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February 2009 
Weeks 2 & 3
Posted on Feb 5th, 2008
by 
jpjako
jpjako
I have been a bit overwhelmed writing my other blog daily in Finnish. So here's a summary of the past two weeks of my 366-day Integral Life Practice.
In mid-week of week 2 in got sick. First I thought it was my stomach, then I realized it was all of me. Having had occasional troubles with my stomach all my life (I dread my appendix! Don't ask.) I got to see having dissociated my head from my body and heart big time. All I could do was rest. That marked a minor major shift for me.
You see, doing nothing's a drag if you're an enneagram seven. Truly. For me, though, it turned out to be a liberating experience. I noticed just to what extent I escape into my head, into constant doing, into ceaseless motion. Having to stop was just what my inner doctor ordered. So I just lied down, finished a couple of books I had started before and enjoyed just excisting. What a thrill!
It also turned my ILP experiment on its pointy head. I started out with a full-fledged plan: 5xweek excercise, 6xweek meditation, 5xweek translating a book and studying for my Master's degree + shadow work whenever appropriate. I came to notice just how much I am demanding of myself. It wasn't fun. So I decided to start all over, building my experiment from scratch.
I set just one objective: get up early, at 6 am every morning for a month. That's all. Sure, there's stuff that comes with the territory and has to be done, like my commitments for the translation and the master's. But overall, I made a commitment to try and lessen my inner producer, and give more power to my inner director, so to speak. Loosen up and take it more easy. Starting out by being happy and then adding to that, gradually, excercises from my ILP plan.
Speaking of the devil. My plan is to have a pretty grounded and fairly steady diet of regular strenght & aerobic excercise, daily meditation practice, time commitment, reading, and shadow work by the end of the experiment. That is, just a tad under a year from now. Pretty different than starting from all of that and trying to desperately hold on to it, keeping it up "no matter what" for a year. Whew! What a relief.
In mid-week of week 2 in got sick. First I thought it was my stomach, then I realized it was all of me. Having had occasional troubles with my stomach all my life (I dread my appendix! Don't ask.) I got to see having dissociated my head from my body and heart big time. All I could do was rest. That marked a minor major shift for me.
You see, doing nothing's a drag if you're an enneagram seven. Truly. For me, though, it turned out to be a liberating experience. I noticed just to what extent I escape into my head, into constant doing, into ceaseless motion. Having to stop was just what my inner doctor ordered. So I just lied down, finished a couple of books I had started before and enjoyed just excisting. What a thrill!
It also turned my ILP experiment on its pointy head. I started out with a full-fledged plan: 5xweek excercise, 6xweek meditation, 5xweek translating a book and studying for my Master's degree + shadow work whenever appropriate. I came to notice just how much I am demanding of myself. It wasn't fun. So I decided to start all over, building my experiment from scratch.
I set just one objective: get up early, at 6 am every morning for a month. That's all. Sure, there's stuff that comes with the territory and has to be done, like my commitments for the translation and the master's. But overall, I made a commitment to try and lessen my inner producer, and give more power to my inner director, so to speak. Loosen up and take it more easy. Starting out by being happy and then adding to that, gradually, excercises from my ILP plan.
Speaking of the devil. My plan is to have a pretty grounded and fairly steady diet of regular strenght & aerobic excercise, daily meditation practice, time commitment, reading, and shadow work by the end of the experiment. That is, just a tad under a year from now. Pretty different than starting from all of that and trying to desperately hold on to it, keeping it up "no matter what" for a year. Whew! What a relief.
Access: PublicTagged with: ILP, body, mind, shadow, spirit, Integral Life Practice, waking up, Ken Wilber, meditation, excercise
What is shadow work? I've never heard of that. ;-)
Shadow work aims to reveal aspects of one's self that are hidden. We tend to see things in others that we can't see in ourselves. So we go on blaming others for being selfish, greedy, competitive, whatnot, and never see our own selfishness, etc. As well as “shadow-boxing” we can also do “shadow-hugging”: revere others and never see the greatness and potentials in ourselves.
The goal of that sort of therapeutic work is to become more real. To see oneself as others see us, and to have more control of our mental ground, instead of being controlled by it. It is indeed libarating to realize why I tend to have the same emotional charges towards the same types of people appearing in my life year in and year out, and finally having the means to do something about it.
Ken Wilber's 3-2-1 is a good way to process shadow emotions. Debbie Ford has also written a good book on the subject: Drk Side of the Light Chasers. If you're interested, check them out :)
Yeah…I just ran into a ken Wilbur interview which is discussing the topic along with “Spiral Dynamics.” It sounds like a more detailed analysis of the ego/self and how it hides, appears and what its triggered by. Its exactly what I need right now. It connects very nicely to vipassana which can get you to observe the tensions in the emotional, mental and physical bodies. So seeing the tension manifest lets me know where the self is raising its head. But WHY is somewhat of a mystery still. I think this might be helpful Jpjako. Thanks for the tip! ;-)
Omi, I think you're spot on integrating vipassana and shadow work. In my vipassana retreat I had a lot of emotional, psychological stuff come up - and saw others dealing with probably the same kinda material. But what I did was just sit with it, try to realize the anicca nature of it all, the impermanence…and the material never left, of course! So the tensions are still there, the untouched emotions that manifest as sympoms in the body -emotional, physical, mental. To get in touch with the emotions themselves, instead of their symptoms, we must engage in some kind of truthfulness-practice, some form of psychological shadow work. Besides the 3-2-1-stuff, I've found Transactional Analysis books to be very useful, particularily I'm OK - You're OK and Staying OK by Thomas & Amy Harris. :)