Dear People Whom God Loves,
When I read Integral Spirituality about five years ago, I learned something. In reading it again, I realized that I had remembered only that meditation was not a substitute for psychological therapy. I now see more clearly why this is so. Here is what is clear to me, but I have much more to learn about it.
We continue to look into the feelings, emotions, and impulses that we put into our shadow. We have them, but we don’t recognize them as belonging to ourselves. We will use anger as an example.
At the beginning of our spiritual growth, we all have anger. We continue to have it, but there are healthy and unhealthy ways to deal with it.
At this early stage, we identify with the anger. I am the anger. At some point, we realize that we are not our anger. In other words, the anger isn’t who I am.
When I recognize that the anger isn’t me—I am not my anger—I can go either of two directions. The healthy direction is to recognize that I am not my anger and, at the same time, to acknowledge that I am angry. I own the anger. The anger is mine. This means that the anger doesn’t go into my shadow.
If I go in the unhealthy direction, I do not identify with the anger, but I disown it. That means that I don’t see anger in me. There is anger, but it is perceived by me—as Wilber says—as “you” or “it”. This means that I see someone either as angry or it is just anger out there somewhere.
The reason I do this is because I think that it is not safe or okay to be angry. I think this way because of what I have experienced. Perhaps I was taught by my family or my religion that it is wrong or a sin to be angry. Perhaps my anger has gotten me into big trouble. Whatever the reason, the anger is now in my shadow. The anger is no longer mine. It is out there.
More next time.
Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay
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