I’ve been studying the ‘shadow’ side of my life lately. The dark places that exist within all of us.  Those aspects of ourselves that we try desperately to keep hidden from the world.  Debbie Ford, who wrote the best selling book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, says it’s like trying to keep a beach ball under water, it takes a great amount of energy and focus to keep it under, but eventually it pops up unexpectedly and hits us right in the face.

As I explored this shadow work, I found that some of my shadow qualities are anger, judgment, fear, insecurity, inadequacy, stupidity, clumsiness, laziness and vulnerability.  I learned at a very early age that these and other aspects of myself are not acceptable or attractive, I believed that if I showed these parts I would lose love and acceptance from those I cared about. I held the deep core belief that these are ‘bad’ so I buried them and tried to keep them hidden from the outside world. I put on the ‘good’ costume, one that is acceptable and enjoyed by others so I can feel safe and comfortable.

But inevitably, one or more of these hidden parts would pop up and hit me in the face when I least expected or wanted it. They felt like huge demons I had to work very hard at keeping hidden from sight. What if my husband saw my insecurity and inadequacy? He would be disgusted with me! He would want to leave and find someone more perfect and strong.  What if I didn’t live up to my daughter’s ideal of a perfect mother? Being able to manage her schedule, our home, my work life and still always be supportive and attentive? She would be disappointed in me and I would lose her love and admiration.  I would have to admit that I’m not perfect, that I’m flawed or damaged in some way. This has always been too scary for me to face so I kept it hidden and lied to myself that I was good and no one could see my imperfections. I began to see how this started at a very early age, before I had the ability to filter the messages I was getting from the outside world.

When we fragment ourselves, we are reinforcing the early messages that some parts of us are ‘good’ and others are ‘bad’. What I’m learning and experimenting with in my life is integrating and accepting all aspects of myself: The anger and the compassion, the lust and the love, the stupid and the brilliant.  It’s through this embracing of all aspects of ourselves that freedom comes. By accepting that it all exists, we can release the illusion and effort of trying to fit a ‘perfect’ model, the good girl or good boy we were taught we should be.  Through embracing the shadow aspects we try so hard to keep hidden we become more whole, real and strong. We are released from the shame and can truly be proud and loving toward ourselves and compassionate toward others as we accept that we all have a shadow side and it has nothing to do with being flawed or imperfect. It has to do with being fully human. How liberating!

If you’d like to explore some of your shadow aspects, the parts of yourself where your strength, authenticity and power live, just ask yourself a couple of simple questions. Sit quietly, take a few deep breaths, relax your body and ask,

‘What am I most afraid of that someone else will find out about me?’

‘What am I most afraid to find out about myself?’

When you have your answers, allow yourself to acknowledge the courage you have in asking and accepting your answers. The first step in becoming more whole is to realize that these disowned parts are just the other side of the coin. We can’t know confidence unless we have experienced insecurity, once we accept that we have felt insecure, we can embrace that as one part of ourselves with compassion and say I accept that about me. This actually diminishes the power of this shadow part. We open our arms and embrace the fact that we are human and this is just a part of being human, not good or bad. Now we can recognize it when it comes up again and say to it, ‘I see you and embrace you as a part of me, but I don’t have to act out from insecurity, I can choose to energize the confident aspect of myself which also exists’. In this way, we are empowered to make a conscious choice from a place of radical truth about who we are.

What aspects of yourself have you hidden away from view? Will you accept this challenge to release the shame and allow yourself to be more whole, more radically human?

I’d love to hear from you, please leave a comment and let’s start sharing the radical truth of our human-ness together!

Stay tuned for my free audio meditation on Embracing your Shadow.

Warmly,

Denise

The post What if my husband saw how insecure I really am? appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

What we consistently believe is what we create in our lives.

If we believe and think that we are alone, unsupported, never going to get out of debt, have the love we yearn for, be healthy, create success, than guess what? We get to be absolutely right!

We bring into our lives more of whatever we believe or consistently think about. The good news is, if we believe that we are worthy of love, that our bodies know how to heal and be healthy, that we are capable of success and financial wealth, that we are loved and supported, than we get to be right about that, too.

The trick is to be able to maintain the focus on what we truly are yearning to experience, to build the fortitude and the mental muscle to keep lifting our thoughts higher and higher. So we can stay in a higher quality of thought for longer periods of time. We have a choice to take charge of our minds in every moment, to either focus on the difficulties in our lives or on the pieces we are grateful for. Focusing on the difficulties creates low vibration of regular mind, low quality thoughts and more of the same circumstances. But choosing to focus on what is already working, with gratitude, we’ll create higher quality thoughts from the heart and higher quality results.

Einstein said, ‘We can’t solve a problem from the same level of thinking that created it.’

If we want new results in our lives, we must create a new level of thinking.

One tool to maintain that higher quality of life is meditation.

Listen to this month’s meditation, Held by the Love of Spirit. Allow yourself to surrender, feel and believe that you are loved, every day, every moment. How would your life experience be different if you truly surrendered to love? How would your challenges look when seen through the lens of love?

Share your feelings with me after listening to this meditation. What did it feel like, were you able to surrender and allow yourself to feel loved, even a little bit?

How can you take charge of your mind today to create higher quality experience?

The post Held By The Love Of Spirit appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

So why don’t we feel it all the time?

For years I suffered with feeling unhappy. I would have moments or maybe even a few days where I would feel happy, free, relaxed.  But ultimately, the fear, dissatisfaction, self judgment would always come flooding back and the happy me would be smothered again.  It felt like an emotional roller coaster that someone else was in control of.

After years of struggling with trying to capture that ‘happy’ me and nail her down, this is what I’ve learned…

I like to use the analogy of having 2 minds. The happy, peaceful, satisfied mind and the unhappy, afraid, wanting mind. One mind will create experiences from a place of love and the other from the place of fear. The loving mind feels expansive, relaxed, happy. The fearful mind feels trapped, frustrated, and unhappy.

Sometimes, when I’m paying attention, I can hear both minds having conversations inside my head.  My ego, fear based mind is arguing with the Higher Mind of Love.  Whichever mind wins will determine how I will feel that day. Happy or frustrated.  Have you ever experienced that?  Kind of funny when you look at it from the outside.

The good news is, we all have the ability to take charge of our ‘minds’ and take charge of our happiness.

When you are feeling unhappy, frustrated, negative or judgmental, recognize that  this is the voice of your fearful, ego mind and try this:

Hear the voice of fearful mind with compassion, say to ego, ‘ I’m choosing Love instead of_________.’

Then use this affirmation to engage Higher Mind and  take charge of your thoughts,

‘Today, I choose  love and peace.  I am happy.’

Use this affirmation all throughout the day, over and over. You will begin to feel more relaxed and happier.

As you take charge and retrain your thoughts, your Higher Mind of Love will become louder and the fear based, ego mind, lower.  You will be listening and creating and solving problems in your life from the higher place of  love.  And happiness grows.

‘Today, I choose love and peace. I am happy.’

This is one more way you can Take Charge Of The Life You Have, So You Can Live The Life You LOVE!

I would be ‘happy’  to hear how you’ve created more happiness in your life. Please share your experience here.

The post Want To Be Happy? Here’s How. appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

How can we be spiritual in a society of materialism that we live in?

The truth is, we’re already spiritual. All of us. It’s impossible for us not to be spiritual. Why? Because we’re made up of spirit. Spirit is our true essence, we’ve just forgotten.

Our ego and conditioned  mind have become so loud and dominant in our lives that we can’t feel or hear from our true spirit selves anymore. But the truth is that we are all made up of the same stuff as the cosmos, the Universe. We are extensions of the One.

Every spiritual teacher from Buddha to Einstein teaches us the same thing, they all guide us back to the same truth. We and God (Universe, Spirit, the Sacred) are one spirit. We are each an expression of the spirit that created all things. The Spirit of Life flows through each of us, it beats our hearts and allows us to breathe. Once we become aware that there is more to us than our ego identity, we can see from the broader perspective of ourselves as living, breathing, extensions of Universal Spirit.

We can take charge of our own spiritual experience.

What a different place to live life from! Once you choose to believe that God is expressing itself through you in this world, it becomes easy to say ‘I’m spiritual’ and even go one step further, ‘I’m Spirit!’

Try this exercise to help retrain your mind in remembering the simple truth that you are already spiritual, right now, exactly as you are. Write on a paper or put on your phone/computer where you can see them all day, read or meditate on these statements:

I am one with the Spirit of the Universe, It flows through me and expresses Itself in this world as me!

I choose now to live from the truth that I am an eternal Spiritual Being having a temporary human experience.

No one can express God in this world the way I can, I am a unique extension of the Universal Spirit.

I am Spiritual, I am Spirit, I am as powerful, strong, creative, loving, peaceful as the Spirit of God, I am one with the Spirit of God.

Please post a comment below and share with your friends!

The post Don’t Think You’re Spiritual? Think Again! appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

So, how do we begin? First, I like to use the analogy of the mind like a new puppy that you are trying to train to stay. You gently put the puppy’s little butt on the ground and tell her ‘stay, stay’ and you walk a few feet away. And what happens? The puppy happily follows you. So you repeat the process again, ‘stay, stay’ you say to the puppy and she follows you. The puppy looks at you with excitement, as if to say ‘I only want to be with you!’ In time, with much patience and perseverance on your part, the puppy learns to do what it’s told. Our mind is the same. It’s very used to being free and wild. With the same patience and commitment we trained the puppy with, we can train our mind.

To begin, I suggest short, frequent meditation sessions. Five or ten minutes in the morning and evening are fine. Begin using a very simple meditation technique and reminding yourself of why you want to begin this practice. “I’m here to train my mind, to cultivate peace that comes from a calm mind” personalize this statement to reflect your intention.

A simple meditation practice:

Prepare the space by turning off the cell phone, putting away distractions, light a candle. You can play some soft music in the background.

Sit in an upright position with your spine straight. Your shoulders are level and your hips are level. Visualize your muscles relaxing as you are supported and held by the earth, strong and steady. Get a strong sense of being in your body, in that moment.

You can either close your eyes or lower your gaze. Take 3 or 4 cleansing breaths, in thru your nose to fill your lungs and belly then exhaling slowly and deliberately thru your mouth. Inhaling, creating space inside of you, exhaling, releasing and letting go.

When you feel complete and relaxed, begin a simple counting meditation.

Inhale thru your nose for the slow count of five, hold this breath for the count of five, and exhale slowly thru your mouth for the count of 7. Continue this pattern for 10 breaths or more if that feels right to you. Then bringing your attention to your heart center. Notice or visualize the beating of your own heart. Connect with this heart center and saying to yourself, ‘this is me, this is my heart’ and just allowing yourself to linger here. Notice how your body is feeling, gently notice how your mind is feeling, no judgment, just witness yourself.

When you feel complete, close your practice by taking a few cleansing breaths and gently opening your eyes.  You can also do a smaller versions of this all throughout the day. If you are feeling stressed or anxious or sad, just close your eyes for a moment and take a few slow breaths, doing your counting and connecting to your own heart. Saying to yourself ‘this is me, this is my heart’ and allow your self a smile for a moment.

Notice how this simple practice can help to bring you back to your body and the present moment, where life really exists.

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