As I work from the Clinic Rooms at the Bookstore on Friday, it is always tempting to buy Another Brilliant Book. There are so many wonderful Books and I already have about 5 on the go at the moment. Hence, do I really need another Book? I do not go looking for Another Brilliant Book, normally they find me, it may be me waiting to talk to someone in the Bookstore, and then I casually see what catches my eye on the shelves. Usually once Another Brilliant Book catches my eye, it is hard to not hear The Call to buy the Book and take it home.
On Friday I buy 'The Dark Side of the Light Chasers' by Debbie Ford - WOW!!! This Book is all about Shadow Work. I have studied Courses in this area, and I love that this work is embraced in my work as a Transformational Life Coach - and yet obviously there is still more for me to learn. And that's okay. I believe that my Course is the necessary Step for me to become a Coach - and for me to become a Great Coach, it is important for me to keep reading and keep learning, and very importantly to apply these learnings in my own life. Reading this Book is serving as a reminder to me of what I do know and what I have learnt. And yet as I have been so focused on Yin and Yang and so focused on the Archetypes, this Book is reminding me to also be Consciously Aware of Shadows in myself and my Clients.
I have read so many wonderful Books - and I am so Grateful that I do work from the Bookstore Clinic, as this opens up the opportunities to buy Another Brilliant Book. There are so many parts of the Book that I love - and I have only started - and yet I want to share these paragraphs which are so powerful.
- p3. "Your life will be Transformed when you make peace with your Shadow. The caterpillar will become a breathtakingly beautiful butterfly. You will no longer have to pretend to be someone you're not. You will no longer have to prove you're good enough. When you embrace your Shadow you will no longer have to live in fear. Find the Gifts in your Shadow and you will finally revel in all the glory of your True Self. Then you will have the freedom to create the life you have always desired." I am Excited and Inspired reading these words.
- p.3 "Every human being is born with a healthy emotional system. We love and accept ourselves when we are born. We don't make judgements about which parts of ourselves are good and which parts are bad. We dwell in the fullness of our being, living in the moment, and expressing ourselves freely. As we grow older, we begin to learn from the people around us. They tell us how to act, when to eat, when to sleep, and we begin to make distinctions. We learn which behaviours bring us acceptance and which bring us rejection. We learn if we get a prompt response or if our cries go unanswered. We learn to trust the people around us or to fear the people around us. We learn consistency or inconsistency. We learn which qualities are acceptable in our environment and which are not. All of this distracts us from living in the moment and keeps us from expressing ourselves freely."
- p.9 The author writes "This process seemed miraculous to me. So I made a list of all the parts of myself I didn't like, and worked on finding the Gifts in them. As soon as I was able to see the positive and the negative value of each aspect of myself, I was able to drop my defensiveness and allow these parts to exist freely. It became clear that the process was not about getting rid of things we dislike in ourselves, but about finding the positive side of these aspects and integrating it into our lives."
- p.16 "Within ourselves, we possess every trait and its polar opposite, every human emotion and impulse. We have to uncover, own, and embrace all of who we are, the good and bad, dark and light, strong and weak, and honest and dishonest. If you believe you are weak, then you must seek out its opposite, and find your strength. If you are ruled by fear you must go within and find your courage. If you are a victim you must go within and find the victimiser inside you. It is your birthright to be whole, to have it all. It only takes a shift in your perception, an opening of your heart." - Reading this reminds me of Yin and Yang - the opposite of energies - and when we are just in one Part of us, we need to embrace the other part of ourselves to bring about Balance.
I get inspired to look up images on Light and Dark and find some great images at on this website -
http://photobucket.com/images/light%20and%20dark/
- I am loving this Book. I love reading p.25 "The key is to understand that there is nothing we can see or perceive that we are not. If we did not possess a certain quality we could not recognise it in another. If you are inspired by someone's courage, it is a reflection of the courage within you. If you think someone's selfish, you can be sure that you're capable of demonstrating the same amount of selfishness. Although these qualities will not be expressed all the time, we each have the ability to act out any quality we see." Then p. 29. "What I discovered was my potential to act like the people I had been most harshly judging. It became clear that I had to be on the lookout for the traits that most bothered me in others. I began to recognise them as rooms I'd closed off." I love reading on p. 40 "If I am offended by your arrogance it is because I'm not embracing my own arrogance. This is either arrogance that I am now demonstrating in my life and not seeing, or arrogance that I deny I am capable of demonstrating in the future. If I am offended by arrogance I need to look closely at all areas of my life and ask myself these questions: When have I been arrogant in the past? Am I being arrogant now? Could I be arrogant in the future?... If I embrace my own arrogance, I won't be upset by someone else's. I might notice it, but it won't affect me. My arrogance outlet will have a cover plate on it. It is only when you're lying to yourself or hating some aspect of yourself that you'll get an emotional charge from someone else's behaviour."
- I read on p. 43 something that interests me to ponder "when you embrace a quality within yourself, other people with the same quality can no longer plug into you. Then they become free to experience you and you are free to experience them."
- p. 48 "Freedom is being able to choose whoever and whatever you want to be at any moment in your life. If you have to act in a particular way to avoid being something you don't like, you're trapped. You've limited your freedom and robbed yourself of wholeness. If you can't be lazy, you can't be free. If you can't be angry when something upsetting happens, you can't be free. If you deal with someone's behaviour by being the opposite, question yourself. If you are constantly annoyed by a particular group of people, find the ways in which you are like them."
- p. 50 "As long as we deny the existence of certain traits in ourselves, we continue to perpetuate the myth that others have something we don't possess. When we admire someone, it is an opportunity to find yet another aspect of ourselves. We have to take back our positive projections as well as our negative projections."
- p. 51 "Any desire of the heart is there for you to discover and manifest. Whatever inspires you is an aspect of yourself. Be precise about what you admire in someone and find that part in yourself. If you have the aspiration to be something, it's because you have the potential to manifest what you are seeing." - How wonderful!!
I love applying what I am learning to my own life. I am able to see in my day where I have reacted to qualities in other people and make meaning for this for me - where I have made a sweeping statement such as "I am always friendly" or when I am the Judge of someone for Judging another, or react to other qualities in others and realising that these qualities can also show up for me. It is good being able to talk to my Man about these realisations, I am fortunate that he is my best friend.
Tonight we venture outside to watch the partial moon eclipse - and I enjoy the Light and the Dark. And as the day is coming to a close for me, I enjoy the words of 'The Guest House' by Rumi -
- I am loving this Book. I love reading p.25 "The key is to understand that there is nothing we can see or perceive that we are not. If we did not possess a certain quality we could not recognise it in another. If you are inspired by someone's courage, it is a reflection of the courage within you. If you think someone's selfish, you can be sure that you're capable of demonstrating the same amount of selfishness. Although these qualities will not be expressed all the time, we each have the ability to act out any quality we see." Then p. 29. "What I discovered was my potential to act like the people I had been most harshly judging. It became clear that I had to be on the lookout for the traits that most bothered me in others. I began to recognise them as rooms I'd closed off." I love reading on p. 40 "If I am offended by your arrogance it is because I'm not embracing my own arrogance. This is either arrogance that I am now demonstrating in my life and not seeing, or arrogance that I deny I am capable of demonstrating in the future. If I am offended by arrogance I need to look closely at all areas of my life and ask myself these questions: When have I been arrogant in the past? Am I being arrogant now? Could I be arrogant in the future?... If I embrace my own arrogance, I won't be upset by someone else's. I might notice it, but it won't affect me. My arrogance outlet will have a cover plate on it. It is only when you're lying to yourself or hating some aspect of yourself that you'll get an emotional charge from someone else's behaviour."
- I read on p. 43 something that interests me to ponder "when you embrace a quality within yourself, other people with the same quality can no longer plug into you. Then they become free to experience you and you are free to experience them."
- p. 48 "Freedom is being able to choose whoever and whatever you want to be at any moment in your life. If you have to act in a particular way to avoid being something you don't like, you're trapped. You've limited your freedom and robbed yourself of wholeness. If you can't be lazy, you can't be free. If you can't be angry when something upsetting happens, you can't be free. If you deal with someone's behaviour by being the opposite, question yourself. If you are constantly annoyed by a particular group of people, find the ways in which you are like them."
- p. 50 "As long as we deny the existence of certain traits in ourselves, we continue to perpetuate the myth that others have something we don't possess. When we admire someone, it is an opportunity to find yet another aspect of ourselves. We have to take back our positive projections as well as our negative projections."
- p. 51 "Any desire of the heart is there for you to discover and manifest. Whatever inspires you is an aspect of yourself. Be precise about what you admire in someone and find that part in yourself. If you have the aspiration to be something, it's because you have the potential to manifest what you are seeing." - How wonderful!!
I love applying what I am learning to my own life. I am able to see in my day where I have reacted to qualities in other people and make meaning for this for me - where I have made a sweeping statement such as "I am always friendly" or when I am the Judge of someone for Judging another, or react to other qualities in others and realising that these qualities can also show up for me. It is good being able to talk to my Man about these realisations, I am fortunate that he is my best friend.
Tonight we venture outside to watch the partial moon eclipse - and I enjoy the Light and the Dark. And as the day is coming to a close for me, I enjoy the words of 'The Guest House' by Rumi -
"The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."
~ Rumi ~