Words that Point.

Dear friends, it occurred to me that it might be useful to clarify some of the words that we use during our  sessions.

Superego. This holds the voices of your parents, caretakers, teachers, and the larger culture. The superego was formed during the years 3 to 5. Its about learning the rules, how you are supposed to be, what it means to be good, what it means to be bad. Sometimes the voices are violent, sometimes they are simply felt as disapproval, shunning, and quietly shaming. The superego is passed down from one generation to the next. As long as you live within the confines of the superego you most likely won't hear it or feel its aggression. But if you make a mistake, if you say something wrong, if you behave badly it will jump all over you. You will feel anxious, ashamed, your mind will go into a spin, you will shut down, and perhaps even dissociate. The superego's job is to keep you small, to stop you from taking risks, from growing, from expanding, from being real and vulnerable. So when you embark on spiritual work--  to discover that you are  divine presence, oneness, vastness, pristine openness, loving fierceness-- the superego will rise up to force you back into your familiar self. Often we feel  the presence of the superego is a voice behind us, peering over our shoulders. Sometimes we experience as a blanket of dullness pressing down, or steel skull cap pushing down compressing us. It is important to recognize that the superego is not you, it is the internalized voices of those who parented us. And ultimately it is aggressive. 

The ego. The superego sits on top of the ego. The ego is essentially what we could call the personality. It is how we know ourselves, it includes all the younger parts of us, that are completely connected to the superego. Much of the ego is unconscious. It is our identity, our character.  And it is a natural, normal and important part of our development. We could say that the development of the ego is a stage in the development of the soul. The soul of the infant is open, transparent, vulnerable, easily disturbed by all the instinctual needs of the baby, and not aware of itself. The  growing infant starts to develop a sense of self and other; it knows itself as a body; as not mother. Gradually through the first five or so years of life an ego is formed which allows the child to know itself and to know the world, the family. Toddler internalizes the parents deeply as a way to cope with the anxiety of being separate and alone. Later the superego forms so the young child knows right and wrong, good and bad, what gets punished, what gets rewarded. The ego is a remarkable accomplishment. By the time we emerge out of adolescence we can function more or less independently and can move out into the world. The ego continues to grow and mature. It learns skills, it learns about relationships, sex, intimacy. It is quite miraculous how we evolve from being an utterly helpless infant, to a distinct human ego. 

In many spiritual traditions the ego is seen as the enemy and the purpose of the spiritual journey is to kill the ego. But the ego reacts instinctually and defensively to threats of annihilation. Even if it disappears for a period  of time --caused by intense meditation, trauma, life threatening events, falling in love--it will reassert itself. It is more helpful to think of the ego as a necessary stage in the development of the soul. We need it to function. But there comes a point for some of us, often in midlife, when we feel a deep dissatisfaction with life, with our accomplishments, or lack of them, and some longing wakes up. The longing is for something more real, for more peace, for God, for true meaning. Sometimes we don't even know what we long for. And so the search begins. All of you have made this turn and begun this search. Otherwise you would not be reading this. We call this the spiritual journey. Very gradually the ego takes its place not as the master of the soul, but in the service of the evolving, living soul, in the service of the mystery of being. This is a gradual process and comes from love and understanding.

Soul. There are many definitions for the word soul. For our purposes it is the location of consciousness that is you. Most of us don't know the soul, we only know our ego. Through years of conditioning the soul has taken the shape of our personality, like a shell, and  we have forgotten our open, transparent, liquid, clear nature as presence. The longing, the itch, the call, is the intuition, that I am more than my ego. We have all had moments in our lives-- peak experiences, or moments of stillness, peace, love-- when everything stopped. All the inner agitation ceased and something opened up. The soul in those moments knows itself as this presence, this alive, living awakeness. In the Sufi tradition there are 99 faces of God. Presence may have the taste of love, the smoothness of peace, the blackness of mystery, the bubbles of joy, the tenderness of compassion, the strength of a mountain, the power of pristine discrimination. When the soul opens and is free from the layers of conditioning we can know grace in its many flavors. So the soul when it is free from superego and the shell of ego is that which perceives, feels, knows our nature as the beloved, as the presence, as the presence of God. We cannot make the soul open. By seeing and understanding what keeps us tight, defended, asleep, distracted  naturally opens us, relaxes us and we remember  who we really are. And then the shell returns and the longing returns. And so we come back to this moment, to our embodied experience, to what is alive in the now. And we learn again and again what occludes, and we relax, we find a yes to the opening and then grace shows her preciousness.This journey back and forth between ego and presence takes time, patience, courage and love. And friends who share this same love. 

Don't get hung up on the words. Let them point rather than pin anything down. This is about discovery.

Next Monday will be our last review/introductory session. Starting on October 8th we will close the group. If you wish to join us or know friends who might be interested this is the time to jump in.

I have posted this at: practicing-presence.blogspot.com

Love, Alison

playlist session 2

Gabriel's Oboe From the Mission. Ennio Morricone and Yo Yo Ma.

Pie Jesu. Sarah Brightman

Session 2. Embodiment

Dear Friends. It is surprising when we let ourselves drop into the body. Embodiment is quite mysterious. At first we may feel the physicality of the body: the aches and pains, the tensions, the sleepiness and dullness, the emotional pain. But as we settle in we discover that our experience can settle, slow down, open and begin to flow. We feel more in touch with ourselves, sometimes we feels more real. Perhaps we discover feelings that we didn't know or expect. Sometimes something subtle opens. Some you felt a sense of connection with your partners. Perhaps we felt less distracted, or we felt more compassion, or a simple relaxation. Our embodiment not only opens us to our own presence, a kind of simple hereness, or a kind of relaxed settling into some kind of inner support, but also our presence affects others and the field between us, the atmosphere between us. The practice of not engaging in the habitual social cues while listening to each other has a profound effect. How often in our lives do we have the undivided attention, simple embodied listening of friends? What a relief to the listener. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to come up with some brilliant advice. I can simply be with myself and simply listen. What a relief to the listener. To one who is exploring this means that this time is just for me! I don't have to take care of my friends. I don't have to perform. I don't have to censor. This exploration is for me. And the more embodied we are, the richer and deeper the exploration.

When we are embodied we have a chance to not only see the superego but also to push it away. No I don't want my parents, my teachers, voices in my exploration. I want to explore and understand my own experience. The superego does not want to be dislodged. It is simply doing its job, trying to get you back to the small contracted state of your familiar ego. The more we become embodied, especially in the belly, the more we will be connected to the ground of being, solid, welcoming, trustworthy. That will give us the courage to meet the superego with whatever it takes to dislodge it, push it away. Then there is space for our own experience, for our own unfolding precious presence.

Here are the exercises:  What does the word embodiment mean to you? Tell me a way you loose contact with your feeling of embodiment? Explore what it feels like to inhabit your body right now. How does being embodied affect your presence. 

I will post this on practicing-presence.blogspot.com. You can post questions and comments. 

A reminder: Spirit singing on Monday 24th. On October 1st we will focus on the embodied now.

Hope to see you soon. Alison

playlist

Session 1
Simon Rutter, Requiem, Lux Aeterna. Track 7
k.d. lang  Hallelujah from Hymns of the 49th Parallel.
Arvo Part. Spiegel im Spiegel for Cello and Piano.

Practicing Presence. Becoming Present and the Superego

Dear Friends. We have begun this journey from distraction/sleep into the present moment and into living presence! This is a journey, not a one shot deal. No big experience will do it. It is a journey, and a journey of a life time. 

As we open ourselves, make ourselves receptive to grace, we learn slowly how to be open to this present experience, to this present moment. It takes practice and it takes understanding. We learn to practice coming into the moment by settling into our bodies and we learn about the obstacles that take us away.

On Monday we focused on the superego, the voice in your head, that speaks to you as though you are a child.  It speaks the words, gestures, tones, unspoken vibes of your parents, of your ancestors and all the important people in your early life. For some of us this voice is terrifying; for other it is shaming; for others it is sweet and seductive. It makes us anxious, contract inward, it causes us to dissociate, to hide with shame. If it is sweet and praising it is patting you on the back for being good, for being perfect, for being quiet and small, for being right etc. It is praising you for being the way you are SUPPOSED to be, not how you are, not as you are now and a fully fledged adult. At its core the superego is cohersive and aggressive. It saps you of your strength, your confidence, your desire to grow. 

The superego is not about growing, about taking risks, about being open and vulnerable. It is all about the status quo, whether the status quo is miserable, if the status quo is comfy, or if the status quo is distracted. 

You have all been drawn into the circle, because there is an itch inside, a longing, a dissatisfaction. It may quiet or it may be blazing, it may flicker and then disappear or it may simply burn on and on, despite all your best efforts to extinguish it. This itch, this longing is the flame of your divine nature. It has been there from the beginning, and it cannot die. You can ignore it, try to drown it out, but after awhile, the restlessness, the seeking for something more will bubble up again. And we try so many ways to get rid of it, try to fix it, try to find the answer, the  solution that will quench the thirst, or soothe itch. Whether it is finding the right teacher, the right church, the right path, until finally some day we surrender and turn towards this itch, this desire for more. We begin to let it flicker, we let it burn even though it is uncomfortable, and even though we have no idea what to do or where it will take us. 

And this is when the superego will try to divert you. It will try to convince you that, the flame is not real and anyway you are a fraud, you are a failure, you are incapable, you are not welcome in the circle, you are too lazy, too stupid, too undisciplined, not spiritual enough. Or maybe it will bolster you up telling you know it all already, you don't need these boring people, these simplistic teachings on the superego.  The superego will try to get you subtly or full blast. If you turn to the truth of who you really are -- a living soul whose nature is living, conscious presence-- then the superego will show up sooner or later. This is why Joe and I feel it is so important to help you see and understand this obstacle right from the beginning. And we need to keep seeing and learning how to deal with it. This week keep notes about your superego. When does it show up. What does it say. Does it say the same thing over and over. And what happens to your capacity to be present. You may be shocked to discover how much of the time it is operating. 

One of the ways we begin to deal with the superego is to become more and more embodied. The body can only live in the present. The superego arises out of your history and is not about the now, no matter how compelling it seems to be. We began our session with a meditation focusing on sensing your arms and legs. I encourage you to play with this. FInd a quiet place and circulate your sensing starting with your right foot, right leg, pelvis, up your right arm to your shoulder, across your shoulder and neck and down the left side. If you get distracted simply come back to sensing. Do not judge yourself. Notice how the superego may evaluate your experience. What on earth does the superego know about meditation practice!!! Take a few minutes at the beginning of the day or during some break in your day. Remember there is no such thing as a bad meditation. No such thing!

Next time we will continue with more exploration of embodiment. 

A brief reminder about logistics. We will meet every Monday except the 4th Monday of the month (an evening of spirit singing). We will break for the holidays mid December. We will begin each session promptly at 7.30pm. If you arrive late please come into the Sanctuary quietly. Donations to the church are most welcome. We will leave a donation basket on the altar. Please remember your commitment to confidentiality. 

I will be posting my emails in my blog: http://practicing-presence.blogspot.com/   You can find an archive of last year's emails. You can also post your comments and questions. I will respond!

I hope you are enjoying this perfect weather. What a way to begin this fall season.

 Blessings to you all, Alison

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Alison Hine, LMSW
734-668-0475
Psychotherapy and Spiritual Guidance