Hello Ellie,
I actually caught one of those old programs running yesterday. I’ve been looking at the Awakening Curriculum lessons on the Toxic Starting Points and I noticed how deeply I rely on indirect communication - asking leading questions rather than stating my feelings directly - to avoid discomfort and protect feelings. The moment I caught it, I felt a hard tightness in my chest and recognised it as an old, inherited family habit.
This is really good Ellie. The Toxic Starting Point is a really great concept offered by Pernille. My take on that is the settling into 'being' and asking "what needs to be felt that is currently unexpressed?" Often first thing in the morning upon waking up, this can be fairly obvious that there is something a little 'off', something lingering, some subtle grumpiness or something (my experience) and then settling into that. I have experienced it spread out over the body as a kind of subtle soreness in various areas. Allowing that soreness to be there and receive nourishment from having attention placed on it. "Energy flows where attention goes." So by being curious as to where in the body is needing attention, is like bringing energy to vitalize areas that have been stagnant due to tightness, or holding in /or out against life.
Since you mentioned looking at The Awakening Curriculum, were you suggesting I look at her material on my own alongside our chats or do you ever integrate her fetter/shadow work directly into guiding sessions? I'd love to know what works best for you!
I don't use her method directly, but I think that the conversations can be very helpful to listen to. For actual fetter practice I found the very clear method mapped by Kevin Shanilek in his website
https://www.simplytheseen.com to be the one I followed. Mostly I just advise the simple going backwards and forwards of thoughts pointing to sensations pointing to hidden beliefs pointing to more subtle sensations. Always simply noticing what is arising. I have found that the fetter method can become a bit of a trap, like a goal of attainment for the spiritual ego.
The one thing I would suggest that you add as a daily practice is to do some "cardiac coherence" breathing. Non-stop breathing, 6 secs inhale and 6 secs exhale with your attention as fully as you can being directed onto the breath. This can really calm and slow everything down and enable more clarity regarding all the different little 'events' appearing. I think this is called "Samatha meditation" in buddhism. This will strengthen and clarify the ability to stay with simply noticing which is where 'lightness of being' is to be found, our 'natural' state of being.
I would like to share one more thing that I have found to be strangely true. Perhaps we might wish to be thought of as being an interesting person who can contribute a lot of worthwhile ideas, so we feel we belong as a 'someone' according to the belief/fear we hold about not belonging. Therefore, any moments where we feel overlooked and not validated can be very wounding to that core ego wound. We will find it coming up at us through different 'themes' again and again until we finally hit that core belief of the ego which is actually exposing a deep truth: "
I am uninteresting",
"I have nothing to contribute" etc." When there is no more avoiding this core wound/belief, there can be a deep relief that settles in the body.... it is seen as a truth, and once the uncomfortable sensations have abated, it will be known that there is no more need to fight against it. Why is it true? Because of the conviction of there being an "I" that can be rejected, not included, not belonging, not existing etc. It is simply not possible for anything to be rejected, not included, not belonging, not existing when we take the perspective of direct experience. There is no where to go. Only appearances interpreted as such.
Keep sharing,
Warm regards,
Rowena
PS. Where is your farm in the UK? Is the weather affecting things for you? My mum lives just down the road from where the wild fire was on the Suffolk coast.
