Who Are You?
9th January 2019
Who are you? By - Dr Liz Sparkes
If you are searching for that one person to change your life, just pause, and look in the mirror.
The first time I properly started to consider this was during my early experiences of meditation. My teacher Suryacitta, spoke of a beautiful jewel which represents us. This jewel over time becomes covered in ice, the ice represents all of the beliefs that we take on from our culture, religion, family, friends and our experiences. How we view things is very much a matter of perspective. Taking on all of this 'stuff' can really distort our perspective. These views and ideas can distort our true nature and in my experience 'lead you down the garden path'! I went pretty far down it! However, with the support of meditation and healing to help me let go, I am back on track and in touch.
As children we are much closer to our true selves, due to the fact that less has been said to us, we haven't attached to certain belief systems yet or been dimmed by politics and rules and ideal views that are blasted by the media.
Have a think back to what you enjoyed, what you spent time doing as a child? Without the pressures of time/money/conformity and so forth. I spent much of my time dressing up and being a witch (this won't surprise many of my friends), I spent time making potions in the garden and setting up teaching sessions for my siblings and friends. I was living from a sense of within, just being what I felt like being. Nobody told me to dress up and make potions in the garden, I just did it. I wasn't living in my head all of the time, I was much more in the flow of life, feeling and living from my heart.
This sense of just 'being' gets lost somewhere amongst all of the information that is bombarded into our lives, and we start to work towards achieving, and becoming, and spend time searching for things outside of ourselves. This is where the trouble can begin, we loose that sense of trust that comes from within, we forget to sit quietly and pause and let answers to problems emerge from within us. We forget that we have all we need already.
Look inside yourself, everything you want you already are, Rumi.
We can step back from the chaos and sit, and go within. Back to basics. Sitting in meditation and relearning what you already know, who you are, your true self, will take you where you need to go. Step out of the mind and into the heart.
During meditation sessions, I first support people to start to feel again, to feel into their hearts. All of the day to day thinking, conforming and striving takes us away from feeling, and allowing emotions to flow freely. This often causes blocks, and feelings of anxiety and depression. Living totally 'out of the body'. Living a sort of searching and lost existence.
People whom I teach meditation to always appear so surprised when they come out of meditation with the answers to things that have worried them, or with a sense of peace which they created themselves, or an ache or pain has ceased just because they sat with it and gave it attention.
Meditation allows you to take your power back, to help yourself. Our society often makes us feel that we need to look to others and strive towards things to feel better about ourselves. Yes, there are bills to be paid and there is work to be done but first go inward, make peace within, feel what needs to be felt and let things go. Then the work will be easier and the bills won't feel so bad.
Sitting with the breath, with the felt sense of the heart, and pausing to just feel, this allows emergence. The arrival of our true nature. The looking outside, the striving and the struggles will lessen when you live from the perspective of your heart and get to know your true self again. It's always been there, you have just forgotten who you are. It's not your fault, spend time going within and many answers will arrive. By Dr liz Sparkes
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