.  You know those thoughts that play like a tape recording throughout your day.  Watch now as the thoughts transform in your mind into clouds as they fill up the sky and block the warmth from the sun.  So now picture yourself safely rising up into the sky through those clouds of busy and negatively patterned thoughts. 
Realize that as you are coming out of the cloud cover up back into the brilliance and warmth of the sun that you are moving beyond these limiting thoughts back to the you that is eternal.  You are transcending to the witness, that infinite part of you that is not attached to any emotions or preconceived notions of what the world is like. It is being in that childlike innocence.  This is where you are now.  See the clouds below you now as they drift past and feel the powerful connection from the warmth of the sun revitalizing your true self.  Know that you are beyond your emotions.  Now slowly bring yourself back into this space, the room you are in feeling comfortable and relaxed in your body, knowing in a deep place that you are better for this, and it is so.

Being beyond is its own state of perception, apart from our normal waking consciousness for the simple yet deeply significant fact that we become self aware and fully conscious in a metaphysically open state.  

In other words, there is nothing binding us to our ego.  This is the hyper-conscious state that athletes describe when they are having their best performance or game and are in the flow state where everything seems effortless.

Keep practicing with the visualization and comment below on how it is helping you move to the timelessness of now.

Light for your path

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

A dark embrace

Acceptance of what is is an embrace of life in all of its richness of color...  
Be those colors shaded to darker hues or lightened to pastels, all of our experiences in life have enriched it to be the colors we perceive.  The issues that arise in our life, be them physical, emotional or spiritual will remain persistent and continue to fester and injure us more and more if we cannot grasp their value and place in our perception.  This blocking we create from the denial of our true selves is so detrimental to our being that it will even create illness and dis-ease. 

What we run from chases us, and what we hide from searches for us...  
When people cannot embrace all aspects of themselves, they become trapped in the event, time frame or mental state which they are trying to avoid.  Its as though our spirit has a bookmark in the timeline novel that is our life and when we refuse to turn the page or read the whole excerpt, it saves our space until we do.  Unfortunately saving your space causes you to become mentally and often physically stuck there as well.  I have seen many people so stuck in a particular event or time period that they miss the beauty and wonder that is right in front of them. 

Now not all of these shadows are self-inflicted, though a fair amount are...  
No child asks to be abused, and no spouse asks to be cheated on or mistreated.  (On the soul level we all choose our experience, but that is for another discussion) People can overcome these setbacks and devastations if they can find their inner courage to completely face the issue or fears and move through them.  This is by no means a one step easy process, it can take years or lifetimes for some of us, but it can be done.  

The first and most imperative rung on this ladder of healing is accepting what is and what has been... 
It is acknowledging where we have come from in order for us to take those steps forward.  It is not letting ourselves become destroyed by what can best be described as our “acomodador,” as Paulo Coelho describes in his book, The Zahir, that will give us the power to move on and grow from the experiences of our lives in a positive way.  In The Zahir, Coelho quotes from a book called Magical Practices in Northern Mexico which describes the concept:

“The acomodador or giving-up point: there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress: a trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, a disappointment in love, even a victory that we did not quite understand, can make cowards of us and prevent us from moving on. As part of the process of increasing his hidden up powers, the shaman must first free himself from that giving-up point and, to do so, he must review his whole life and find out where it occurred.”

Rising up and being with ourselves in our point of accommodating, or point of becoming stuck in our ego into being complacent or stopping to evolve or grow is the best way to let go of that trauma. It is the first leap to overcoming all odds.  This reviewing of ones life is a major aspect of what Jung called, the shadow work.  It is a first step in renewal and rebirth if one is being consumed by their acomodador.

Let us combine our efforts to help embrace our shadows so that we may again become whole.

We will stitch them back to our feet as our hero Peter Pan has done.

Watch Peter chase his shadow down here...

Light for your path...



Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Can we illumine our shadows?

So what is our shadow self? 
What definition does science give for the natural phenomenon of shadows?
Science tells us that a shadow is created where light is hidden from a space or blocked.  This creates a darker area where it is more difficult to see.  It is perceived as being shaded and less bright.  If an area is completely enveloped in shadow it may be an area of total pitch black darkness.  It will be an area without color or form. 
Light is what gives these objects in the dark their shape and definition.  It illumines those hidden things and gives a meaning and purpose to reality.  As science tells us at the core level, we are all just packets of light quanta reflecting the hologram of the universe back giving consciousness to the matter created in the interconnection of the subatomic realms as space connects with time in all directions at once.  The blocking of the sun from what is being perceived almost makes it disappear in a way.  A shadow will conceal or distort what is truly there.  It will keep what is real masked and in the dark.  And so it is with us...
Carl Jung focused a great deal of his work on revealing and working with one's shadow self.  He was very interested in tearing away at those hidden constructs in our psyche which form negative aspects of the ego self.  The ego being that face which is put on for the public to see and judge with its masks and filters.  These efforts were made to study and know how the subconscious and unconscious mind work were so that he could learn and understand how to free our personality and persona from those negative behaviors and actions which have defined us and caused our reactions to the world. 
His early work with Freud helped him to see how those aspects of ourselves that are imprinted on our subconscious mind at a very early age are able to dictate how we will act and be for our entire lives if attention and work is not done to adjust our behaviors and destinies.  He wanted to help show us how we can free our experience from the difficulties we create for ourselves in our life by becoming more conscious and aware.
His work looked at through the scope of Buddhism or Hindu perspective has us viewing the release of our attachments as a first step to breaking down our ego self to get to the deeper parts of our experience, those parts which are hidden, a.k.a. our shadow selves.  It is those parts which we either can't even see ourselves, or those parts which we desperately try to look away from that form our ego mind and shape the way we interact with and view the world around us. 
Jung recognized, just as the Buddhist, Sufi, Essene and Hindu monks have understood for thousands of years now, that in order to reach those higher states of being and consciousness (some call samadhi, moksha, nirvana, enlightenment, being in the christ-like or buddha state) we must illuminate our shadows in all aspects of the self.  Every great master in history has had to rise above turmoil to achieve their enlightened state.
So how on earth could we possibly do that?
This daunting task which most people shy away from or vehemently fight against will shake a person to the very core of their existence.  That is precisely the process though, to strip away all aspects of the self until we can see what is truly there.  We need to shine a spotlight on every aspect of our selves from the simple flaws we might not see all the way to the deep dark skeletons some keep tucked away from the world.  It is only by examining and revealing all aspects of ourselves that we can work through those difficult shadows. 
The first and most important step though in working through something difficult, as explained by any effective major psychological teaching is to recognize what is there, and owning it.  Embracing our shadows, losing the fears we drown our lives in, will help us to overcome those aspects we can't seem to rise out of.  Admitting and owning ones flaws and struggles us a task for the courageous, for we must have resolve and strength if we are to endure our undoing to be able to give our consciousness the reboot it deserves. Just as Bill W. tells the world with AA, the first step is admitting that there is something to improve.  It is acknowledging that we are imperfect.
Can you see your imperfections?
The hardest part of our journey is recognizing where we are and taking steps to move beyond what we are and what situation we came into on this earthly plane.
Let's work together to rediscover our true selves...
Let's follow Peter Pan's lead as he found his shadow and reattached it to himself, just as he made himself whole again by embracing his shadow, so too can we!
Light for your path...