We can have our ecstatic moments, but what really matters is what we bring back to our daily life. When starting a Medicine journey, quite often we struggle to surrender to the medicine, but once we do we almost always eventually end up in a beautiful spot. Maybe we wrap our arms around an angel and blast to another planet, or maybe we die and once we get past that horror find ourself in a world of peaceful joy where our painful body no longer troubles us. It can be hard to come back from that. But that is our work — integrating all this new experience. The initial journey is great, but it is in the follow up sessions with the guide where the important work is done. The client now knows what is possible — the work is to fully bring it into themself and live from that place.
Hakomi is less dramatic, but the principle is exactly the same. The therapist helps a client dig down way deep to find the internal story that is causing so much pain. Then the therapist helps unblock what wants to happen — they are looking for where organicity is leading. When a shift happens it usually feels ecstatic and joyous. The therapist helps them feel all the way in their body how good and right it feels. Then encourages them to really own this new way of being. Again just like with Medicine work the key thing here is to have the client integrate this change into themselves and make it a part of them self. Something that was held apart is now part of a whole.
Forest bathing has us come back to relationship with the more than human world. We suffer when we hold ourselves separate from nature. Forest bathing first invites us to connect with all our senses. What are you hearing? What do you smell? Do you feel the heat of the sun on your arms? Do you see the sparkle of the river? Then there is an invitation to play a little bit with the forest. Maybe explore textures, or maybe just look way, way closer at things than we normally do. Later there is an invitation to just sit for a while in nature. Guides are careful not to explicitly call this “meditation” because that word has so much extra obligation and expectations these days. The invitation is simply a chance to reconnect with the greater than human world. To physically remind ourself that we are not separate, we are one with this world. How did we ever forget that?
Feeling unity with something beautiful like nature is one thing, but what about the ugly, hard things? What about the parts of our selves that we hate or consider dangerous and bad? Yes, especially those parts need to be embraced and loved. I never said this work is easy! But maybe the most important thing I have to say in this entire essay is that we need to find unity with all of ourselves. Truly all of ourselves. Unity consciousness is going to change the world. But first we need to find it in ourselves. We are vast beyond all knowing. Can we embrace all that we are? Even the monster within? Learn to love it? How on earth can we do that you might be asking? We need to adopt the practice of loving presence. That is where we always come back to. That is both the reward and destination for all this hard work we are doing.
Can you see how all the principles come into play? We have to avoid the temptation of pushing people along faster than they are ready. You might see short term gains but then they will just relapse. So we have to start with non-violence and make sure we feel safe within. We need to trust that we won’t lash out at ourself when we figure something out. That allows us to simply get curious (truth), and start to watch ourselves carefully (mindfulness). That leads us to be here right now in our body (mind-body) and next we trust our internal knowing (organicity). We learn to cultivate this intuition. And where will this inner knowing lead us? We don’t know, but we do know it might be very different than what we have right now. It will be a change. And when we embrace this change we bring it all the way into ourself. We embrace it with our heart, mind, and body (unity). But there is a final step. After welcoming this new part of ourself we must fully love it. Lets go there next.