Hi Jean,
I also agree that you have many beautiful photos on your site. Please post more about your practices. It is always interesting to learn about it.
Hi Tad,
Thanks! I had different practices over the years. I started with AYP (spinal breathing and deep meditation twice daily for a couple of years), then did Tai Chi and Kundalini Yoga with 2 teachers in a group setting. I stopped KY after 3 years since I was out of balance and kept Tai Chi for 8 years. My teacher died soon after I left. I was also doing other energy work such as Qi gong, experimenting with NEW, Hemi-Sync, Yoga Nidra, etc. During that time I kept a meditation practice most of the time.
For the past year, I have been enjoying my life more fully by detaching myself from my emotions and thoughts. Being highly sensitive has always been difficult for me, but nowadays it's much easier. It's like I'm in the eye of the storm, observing from a distance. Most of the time, there is inner silence and I'm more aware of my energetic body. I experience a deep sense of well-being, with a constant inner buzzing. I never felt this type of deeper joy before. In the past, I had intense experiences while meditating, which were overwhelming and lasted for days, making it difficult to function. So I decided to let go of those pleasurable experiences. Now, it's softer and deeper during and outside of practice time.
My current practice is 2 or 3 times void meditation per day from 30 minutes to more than 1h per session, being mindful when I'm not meditating, trying to be kind to all beings, myself included. I also do conscious body/skin breathing on a daily basis and sometimes spinal breathing for a couple of minutes. I figured out that less is more for energetic practices. For me, it's not a sprint or a marathon. I'm doing what I can to nurture my physical, emotional and mental bodies.
Another practice I never stopped is journaling. There is so much value in identifying recurring patterns in dream/waking. I came to a point where there is no real difference between dreaming and waking anymore.
To me, those last 10 years it has been a spiral mirror work. Self-mastery is required through the effort of the first layering of the mirrors of self as a side or co-creative process. I began by a strong commitment to the self first, addressing my fears, pain, emotional pain, and my addictions. Wherever we are unconscious is where we rely on the mind and the mental body is not really built nor capable of the sensitivities required for the more subtle realities. Every single thing that creates blocks and bondage which we are unconscious of, sooner or later on our spiritual path must be reckoned with the deeper we get into our mystery. The mental body “thinks” it knows, but it knows, that is why much time is needed to train the mind and also attain stillness and observation stillness.
I'm walking a path with real actions and disciplines that have real consequences. When I began to structure what I'm seeking consciously, I work to experience a simple reality, the simpler the better and this is not easy because it can seem boring or still and not full of life, creativity or illumination. Those things in themselves are where we must redefine defending our ego’s need for the touch of spirit and allow the path to creating itself to a much greater degree. This is the magic and beauty of the spiral energy, it reveals things and it also hides things.
Literally, I'm trying to awaken and my being then must face real commitment in my mundane life, for the vastness of nature is also an emotionally conscious body and doesn’t reveal her magic unless we are doing the healing work on our real life, real issues and real fears. This path is only about me and the mirror becomes everything to support the mastery of self.
I reached a stage I call the first level spiral like first level mirror that is about handling my own energy in a practice to train being still when I want to run and jump and fly.
Now that I have that foundation, I can focus on the second level spiral, Interpersonal Mirror. For this, a solid foundation of daily and weekly practices is required, discipline and a healthy lifestyle including sobriety (no alcohol, no drug, no plant) and committing to it. This is for me a very dedicated path. The double spiral is more complicated because we enter the interpersonal energy, I and the other. This is where karmic energy unfolds slowly and reveals why we know others, or family members or partners that we must work out issues with.
