What is an Inquiry?

Inquiry

What is your relationship to your shadow qualities?

How did you become aware of your shadow qualities?  How aware are you of your shadow qualities?  What are the energetic components of your shadow qualities? How do these qualities show up in your behavior or is it more “behind the scenes”?  How do your shadow qualities affect your relationships and your ability to communicate with others? What environments or groups provoke your shadow qualities? 

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3 out of 3 members found this useful.

Shadow Work in Political Division

Posted September 5th, 2008 by jseav19

 

As a Democrat, I can be a Republican.  Can this statement be true? Is there any point of view that can allow for this statement to be true? I challenge you, me, and us to find the perspective that allows you to answer this question affirmatively. 

What an amazing and curious time election time is! Every four years we choose sides, donate, volunteer and pour our hearts into being right, correct, and ritcheous about things. We are determined to be right about which problems in the world are the serious ones, the causes of these problems, the company we keep, the values we hold dear, and leaders we chose to follow.  
 
If, as Democrats, we have the correct point of view, the correct, policies, and the correct leadership, then we ought to be able to do everything that the Republicans can do and yet not stop there. We ought to be able to do everything the Republicans can do as well as the Republicans do them.  We ought to be able to do everything the Republicans do, and yet do more. We ought to be able to include more people, more ideas, more emotions, more of the world as we consider problems and their solutions. For this reason, we ought to have answers that solve all our frustrations, Republican and Democratic. To take it further, we ought to have solutions to frustrations that are primarily Republican frustrations, and that satisfy these frustrations even better than the proposed Republican solutions to these frustrations.
 
As a Democrat, I often tend to see Republicans as - not like me.  They are ignorant, wrong, evangelical, religious fanatics.  They are so many things, just so long as they are not like me.    
 
So, what is a Republican, anyway?  And what are their values?  What is so important to them that as Democrats we haven’t seemed to quite get?  What is it about our fellow Americans that leaves us so stumped in our campaigns, in our rhetoric, and in our leadership that we can’t include nearly half of the American voting population in our inclusiveness? Why are we unwilling to connect with nearly half of the American population, in a caring, convincing, and authentic way?  What are the needs of our Republican brothers and sisters that we have lost touch with? Can we return to an embodiment of those needs? If so, can we communicate our appreciation of those needs?
 
So, let’s take a few issues on for size and see how we can acknowledge some Republican frustrations, connect with them, and then try them on for size. 
 
  1. Abortion – Obama said it well. I don’t remember the exact quote, but I think I can capture the spirit of his communicated sentiment. We would all rather reduce the number of abortions. Republicans are vociferously Pro-Life. Correct? Correct. So let’s see if we can reach out and reach into that sentiment. Feel that Republican standing in front of you with a “Democrats are Baby Killers” t-shirt on. Feel into the fellow american, neighbor, or relative who feels this way toward you’s sentiment. Feel it. Now take a deep breath…and imagine that you are that Republican. Imagine how it feels to know so strongly, deep down in your soul that you are right about this issue, this one issue. Maybe the Democrats are right about everything else, but you know for sure, beyond a shadow of doubt, that you are right about this. Feel it. How does it feel to look back at that Democrat who so stubornly gives you excuse after excuse why its really okay to murder innocent human life after innocent human life…
Wow, I don’t know about you, but for me that’s heavy.
 
So, now let’s apply this idea that we can actually fully embody the frustrations of a Republican. Let’s fully agree that abortion is equal to murder. Now what?... Eeewww… That’s tough. 
 
But, if we’re going to commit, then we have to commit. No turning back. Commit yourself, down to you heart, and soul. Now what happens? I’ll tell you what happens for me.
 
Abortion is wrong, it is bad, and should be discouraged at all costs. Our aim is to reduce the number of abortions. Agreed. We can all agree. The next question is then: “what is the best strategy for achieving this goal we share?” 
 
Think about it and feel into it. 
 
What does making abortion illegal do for us? It gives us one more law. It gives us a sense of solidarity and union with Republican values and frustrations. Now let’s look a little closer. Does that mean that abortions are going to go away? Murder is illegal and has it made murder go away?  Killing is wrong in the eyes of the lord and has it stopped us from going to war, or executing criminals? Will making abortion illegal be any more effective at eliminating its practice? Perhaps. But let’s think about some other more creative ways to reduce abortion that might come along with the illegality of it. Here are some ideas:
    1. We sanction birth control, we actually provide it to people liberally, as a government. We pass it out like candy. It happens to be free and addictive and good for us. If we want to reproduce we have to have the self discipline to overcome our addictions. This will ensure that strong willed, disciplined people will reproduce and most likely at a sustainable stable rate. Sarah Palin will have a hard time aruing with this contingency since she has just had a grandbaby who was born out of wed lock.
    2. We sanction a new understanding of sex and sexuality. We accept the growing sexual liberation trend in our culture, including gay civil unions, and other transgender explorations amonst adults.
    3. When women do get pregnant, the government supports them for the first three years of motherhood, including the pregnancy period, regardless of their station in life, rich or poor. 
 
Now, because we have conceeded the abortion debate, we’ve done several things.
a.       We’ve won a lot of moral ritcheousness.
b.      We haven't even conceeded that much.  Think about it. Smoking marijuana is illegal in Amsterdam. Driving drunk is illegal. Beating you husband, wife, or children is illegal. Drugs are illegal. Suicide is illegal. Anal sex is illegal. Jaywalking is illegal. Speeding is illegal. How many things are there that are illegal that are disregarded. It’s human nature, I believe to extend care and conscientiousness for one another and as long as that’s being achieved I think police and officials and authoritarians have a tendency to forgive one another as humans. As Democrats, can we allow for abortion to be illegal? I think so. Can we extend our care and conscienciousness to an unborn fetus? I think so. Why not? What is so scary about it? Can we not simply see it as taking responsibility for our actions? I think we can. Can we trade extending universal human rights to an unborn fetus for extending universal human rights to prisoners of war, and criminals, and homosexuals, and people of all race, color, or creed? Would that be so bad?
 
  1. Now let’s move on to some other seemingly irreconcilable differences between me as the Republican and me as the Democrat.  How about gun control?  Republicans like military strength.  Democrats like Europeans, peace, and diplomacy.  The Swiss embody these things.  How about two years mandatory military service from every American, man or woman just like the Swiss, who are also know for the great watches, the Red Cross, diplomacy, neutrality, and peace.  Within that two years, we will all be exposed to rigorous training in discipline, ethics, global responsibility, democracy, love of country and countryman and woman, and empathy, as well as military skills and tactics.
  2. How about drilling for oil? All the oil we burn in the U.S. gets used for the sole purposes of getting off oil.  We burn up all the oil and coal we can find in order to create sustainable, renewable, healthy, earth-friendly alternatives. We’ve already burnt so much oil. What’s the last 600 billion barrels that we have in Alaska going to hurt us. What’s the worst that could happen if I the Democrat agree to drill and I the Republican agree to go oil independent, green, sustainable, and earth-friendly?
  3. Small government? We share governmental responsibility with communities. We encourage strong families and community organizations. 
  4. Health care. Republicans like accountablility. We hold insurance companies accountable to the impressions they give. We require them to have straightforward contracts and agreements that anyone reading at a fifth grade level can understand. Straight forward policies, straight forward agreements. Same goes for malpractice insurance. We also allow for doctor’s to have immunity by contract with patients if they enter into a hold harmless agreement with the patient. This will reduce the operating costs of doctors and allow free market competition to drive prices down. Or perhaps the government provides the insurance against malpractice.
  5. Welfare. We help them up when they’ve fallen, but we don’t hold them up once they’ve gotten back on their feet. Limited time periods. Demonstrated attempts to regain balance.
  6. Nationalism. We strike up a friendly competition with the rest of the world. Namely, China, India, the European Union, and Russia. Hell, we might as well throw the rest of the world in there while we’re at it. Let’s challenge them all to a race to see who can be the first country to become zero waste, and zero emissions, the highest level of biodiversity, the highest intelligence, the highest standard of living measured subjectively. We challenged Russia to become the first ones to the moon and we both made it. What’s so bad about that? Was Russia a whole lot worse off for making it to the moon second? Do we think of Russia as failures for getting to moon second? Would it be terrible if we were the second ones to become zeo-waste and emissions?
 
The list goes on. I think I found out that I am a Democrat and a Republican. I actually think that if I work it out just so, then as a Democrat, I can actually be a better Republican than most Republicans. Now, the question is, can a Republican be a Democrat. Maybe not, but maybe that’s just fine, maybe they don’t have to be.

 

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Jesse

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1 out of 1 members found this useful.

My Shadow and I

Posted September 8th, 2008 by Julius Ko

Before my personal journey into a more 'accepting' form of practice, I've often found myself resisting or even 'hating' my own shadow, thinking it's wrong etc.  How does it affect my relationships?  It ruins them, ha =).

Anyways, now I'm facing more and more parts of my shadow and releasing the energies that lie behind them; via 3-2-1; vids from Sally Kempton; Holosync, etc.

What types of people provoke my shadow?  Messed up people with big hearts =).

Cheers.

- Julius

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juliusko.hubhub.org

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6 out of 6 members found this useful.

A Matrix Moment

Posted September 24th, 2008 by Andrew Forest

A few days ago I had a Matrix moment, where suddenly the Matrix movies made sense on a deeper level, and more pieces came together.  It happened when I was reading about 3-2-1 for the first time and I was trying it out, to see what would happen.  Suddenly I connected with the grand (grandiose) finale, where Neo is in vigorous discussion with Mr. Anderson.  Few words are said, but you get the picture.  Both are worn out, the harder they try the harder they fall, and then Neo finally gets it.  He accepts Agent Shadow, he realises he is Neo, and then there is peace in the realm.

This had special significance for me, because as I read about 3-2-1 I was trying it on a particularly gnarly problem that had been with me for literally decades. When I grew up I intensely disliked my father for how he behaved and treated people (remember you don’t have to read this). So I always steered myself in the other direction to his behaviour, not necessarily a bad thing. Yet my father was a domineering person and had had a profound effect on me. So I fought him inside me and eventually climbed out of a deep, dark hole. Yet he was always there and I never had a resolution. So reading 3-2-1 I did something without premeditation which completely goes against instinct. I accepted my father that is me.  I realised that what I saw of him inside of me, was me, had to be me. It helped that I was digesting No Boundaries by you know who. I took the whole father thing in, his/my weakness and strengths. In doing so I went through the fear that I would become like him.  After all he was no longer big enough to swallow me whole. And I took another step towards being whole.   

So for the past few days I’ve been smiling inside, felt much more relaxed and comfortable with myself.  I feel a tremendous sense of relief, and I take a big breath whenever I think that. The pressure inside me has released and one of my symptoms, needing to comfort snack a lot in the evenings, has stopped. Yet it can’t finish this easily. Like a cat hanging above a bath I await what will happen next. 

 

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5 out of 5 members found this useful.

Shadows

Posted October 9th, 2008 by GERARDO MAZA

 Last week I struggled at first, then I learned to be independent of receiving recognition, acceptance or praise from others, I realized that I could give to myself that which I sought from others, the world. I felt motivated, I felt, I am enough. There was a sense of ease. This was heaven.
This gave me a new sense of confidence and I knew that this power to empower was always available.

This week I found my mind was tearing me down, I had negative thoughts about myself, my future, my worth. I saw myself as a failure, I saw everything as a failure and I began  to doubt that there was any meaning to it all, any purpose to life apart from what humans created to make them feel better about things. I was unmotivated, everything was a struggle. I wasn't enough, nothing was ever enough. This was hell.

I use to feel that feeling that I was enough, was the way to go, I was always more functional and it always seemed that I got more accomplished. Now I realize that not being enough, not being good enough, being in hell was a place I could bring surrender, embrace and love. Not enough can also be enough.

Life has no meaning, yet this no meaning has great meaning.