Are We Being Honest With Ourselves?

Why is this happening to me again?

Did you ever notice that we re-experience painful scenarios over and over again until we finally learn what we need to change in our life? The people, situations and places may change, but we all have recurring issues that keep recreating themselves until we learn our lessons. Life is designed this way to facilitate our evolution.

No, that's not me...

For some, the issues revolve around dysfunctional relationships. For others, it's more about self-worth, or control. Whatever the theme is, we will continue to experience uncomfortable, negative emotions until we get right down to the root of the problem. Denial and suppression of these negative feelings will only work for a short time, since repressed energies get stored in our emotional body and can create illness. We can run, but we can't hide!

I feel great!

It's time to be honest with ourselves. What is causing us the greatest sadness, anger, anxiety, fear, frustration or apathy in our life right now? Do we want to keep running away from these negative feelings, or do we want to finally free ourselves from them? Yes, it may be terrifying to face our shadow -our dark side- but it's the only way to remove the phenomenal power it has over us.

Emotional energy drain

Whether we realise it or not, it takes incredible amounts of energy to keep these shameful aspects hidden from our awareness. Instead of wasting our energy trying to deny our wounds, we could release this energy and use it to manifest a fulfilling, empowered life. To be free from the weight of our repressed negative emotions, we first have to accept them, reintegrate them and then release them.

Wound? What wound?

The good news is that life gives us so many opportunities to do this. Each time we feel annoyed, frustrated, angry, fearful, sad or just plain numb, it's because something on the outside has touched our wound on the inside. If we didn't have a wound in the first place, then we wouldn't feel so vulnerable. We wouldn't use projection to blame others for how we are feeling inside. At the core of this wound is a deep fear that we are powerless, that we are too insignificant to make a real difference in this world. Is this true?

Our thoughts create our reality...

What do you  think would happen to the world if everybody started to accept, reintegrate and release their own negative emotions in appropriate ways? If we were comfortable with our own "dark side", we would stop blaming others for theirs. We could help each other to nurture our more positive qualities by tipping the scale from global fear and competition to universal love, compassion, forgiveness and cooperation. Do you think our leaders could get away with some of the things we are seeing today if the majority of humans resonated at the higher frequency of Love? No!

Who am I?

When we respond to events with fear and negativity, unfortunately, we are reinforcing and supporting the old paradigm of separation. It helps to ask this question: who am I? Am I merely a separate, isolated, physical being, or a deeply connected, eternal, spiritual being? When we experience fear, it's usually from the perspective of the ego-self.

The greatest awakener = suffering

The time has come for us to face our individual and collective shadows. We can all see that things aren't right on the planet. We are all well-aware of the collective suffering that seems to be increasing. That's because suffering is the greatest awakener. If we don't learn our lessons and evolve, life teaches us the hard way. Is this the route we are collectively choosing? Unfortunately, it seems like it.

What can I do?

When we each have the courage to face our individual shadow, this reduces our collective shadow, and it reconnects us to the most powerful forces on earth: Love, compassion, forgiveness and cooperation. These are necessary to ensure our survival.We cannot truly be light workers unless we reintegrate, love and forgive our own darkness.

Thanks for reading,

Much Love,

Lise Villeneuve
www.lisevilleneuve.com

Are You Afraid Of Your Shadow? I am...

Image: www.holistic-alternative-practitioners.com

I'm sure you must have heard somewhere that we are all "whole, complete, perfect beings." The feeling I got when I heard this saying was not too different from the sensations of nauseousness I experienced during pregnancy. To me, it just sounded like an unfounded statement that begged the question "what about all the horrific acts of violence that people engage in on a daily basis? Are murderers, rapists and criminals whole, complete, perfect beings?" Their behaviours are the antithesis of good.

It took me awhile to really understand this concept, and my comprehension was enhanced when I developed a better understanding of the nature of our reality. In plain English, we live in a world of duality and contrast. The way we can understand and make sense of everything around us is by comparing what we already know. I'm sure you've heard the analogy about the fish in the aquarium that had no idea what water was...until he was lifted above the water and was able to experience what an environment without water felt like. Only then was he able to say "yeah, I know what water is now", even though he had spent his entire life in the substance! It's really the same for us, we need a frame of reference upon which we can integrate new experiences and information.

The new information that comes in via our senses automatically gets compared, categorized and analysed in relation to what we've already experienced. We can't fully understand what "hot" means until we experience "cold" (damn, that Katy Perry song just popped in my head). We don't really realize what health is until we become sick for the first time. The same goes for our emotions, we can't know the meaning of happy until we've been sad. We make sense of reality through contrasts. Duality is everywhere. Yin-Yang / Positive-Negative / Good-Bad.

Credits for this image go to www.tigerfreedom.com

Once we acknowledge this, the idea that we are "whole" beings starts to make more sense. Just like the Yin-Yang symbol above illustrates, we all carry the complete array of emotions / feelings within us. Some are located on the bright, open side, others are on the dark, shadowy side of our persona. We tend to hide our emotions from this dark side from others and even from ourselves, because we've learned over time that it's not acceptable to express these "negative" feelings. We feel like we're only allowed to express positive emotions and something must have gone terribly wrong with us if negativity comes to the surface too often, right? Our sense of "balance" of these two sides is actually quite unbalanced!

Is it realistic to expect ourselves to always be happy, confident, grounded and strong? How would we even understand these states if it were not for their opposites that have a healthy place in our psyche? As I've said before, all our emotions are important, they deserve to be validated and expressed in an appropriate manner. If we deny our darker side and always repress the anger, the rage, the fear, the sadness, the resistance, the jealousy, they will inevitably blow up in our faces. That's when we are the most likely to do something really stupid we'll regret.

Yes, we are indeed whole, complete, perfect beings. Obviously, our behaviours are far from perfect, but we can improve, simply by allowing ourselves to fully embrace the full spectrum of our humanity. Let's give ourselves a break! Let's be courageous enough to face our shadow, because it's beautiful and in the end... it makes us stronger.

Warmly,

Lise
Health Coach / Reiki Master
www.lisevilleneuve.com

My Anger Got The Best Of Me Today...

I'm a little ashamed of what happened today. It occurred when I went to the grocery store with the kids. This is an activity I generally dread, because being able to clearly and quickly focus on what I need to buy when the kids are there is a little bit like trying to run in my dreams. The process is slow and frustrating, and I don't seem to get anywhere. Actually, the kids did pretty well in the store today, they went off on their own and kept themselves busy. I thought I might actually escape gracefully from this shopping adventure, until we got to the cash...

I was packing the food in the bags as quickly as I could, then I noticed the long line of people waiting behind me. The food was piling up, and my kids were just standing there, idly staring into space. Usually, they have no problem helping out with the packing, they might just need a reminder -which came out in a frustrated, impatient, angry tone today.

Our circumstances today were really no different than any other shopping day, except for the presence of a volcano I felt suddenly erupting in my core! As I heard my reprimanding tone of voice, I was actually taken aback and a little surprised by how quickly I had lost my cool. I literally felt a wave of heat rush through me, as the anger bubbled to the surface. I immediately thought to myself "Ok, I've got some serious negativity to deal with here..." Then I took a deep breath.

I am thankful for this new, growing awareness that allows me to separate the actual event (the kids not spontaneously helping out) from my own personal baggage that is at the root of my strong reaction today. Regardless of how the kids acted, it didn't justify my anger in that moment. The anger was real and needed to be validated, but I now know better than to simply point the finger at the kids and say "they made me become this angry." No they didn't. They were simply the trigger that caused my already present (but repressed) anger to surface. I could have just as easily communicated what I wanted without getting overwhelmed about it, but I blew up instead, because I didn't pay attention to the anger I was already carrying. If I had been more in touch with that growing negativity, I could have found a more appropriate way to express it (such as writing, exercising, meditating...etc). Oh well, lesson learned.

We left the store and I explained to the kids that there were two things to address. The first one was the issue of helping out. We calmly discussed expectations for next time. The second thing was mommy's anger. I apologized and told them I got carried away because I didn't realize that I had allowed a little volcano to grow inside of me! I told them how much that experience had opened my eyes, because the anger instinctively wanted me to point the finger "out there", when in fact, the source of it was "in here" within me.

The truth is, things/people/situations that trigger us and make us react the most are our greatest teachers. We have to pay close attention, because our strong reaction is an alarm bell that says "you're trying to protect yourself from a wound, from a disowned part of yourself that is too painful, too humiliating to look at right now". We are often blinded and incapable of seeing the wounds within ourselves, so instead, we unconsciously project our resistance to our weaknesses onto others.

At lunch time, the kids and I had interesting conversations about the "Shadow", which I'll save for another post. Thanks for reading, I'm thankful that you're here.

PS. Look at what 10+ years of raising kids has done to me. This is my "before" picture. Above is the "after" picture. Lol.

Warmly,

Lise
Health Coach / Reiki Master
www.lisevilleneuve.com