What’s Love Got To Do With It?

By: Dr. Nicki Monti

An Excerpt from: Our Love Matters: Find it, Fix it, or Let it Go! (P. 347) “It’s complicated—this finding love business, and really not complicated at all. Mostly, the difficulty comes from our refusal to look history in the eye, to embrace authentic, vulnerable behavior, and to remember faith. When I was a little girl, I thought love meant getting attention. When I grew into shape, I thought love meant being desired. When I grew into a relationship, I thought love meant being needed. When I became a teacher, I thought love meant being helpful. When I become silent, I think love is Divine inspiration. coque iphone xr I don’t know. Not really. For a thoughtful person, lack of definition promises both freedom and fear. coque iphone pas cher We want containers for our liquid offerings. We require parameters to frame our dialogues and delineate our territories. But more important than any definition is to recognize the ways we have lost track of ourselves: how we’ve turned away from the Heart of the matter; how we’ve fallen prey to our baser fears, foibles, and follies. In this, then, we’ve lost touch with our Divinity.”

I’ve been studying love all my life. Or more precisely – I’ve been mostly circling the drain on love lack, both perceived and actual. And there’s the rub with love, as with most things, when it comes down to it, even that which appears “actual” begins with perception. This is good news and bad news because it means only you can decide what love means in your life – be it love of another, love of self, or love of Spirit. And one thing I can guarantee: your ideas on the whole love business will ebb, shift and even transmorph depending on your age, stage and experience. coque iphone 2019 pas cher Let me repeat: to a great degree whether we know love or not, depends on how we see it. Annoying. It means we can’t all come to some unalterable agreement on what love looks, feels, tastes, or smells like. It means we each need to count on our own experiential conclusions and truths. Of course, trudging the road to this understanding is most often fraught. It requires slicing through disheartening pain and life-collaborating confusion. It necessitates for most of us, slogging through the toxic rain and over the unstable land-fills presenting as days and years. In my case it was only when I began to work with Dr. Brugh Joy in 1992, and simultaneously settled into my now long-time brilliant while confronting marriage, that the pennies began to drop. Finally at that point, after a zillion other versions of exploration, I started to truly glimpse the underbelly of the stunning beast called love. Now, Brugh tended to talk mostly about Love with a capital “L”, which eventually I came to understand as something called Trans-personal Love. Not the kind that kicks you in the where-did-it-go gut as you lay writhing on the floor; not the kind that kisses you on the lips promising to bandage early wounds; not the shiny romantic kind written about in film and story. No. Transpersonal Love has purity to it. An unconditional nature. coque iphone 7 A sincere ability to bring you to calm in the midst of chaos. Transpersonal Love is rooted in a Heart-Centered Radiance that can impact the world around you with a stunning healing capacity. Once connected with, it can tangibly pulse through us and outflow like a sweet, powerful radio wave, its vibrations changing the very world around us. Quite the revelation, this delicate and at the same time resilient energetic expression! Well, that sounds all very fine and good but how does that warm your bed, or hold your hand in the dense, dark moments? It doesn’t. Not really. Spiritual types will say it does. But the hungry secret is, from my perspective, it’s not enough. Not for every nook and cranny of our lives. Not for the daily what-do-I-do-now’s. Still, neither, I’m sad to say, is personal love enough. You know — the one we’re all running around grabbing for. The thing we pinch and scrape and read and yearn and cry for. The do-our-families-love-us…enough? Our friends? Our careers? The ones we bed? Does the Universe love us enough? Where’s the “proof”, we sadly wonder. Nope personal love is not enough to satisfy our deepest loving-life issues. Not enough for the bold moments that require facing the most terrifying decisions heart-on, nor for appreciating our lack of control over outcome, nor for a more profound connection with our deepest creative resources. Not enough even to help us face ourselves in the mirror with a clear eye! Turns out when we look for love from others, or even attempt with all our might to plug into Spiritual Love, we’re simply brushing the wrong side of the mule. The actual first focus wants to be: Do we love ourselves? Do we love the all of us? Too often, the sad answer is no. You see, self love, which we might define as the embrace and acceptance of all parts of us – good, bad and ugly – is quite the adventure. Few attempt it. Like climbing Everest. It requires assembling the right equipment, years of smaller mountain climbs in preparation, and most often, a team to assist. Still, this is where quality loving of all kinds begins. Now please understand that I’m in no way ignoring or denying the importance of Trans-personal love. Not at all. I’m only saying that the bottom line is: when it comes to a fully embraced appreciation of love in all its rainbow of colors and forms, what’s needed, in the best of all worlds, involves the interweaving of the two kinds of love here described – the personal and the trans-personal. Because self-love that doesn’t recognize there’s more than what meets the eye is simply small-minded and most often selfish; while Love that doesn’t embrace personal qualities and considerations is most often dry and lacking in true Humanity. Yes, I’d say, the human mess of us is an important part of the true love equation; equally important is an appreciation of what exists far beyond the personality we tend to insistently express. So what’s love got to do with it? What does it have to do with a truly abundant, joyful, fruitful, brilliantly functioning life? Everything. coque iphone 2019 Yep. In right-now ways and in for-all-eternity ways love is the point. coque iphone 8 May you find it now.

Brugh Joy: Shadow,Ego,Self

This piece from W. Brugh Joy, M.D. was written towards the end of his life in the fall of 2009.

“Unconditioned/Unconditional Love Transcends the Self and gives the Self the cohesiveness of a Center of Being that is Supernally Conscious of the vast and unpartitioned Whole, the Eternal Forces or the Holyland…the archetypal fixed that are universal, unchanging, concentrated in potency, that can, from time to time transcend the material forces of form and function. Within this Center of Self lie two other centers of Awareness. Although neither the Ego nor the Shadow are the same as the Awareness of the Self…they are intricately and intimately related to the Self and under its unfurling dynamic in Temporality. The Ego and Shadow are specialized and limited aspects of the Self and function primarily to engage the Three Pillars of Temporality…Mystery of Change….Mystery of Differences….Mystery of Creative Adaptation and unfoldment.

The Shadow is the Self’s reservoir of Unconsciously expressed aspects of the Self that operate to maintain the overall balance and intention of the Self in specific relationship to the Ego…of which the surface sense of self, the ego, is only part of the Ego. There is nothing in the Ego or the Shadow that determines whether or not the balancing forces of the Self are activated. The Self is the source and the implementer of both Ego and Shadow interaction. The Shadow must not integrate Ego. The Ego must not integrate Shadow. It is the Self…when both timing of maturation of developmental dynamics and the supporting forces of the Self are in alignment that will activate the dissolution of both the Ego and the Shadow into a full reflection of Itself.

There is a problem when the Ego decides it is going to integrate the Shadow and vice versa. Too soon a conscious realization of the Self’s Shadow by the Ego or the Shadow’s conscious realization of the Self’s Ego would disrupt either secondary center and rupture the primary integrity of the Self in Time and Place…..in other words…in Temporality.

The Shadow fulfills the wholeness of the Self….is modulated by the Self and only becomes a conscious part of self when the Self begins the Wholeing or Holy task of uniting Shadow and Ego ….a Soul Mystery of uncertain outcome. When the personality or ego begins to take charge of dreams and possesses the dynamics ….a mishandling of the Holy Forces occurs. Really…the ego is the witness to the Self/Ego/Shadow development.

Remember….The Self, The Ego, and The Shadow don’t really exist per se but appear as epiphenomena issuing out of interacting forces. The interacting forces express uniquely depending upon what primary combination of interacting forces are present in any given individual in any given place, and in any given time.

Out of nothing all of this has come…..into nothing all of this will go…Don’t be too concerned about the aberration of Light.

To be re-emphasized….The Ego is not the source of the Shadow and the Shadow is not the source of Ego. The Shadow does not have to be made conscious to the Ego to effect its Holy Mission. The Ego does not have to be conscious to the Shadow to effect its Holy Mission. Both Ego and Shadow are completely under the egis of the Self. The Shadow modulates…the Ego orients. The unconscious forces that make up the Ego and the Shadow are Transpersonal and Holy. They must not be appropriated by either the Ego or the Shadow and certainly not by the ego….the surface awareness.

Shadow formation is never a conscious process nor does it need to be made conscious. It functions best unconsciously….just as the forces of the Ego operate best unconsciously. The Shadow can live through an individual, a family, a clan, a tribe, a community, a nation, and all of Humanity as a function of the intrinsic nature of Temporality/Manifestation/Time/Space. It is a part of Divinity’s (Self’s) Homeostasis or the Holy Love mystery of Balance. It is innate to the Wholeness or Holiness of Self.

The Shadow, as a natural aspect of homeostasis, operates (erupts) from time to time in the life of the conscious self Ego or larger and larger group awareness as a surprise/shocking action, illness, accident, slips of tongue, nightmare dreams, and self-sabotaging, and as Evil or the Dark face of Divinity when the surface awareness is biased to positivity.

The Shadow operates in the unexpected miraculous and inspired action, healing, inexplicable knowing to avoid a potential destructive moment, truth saying without karma in conversation, spontaneous healing, restorational dreams, self-acceptance and self love, and finally as Self Realization of the Beauty of God when the surface awareness (Conscious Ego) is biased to negativity.

The Ego is not the primary center of Awareness….the Self is.

The Shadow is not the primary center of awareness…the Self is.

The ego is the reflecting witness.

The unfoldment of a life is driven by the unconscious dynamics between Self…the Shadow…and the Ego. What the ego is aware of is mostly socialization attitudes, biases, preferences, and filtered perceptions.

The Self is the only responsible agent for the entire mystery of one’s life. Free will of the Shadow or of the Ego is an illusion generated out of a limited awareness. When witnessing the Divine Play of one’s Life…best not to appropriate any of what is seen, revealed, or experienced as personal.

The Self, The Ego, and The Shadow operate in time and out of time. The ego operates almost exclusively in time. The Ego is the chief organ of Temporal Awareness.

The Self….the Deepest Divine Mystery…may or may not elect to become conscious to the Ego.

Suggesting that C.G.Jung’s overarching view point ….that the great task of individual consciousness is to become more and more conscious…might not be, in any way the mandate to humanity. To the contrary….the great task of individual consciousness is to realize that the greatest mystery lies in darkness, the unconsciousness, and the mystery of manifestation and the impossibility of consciousness to encompass unconsciousness! The most astonishing, awesome, mind boggling, staggering, and incomprehensively complex manifestations took place without any secondary consciousness and certainly not by the consciousness presumed by humankind.

The most fundamental Realization is that consciousness or light is an aberrant and fundamentally temporary phenomenon of darkness to handle motion and change. Light and consciousness are both mostly interferences and most rarely a witness and handmaiden to the action of Self. Ego Consciousness is the carrier of the Soul’s incarnation into a specific time and a specific place. It is an interference of wholeness because it is differentiating and discerning. The Shadow is the Ego’s counterpart reflecting the Ego’s unconscious complements and vice versa. Gestation is the great principle of Darkness.”…W. Brugh Joy, M.D.