Be your own guru.
Each period in life forms its own reassuring, reassuring, protective convictions, like an umbrella or a shield against the wind.
So we think, year after year, to strengthen it with experiences, to solidify it. To get older, wiser, stronger. But then comes the day when it is suddenly heavy, heavy, heavy with convictions and „certainties“ - when we learn the weight of the superfluous.
And with it comes the feeling that we must lighten up and let ourselves be carried by the wind, drowned by the rain, evaporate under the sun.
In our defense, there is little we can do about it. We have been catapulted here, in this material world, in total innocence, and although we are all volunteers in this laboratory of human existence in a physical world… the creation of a bounded identity and division from the perfect greater whole, from which we all come, falls upon us from the earliest youngest age. Becoming somebody in opposition to “nobody” comes with the internalized need of de-fining ourselves, building up walls, limits to our infinite being and potential.
But then, what do we discover underneath this rubble? Under this persona and that mask and the reflection of a tiniest fractal of who we really are? Under the foundations of these walls? Under the foundations of these ramparts? Where do the muscles that bind the turtle to its shell take root?
My answer: At the most fragile, most bruised, most damaged place.
Whole civilizations have built their defenses at places of past memorable defeat
- but we won't be fooled again at this point!
I, a human being, am thus building my most impenetrable defenses at the place where the sword has pierced my beliefs about the value I place on myself. The shell of the turtle is not facing the ground, but the direction from which billions of reptiles before it have had their lives taken. It is therefore in these places of inconsolable grief and burning sorrow, the terror of the one we thought we were, that we should have the courage to look.
I cannot decide or act freely on what I do not accept about myself: I cannot accept what I am not aware of about myself. So it could be a valuable first step to explore the "unacceptable" about ourselves.
What a person does not accept about her/himself forces her/him to move away from it: and this in an unconscious way.
Whether it is a behavior (destructive, addictive, violent, dogmatic, etc.) or an idea ("I'm unworthy", "I'm inadequate", "I'm alone", etc.).
Through internalization, we then witness unconscious repressions.
The path proposed by Jung and the seekers of light who followed him in his footsteps (notably through transpersonal psychology) consists in moving what - repressed or fled from - has been placed in the unconscious, into the conscious. It is a path of conscientization.
The exploration of the mechanisms of the individual/seeker, mirrored and reflected by the person holding the dialogue. Mindfulness, questioning, introspection, movement and meditation lead the Self to discover the constitutive nature of his or her mechanisms of repression, escape and make radical and compassionate actions towards growth & freedom - which is the foundation of my personal journey.
Once the veil has been lifted on what was hidden, the next step invites the individual concerned to recognize, acknowledge and accept what has been discovered, uncovered and is therefore now part of the field of consciousness.
The recognition of the wounds linked to these mechanisms, through a neutral observation of what is going on within us, ideally leads to a progressive acceptance of what is hidden. Of what has been formed in order to protect from (formerly) unbearable pain or overwhelming chaos. To realize it has all been created to protect us at a moment it was deemed necessary. But that moment is in the past, and the program is not of service for us anymore.
It is an embrace of our shadows.
A compassionate and courageous decision to not turn away or try to run from them any more, but to look back with a smile and know they will always be behind us, a part of us, as long as the light is shining.
This observation, recognition and acceptance frees the unconscious relationship of dependence on our wound. We are no longer bound to and restricted by the reaction we initially wanted to separate ourselves from - but open to the freedom to move away from it or not.
It is possible to be one's own guru, shaman, healer, by refusing the intermediation between knowledge and self.
Ask yourself the questions and you will have the answers revealed to you.