Golden Child and the luminous light at the core

I met a shaman, Lynne, at the New Year's bash. She did some core healing on me. We talked about my depression, and my inability to come to a complete commitment on things I decide. When I talked with my therapist Renee about this, I realized that the reason I was able to change my diet to deal with my psoriasis and stick to it was complete commitment. The reason I was able to take control of a guild, and lead it to success was complete commitment. And the reason I can't make those changes in other aspects of my life is a lack of complete commtiment. It's not just commitment. It's a a commitment to myself - a wanting to with the whole of my being, not a part of my being.

Let me elaborate. In the Guru Papers, Joel Kramer and Diane Alstad have a treatise on addiction. It talks about how addiction is not losing control, but an attempt to gain control. How there are two selfs, a bad self and a good self (they don't mean to imply judgement by those terms). But the problem with addicts is that the bad self and good self are always at war. The bad self is trying to rebel against edicts set forth by the good self. AA deals with this by giving the good self all the power and denying the bad self. Joel & Diane assert that this leaves the fragmentation of the self intact, and isn't a good solution. The other school of addiction - treatment of it as a disease doesn't deal with this either. What needs to be done is to re-merge the selves. To realize that this dichotomy isn't a healthy state of being, and that the self needs to be whole. How? It's unclear. But that rings true with the commitment idea. The two commitments I have been able to carry out without the internal struggle of keeping to it or deserting it are ones I made to my whole. Ones which neither the good self nor the bad self care about, and so won't fight over. It's a decision for my whole self. That's the key to forward movement, decisive action.

Now... back to Lynne. We talked about how the judgement that comes from the good self and my feelings of "not enough" and "fear of failure" are all learned... They are all mental processes that are ingrained and learned to become automatic and habitual. But they are not intrinsic. They are not a reflection of my true self. Acceptance. Accept these behaviors for what they are, and by seeing them, accepting them, then moving on, they lose their power. It is much a similar mental process to mindfulness meditation. When you notice you have a thought, you label it, and move on. There is no judgement. Just an identification and an acceptance. It will be difficult to apply this. A lifetime of judgement and the habit of judging myself, my actions, my thoughts, feelings, activity, productivity, self-worth, me needs to be shed like a snake sheds an old skin. It will not go easily.

Understanding this and letting go are two different things. She helped me understand and tried to help me let go, but I could feel the weight in my heart still. The anxiety, the clutching tension of self-unhappiness that would not release. She then had me picture a doorway, beyond a golden light - the light of the unlimited potential - the light of the core of the self - the core of myself. Step into it, let it envelop me. The tension softened, but still clutched. She had me visualize the doorway again, and then a boy at the center. A small boy there. At this point, my imagination goes... bathed at the center of golden light, what is this boy? Why none other than the little kid from Golden Child, a buddha to be... Well, she asks, tell her about this boy. He is fun. He is happy. Both things I don't have enough of in my life. At my core, I am not yet happy. And without that happiness, I really don't have fun. I don't LET myself ever have fun - to truly relax and enjoy life. But that little buddha... he's a different story. He's happy, content, fun. And that's me - what's at the center of me. The self-loathing, the self-hate, the inadequacy, the feeling of "not good enough", the failure - that is all just learned thoughts - just habits I picked up. The judging, the shame... that is learned. And it can all be unlearned.

Power. Potential. Acceptance. Happiness. I am. I am more.