Zen: The Art of Nothing

More and more, clients come and tell me that they have been having intuitive thoughts or a deep intuitive connection with someone. However, a genuinely open intuition functions very differently from a third eye damaged from excess stress. The latter needs attention and focused self-work/ healing.

What is Intuition?

Our subconscious mind both picks up and processes a 1000 times more information than our conscious mind. When our higher self feels the need to pass some of this information along to our conscious minds to take action, it passes it along as ‘intuition’. We start experiencing this more and more frequently as our Reiki practice gets stronger. For example we might be stepping out of home and despite a sunny day, have a passing thought to take the umbrella, only to get stuck in the rain later on. Others feel pulled to make more food than usual (or less) and find that someone is either dropping in or there are sudden plans to go out. These are just mild intuitive insights indicating we are in general alignment with the universe.

It can get a lot stronger than this, like during the de-monetisation in India, several people I know deposited huge amounts of cash for no reason just a day before it all happened, only to be utterly surprised at the announcement that evening. Others I know have sold all their shares a day before some big crash, and so on. There are also many intuitive insights which can protect us from dangers which we will never realise, for example taking a different route which stops the possibility of an accident or something worse, cutting off connection from a person which might avoid some big financial loss, and so on.

So should we always trust it?

Energies today are very mixed up and more and more I find clients tapping into the wrong energy and confusing it for their intuition. Much of what passes off as intuition these days is not, and it serves our spiritual pathway very well to separate the wheat from the chaff.

1.     You Cannot Act On It

When you receive random intuition or premonitions that simply leave you scared or confused, that’s not really an open third eye adding value to your life. People getting visions just before relatives die for instance, or before other bad things happen where you can do nothing to prevent them, these are nothing but a mess. The right kind of clearing will stop these thoughts. (Please note that a mother’s intuition related to the safety of her child is a different matter).

Some intuitive people will have a knowing that something might go drastically haywire, a feeling of foreboding can happen sometimes before things go very wrong. Typically this happens when we have a great deal of anxiety around a happening and if we release that anxiety, such foreboding will stop unless we prefer being warned.

2.     It Is Not Helpful

Others tell me of visions of deceased ones or divine beings, and in most cases these are just energy distortions meant to keep them lost. Any such vision is only real if it offers a very clear message about what to do or what you need to hear.

3.     It Is Not Clear/ Meaningful

Which brings me to my next point, if you are confused after a vision, it is not a vision at all, it was just trash your mind was throwing up, ignore it completely. If these powers can step into your mind, they are also powerful enough to speak a language you understand.

This brings me to another very popular topic on the internet – angel numbers. I have observed with everyone I have worked with that when they cleanse their energies, these ‘angel numbers’ stop manifesting. These again are merely traps and I encourage you to do a good cleanse if you see repetitive numbers. In the same vein almost every relationship where at least one person was seeing repetitive ‘signs’ like their name everywhere, or encouragement to get into the relationship, turned out over time to be toxic and abusive – if you need ‘signs’ to tell you to be with a person, it likely means your conscious mind is not convinced enough – for good reason.

4.     It Inflates Your Ego

A lot of what people think are psychic visions or intuitive insights are just utter rubbish and created by the ego to feed itself. Just look at the message you have received

– does it make you feel ‘better about yourself’, give you fancy labels or ideas to attach to your identity (‘you are special’, ‘you are a star seed’, ‘you are an angel’, here are your wings or your halo, here’s a vision of your brilliant future)

– satisfy your ideas of revenge or justice (messages like ‘he will be punished’)

– negative information about others which makes you feel superior to them, inferior to them or afraid of them. If there is genuine cause to fear such a person, that is a different matter but most people on the spiritual pathway are just afraid of other people’s bad energy affecting them, not realising that their own fear is what is affecting them more than anything else, apart from a lack of proper setting of boundaries. Again, it is good quality therapy work which will be greatly beneficial here.

5.     It Creates False Intimacy

Are you always ‘tuned in’ to someone? A lot of people living in stress can perceive too much about loved ones as a result of sustained stress. Unfortunately thanks to the abundance of articles on twin flames, most people today are confusing extremely toxic relationships with twin flames. If you are continuously psychically connected with someone, this is a sign of a very toxic connection and possibly a messed up gut micro biome. Healing these are sometimes very difficult because people are the most deeply convinced that this is true love.

Putting It All Together

The purpose of false ‘intuitions’ is to keep us stuck in an illusion, and the most powerful illusion, the one that is the hardest to let go of, is the one of being truly loved and understood. This could be a connection with a person, or it could be some ‘angel’ or something similar that replaces other close relationships in our lives. A close second is that of identity, feeling special or even in rare cases feeling like a bad person, anything to give us something to identify with, to feel either that we are special or that we belong. The third aspect is just to give us a spinning mind, because we like analysing things. When we watch out for these, they slowly clear the way to much better and clearer intuition that actually adds value to our lives.

Are the people around you helping you shine, or are they dimming your light?

Are YOU helping them shine or are you dimming their light?

Everyone who is nasty to others has a reason for their actions. And we’re all ultimately forgiving of our own poor behaviour, we’re rude, mean, abusive, hurtful, deceitful… we wouldn’t ever repeat it if we didn’t forgive ourselves. Can we offer others the same space we keep for ourselves?

I’m reading a book currently where the author invites us to relate to murderers and rapists as human beings with feelings and reasons. Reasons for being nasty are not good enough. Standing up for oneself and being an inconsiderate person are not the same thing at all.

I remember how a masseuse – a total , once told me how relieved she was that her husband died during covid. A single mother handling 2 kids all alone, she was grateful for her freedom. I’ve seen many cases where children were relieved when parents died (and very guilty to feel that way) because the abuse was finally over. It’s very sad, very moving for me to come across these stories.

It’s so important to know whether we’re surrounded by the right people, but so much more important to know whether we’re the right person.

Note: While this list will likely be different for people living with abusive partners, that alone should be a red flag for our own existence.

During our 21 day spiritual journey on Whatsapp, one participant faced a particularly tough challenge with one question and asked for some help and clarification. The conversation that followed helped many other participants, who said they could relate very much and found the conversation very insightful. Hence I share it here in case anyone else finds it helpful too.

Participant: What I am missing out is being truly me. Authenticity is freedom because there is no pretense. When there is nothing to pretend there is only truth left. Which is a relief. But not knowing my true self and not being grounded I am pretending to myself too. In such a situation we only look at others and try and fix ourselves. Feels like if this worked for them, it will work for me too. So we hop from one person’s choices and decisions to others .. pretending it’s ours. And always something pinches from within ‘this doesn’t feel quite mine what I don’t really know what would I pick to be mine’.

Ashwita: Do you want to actually go towards being more authentic though, or are you satisfied with this idea?

Ashwita: Yes this is normal. When the questions are too overwhelming,  goes into shut down. Just relax with the question , hold it in your heart and you go deeper anyway even if nothing comes up

Participant: I have been trying from many  to be authentic. Because that’s  for me.  I am tired of pretending and tired of  choosing words to suit situations i face.

I believe when you are authentic you don’t have to try. Please help me achieve that 🙏

Somehow the feeling of defeat is coming very strongly for me .. as I have tried multiple times to pick good habits and practice what I preach , but all gone to thrash.

Like I know I am going to fail  and again again.

Ashwita: so if you don’t  choose words, then you have nothing to say?

Participant: Yea .. often i find myself with no opinion because it’s easy for me to accept ‘they ‘ know better

Every .. at home, financial, what to order, what to cook. At work .. team decisions .. everywhere.

I feel the worst when someone presents their opinion and ask me what do you think .. and I am like blank.. so i choose  what’s popular abs . So that everyone agrees.

Participant: It’s like I have accepted the  that I do not have opinions and like to say I just go with the flow. But that a LIE

Ashwita: Interesting…. how do you know that this is a lie?

Participant: Because before I speak i know I am choosing what’s going to get an agreement. I know I am not coming from my core. Agree when all agrees and disagree when someone else does it too. You will  see my hand raise with an objection or question

I can see my layers .. I don’t know how to remove them. Or shed them rather

Ashwita: But how do you know that you actually have an opinion if you have  encountered them?

Participant: I see that as a shortcoming

Ashwita: so you have assumed that you have opinions and decided that it is a shortcoming?

Participant: I am too scared .. I feel when I open my mouth it will add no value

Participant: Kind of shut my self

Participant: I see having opinion is a strong way to come from your authentic self… This is honestly my biggest suffering

Ashwita: No, that is an assumption. And a very wrong one at that… forming an opinion is a thing to do – you are confusing doing with being.

Forming an opinion takes time and effort. If you had the energy to sustain any practice, you could have had energy to educate yourself and put in enough thought into everything and have an opinion about everything. Not like you have absolutely no opinions, you do have an opinion that you have nothing to add to any conversation. That’s a very big opinion to have.

Participant: As I am linking it to authenticity. I just don’t want to pretend.

Ashwita: It has nothing to do with authenticity. Pretending will stop if you simply say – I have nothing to add to that, I don’t have thoughts in the matter. That is authenticty

Participant: May be I see it as being seen by others .. an acknowledgement that i exist

Some people always have a lot of value to add in a conversation. Almost everyone around me. And I don’t see that coming from me .. so almost feel like I do not exist.

I see myself as a blurred background .. just there. No value addition.

I am starting to see a connection.  That I am very scarred to take responsibilities for the fear of failing. May be my choices or my decision will make the finances, or dinner, or the team fail.

Ashwita: Yeah so basically you are comparing yourself with others and want to have what they have. Without that you see no worth in yourself. And that obviously makes you devalue yourself, so then investing in yourself will become a redundant exercise because nobody invests in a worthless thing. You want to be seen by others. Have you seen you?

Participant: I see it now.. Where you are coming from

Ashwita: People around you value people with ideas and things to say, and have no value for those who don’t (or so you have perceived) and you have believed that narrative and refused to place any value on who you are – someone with nothing much to add

Participant: Yes that’s hard to accept. How can someone never have anything to say. Was the person even involved? Was the person even present or paying attention

Ashwita: Having something to say takes work and thinking. It is something you learn, not someone you are. If it is a behaviour that served you as a child, you develop it. If it was snubbed then you don’t, and then you have to put in the effort to learn to develop it. There are people who never have anything to say.

Ashwita: And…. you don’t have nothing to say. Scroll up and see. There’s plenty you have to say. You just don’t have much to say in certain matters

Participant: Does that mean i am in the wrong place?

Ashwita: It mean you haven’t spent enough time looking at yourself without expectation. You’re again going back to trying to fix things rather than trying to see who you are.

Participant: How can I begin the work?

I got this undevided attentive from you and i can’t belive. I think I didn’t deserve it.

Gosh I am so broken

Ashwita: Accept that you have nothing to say, that maybe sometimes it is simply easier to agree than express that you have nothing to say so you take the easy path sometimes. And practice deep listening and witness your disgust at yourself when you have nothing to say. You DO have a lot to say, most of it is usually shit about yourself.

When someone asks you for your opinion, your opinion is merely ‘I am an idiot because I have nothing to contribute, and I am going to try to say something in order for you not to find out’ – that is an opinion followed by an action plan.

Change that action plan to realising that you are repeating a very longstanding, erroneous opinion of yourself and to go deeper and see what you’re really feeling in that moment, instead.

Participant: You bang on .. you found my plan for survival 😂

Thank you so much for this 😍

Ashwita: 🤗

Another Participant: It was an eye opening . Thank you both.  I see I also feel worthy only when I am useful , I make people laugh ,or I pacify arguments or take  for others emotions . Otherwise standalone I feel unworthy. There is no me without being useful. And then i get angry when they use me which is the picture I only gave them in  place. I feel worthless. Will eft it .. Do you see more here Ashwita ?

Ashwita: ah…. the standard need versus love dilemma

You see, if people need you, you have the illusion that they’ll be with you. If on the other hand they are with you merely because they love you, you cannot control them, and there’s a fear of loss. So we prefer being useful to simply being loved… we feel there’s a bit of a guarantee there. It is a funny thing really, because in fact it is the opposite. When people are with us because we are useful, they’ll leave us once they find a better replacement, AND we’ll never feel loved because we were never loved, we were only valued for our usefulness. If someone is with us because they love us, they aren’t leaving anyway because well, they love us!

Another Participant: So basically being useful  is manipulation to get love … I see that .. rather than just see that maybe I feel unlovable just as I am.

Here’s a question I received yesterday and my response to it.

Ashwita, what’s your take on luck? Does this relate to things outside of our control or is it based on our inner alignment and what we ‘invite’ ???

Interesting you ask this question because I had a fascinating discussion with a friend yesterday who went to a Nadi astrologer. So this was his finding. He said when we go to regular astrologers, they see where we are headed, and suggest us remedies. The nadi astrology takes done remedies into consideration and tells us the final result.

I think a visit to a nadi astrologer is usually great proof for many people just how much of life is totally scripted, because people I know have found predictions to be coming true even a decade later. I’ve never been to one, but things that were told to my parents about me came true a decade later, and no astrologer we visited could even predict those incidents. However I do know someone who was told he’d have a great life, he then thought wow I have a great life ahead of me and did nothing. His life still sucks and nothing came true.

So basically. I don’t believe we have free will to make our lives any better – if we live in the flow, our life automatically floats up to the best case scenario that was originally designed. However, we do have all the free will we need to make our lives far more miserable.

Luck is nothing but oneness with the universe in a particular moment. When we are in alignment, we function like the whole universe is one machine, and we’re aware of something much, much larger than us at play, and things falling into place which we could never have facilitated by ourselves. Because that is actually the default state of existence. But we get out of sync, then we’re small and limited, and being in the flow is considered a ‘spiritual’ thing to do

Anthony Jacquin

The purpose of relationships in all forms, whether with lovers, family or colleagues is the same as life itself. That is, to express, share and celebrate happiness, peace and love, rather than to seek such things from others.

Just like any other pattern of seeking, if we feel we will be happier when we have a relationship, or more at peace when someone has committed to us, or more able to love when we have someone to love, then we setting ourselves up for disappointment. We are doing things in the wrong order. We are turning our relationship into an economic transaction.

Like any other effort to seek happiness, peace and love in an object, a state or in this case a person – a relationship will provide temporary relief. For a moment, when we fall in love, there is no distance, no separation. The search is off and we glimpse ourselves as we are – connected, happy, timeless.

However, if the belief remains that we are separate and finite, then ultimately there are two, still two separate selves. As long as there are two separate selves, there will be something you are looking to get from the relationship. Something you are looking to complete. In this set-up, even so called ‘giving’ is with a view to getting.

As long as we feel finite or have a need to be complete, we will enter relationships in a way trying to protect oneself from being diminished or to be aggrandised.

Ultimately we must accept that our search for trust, security and commitment in a relationship is in vain. If we are honest with ourselves, relationships however strong are unstable. Relationships, however sweet, will die.

Things fall apart. People leave us. Death parts us.

There is a deep intuition that comes from an innate knowledge that we have, that everything is insecure, nothing objective lasts. Nothing.

We can face that fact. We can face it honestly and courageously.

We can do so by asking what has always been with us? What have we never been separated from? What has never let us down?

Only this aware presence that we know ourselves to be.

This has always been true.
It is always present.
It is never distant.
It will never leave.
It doesn’t judge.

You can trust what is stable. You can feel secure with that which is ever-present.

That which is always present, that which never changes, that which is not dependent on the state of your mind, that which is reliable in your experience; that is worth committing to.

As the sense of separation falls away relationships cease to be a relationship between two individuals trying to find love and instead are instead diverse expressions of the same love, the same happiness.

If we see our true nature, our capacity to enjoy relationships does not diminish. We are more able to have truly loving relationships.

That is the joy of this. Our relationships in all forms really thrive as a result of this understanding.

Your nature is happiness. You can express, share and celebrate that in relationships understanding that you lack nothing, so there is no need to look for completion in others.

Your nature is peace. You can express share and celebrate that in relationships, knowing you cannot be agitated, and don’t need to seek refuge in others.

You are connected. You can express, share and celebrate that in relationships, and be free of the need to mask a sense of separation by investing in another.

Have this understanding in the background. And let it infiltrate the way you relate in a more intelligent and loving way.

Greet old friends and loved ones like it is the first time you have been introduced, like all is fresh and new.

Greet new friends like you have known them forever, like your connection  has been there forever.

However close you are with your lover, family or colleagues understand that they are not yours. You are not theirs. You are not together. You are free. You are free not to walk away. Free to dance together eternally.

There is a great freedom in knowing that nothing holds you together. You just share an essence.

There is a great liberation knowing that you do not derive love, happiness and security from the another, but that together you can express, share and celebrate it. You can enjoy healthy relationships without being attached to them.

When this is a shared understanding relationships flourish.

There is a non duality inside the duality. A stillness inside the movement. Light inside the shadow.

If we overlook the deep understanding that we are one, and instead walk as two separate beings, then there will always be distance. If we know what we share then we can not only walk as one, but dance as one.

It is this understanding that allows you to go out into the multiplicity and diversity of the world and truly enjoy it as it is. We need not abandon desires, just as long as we don’t seek happiness in them. Instead we can express happiness through desire that comes from our aware presence.

What we truly appreciate that all there is here is no one, no things and no others: then we are able to truly appreciate the appearance of things and others, and dance as one of those things in relation with life, with people.

This is real love. This is real intimacy.

A relationship where the only commitment is to love itself: celebrated with openness, shared in abundance and enjoyed with no contingent agenda.

This is the perfect place to start a relationship. Knowing happiness and love is not dependent on someone or something means a relationship can be conceived out of  freedom rather out of need.

Your intimate relationships will improve. Your friendships will flourish.

Of course not everyone will have your understanding. People will want you in their life to  complete their sense of incompleteness. People will insist upon resisting you even when you have no agenda.

Be open. Enjoy a total lack of resistance.

Without an agenda, you can simply observe but not judge.

With compassion and understanding you can know that they are doing the best with what they think they have.

Without agenda or judgement, you can remain present, and in your heart relate to who they truly are.

Don’t buy their story. Or any story.

Don’t reject it either. But don’t buy it.

It doesn’t mean that you ignore them. Or cannot be in a relationship with them.

But really, the one you are speaking to is the presence behind the one they believe themselves to be. The one around whom the drama is revolving, is not there.

They may not know. But you do know, so let them burn it out. Be like an open window that and wind can blow through. No resistance.

Be transparent. Hold onto nothing. Take nothing personally.

Be spacious enough that you can take anything in. You can welcome anything home.

Making this work without compromising your inner freedom is possible. It just requires sensitivity and skill on your part to make it so.

See in others the same aware presence that you know yourself to be.

Be gentle and assure that person that your love is real, but that you will never think of them as an object, obligated to make you complete and happy. Encourage them to swim in this pool of unconditional love, until their own fears and tensions dissolve.

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Anthony Jacquin is a hypnotist. Author of ‘Reality is Plastic – The Art of Impromptu Hypnosis’, and teacher of therapy at Jacquin Hypnosis Academy. His primary preoccupation is playing games with his sense-of-being, and watching ‘I’ slip through his fingers whenever he tries to grasp it.

Anthony Jacquin Training – www.jacquinhypnosisacademy.com
Newsletter – jacquin.substack.com
Instagram @hhaddict
Clubhouse @anthonyjacquin

How can an individual (a HSP especially) transition from their usual self to a more assertive self like this? I believe it can get pretty challenging to put this into action?

Twice a day Reiki practice would be essential, to be able to develop the kind of self-awareness to make this kind of shift. I don’t know why or how, but a strong Reiki practice makes inner shifts significantly easier, many times simple realising something can bring about a transformation, with zero effort.

What worked for me (I don’t like labels at all, but I’m an HSP and empath) was watching a friend who had really clear, healthy boundaries. When in trouble, I’d ask myself ‘what would she do?’. You don’t need to have to watch a friend, because I can share the critical part, what happened next.

Heal your anger. I started to realise that I couldn’t act reasonably because of the anger I experienced inside. When people violated me, I got offended, angry and my natural response to anger was to shut down, be quiet, agree, say yes. That always got me into a lot of trouble. So I started working on that anger one step at a time. The day I was able to just see a person trying to have their needs met instead of someone who wanted to violate me, my responses became a lot healthier.

‘I’ll get back to you’. Another big one that helped was this – a family member told me to make it a habit to say ‘I’ll think about it’. He told me to just make it my internal programming when I was supposed to make a decision. ‘I’ll think about it, or I’ll get back to you in a bit’ – even if that bit is 5 minutes. When you take a breather and a pause, usually you come back to your senses, slip out of the freeze mode and you are able to respond much better. Over time you then become equipped more and more to respond more honestly in the moment too.

Get comfortable being a bitch. HSPs and empaths are frequently addicted to the identity of being a ‘nice person’, and this is a big obstacle. You cannot be nice all the time. There are (abusive) people who will push you and leave you with only two choices in the end – to be rude or to do what they’re demanding. In these cases if we’re enslaved to being ‘nice’, we’re enslaved to that person. We need to get comfortable with being a bitch. This is also dangerous advice to take literally as it can be used as an excuse to abuse people. Usually it is a more internal state than an external one, because there’s almost always a way to convey your message in a civilised manner.

I was probably 6 or 7 when my parents first told me that I would never ‘really’ die. I thought about it for months.

Have you ever been part of a group?
Have you watched how the group has a life, a mind of its own, that feels like an individual identity?
Who are you without the group?
Do you live on, do you continue to have a life and a mind of your own when the group ‘dies’?

Have you realised that a human being is an ecosystem?
We consist of trillions of cells and bacteria. To imagine that we are an ‘individual’ is erroneous.

The consciousness of the food we eat, the person who cooks our food, the people we spend our time with, the memories of and relationship between the cells within our body all affect our ‘life and minds’. We are a group identity. When we die, that group dies.

But the cells don’t.
A part of you is unperishable even by fire and decay. You live on forever. Just not as a ‘group’ anymore, but as a trillion separate pieces that have a life and a mind of their own. 

I’ve been on the spiritual pathway nearly all my life. And if there’s one thing the pathway shows you, it is the beauty of existence. So, this article has been a very hard one to write, but probably the message of it an even harder one to learn, it took me decades.

There are so many layers to existence, and we tend to confuse them. On one level, everything is one, and there is no good and bad. Everything is part of the same whole. And if this is where you’re at – if this is your true reality and you respond to pain the exact same way you react to pleasure, you can stop reading right here.

There is no good and bad, I do believe this, on some level I experience it too. But we also do live in a dual world. Imagine you like apples. Just imagine the joy of biting into a fresh, juicy, crunchy apple. If you now started to believe that all apples are the same, they are equally glorious, and equally enjoyable, would that be true? Would you treat a fresh apple and a rotten apple the same? Why then do we try to do this with people?

If ‘good’ people exist, then ‘bad’ people exist too. If good intentions exist, then bad intentions exist too. If people reach out and help each other, people also go out of their way to hurt others. Both sides exist – partially in the same person as parts of one personality, but also outside, there are people who will go out of their way to try not to hurt others, hurting themselves in the process. And there ARE people who will do anything for selfish gains, even if it meant others would get hurt. And there are also people who will hurt others simply for the fun of it. Undoubtedly, all of us hurt other people. But some feel bad about hurting others, while others – if they feel bad at all, feel bad because it made them look bad, or feel like a bad person.

And not only did it take me many decades to come to terms with it, but when I finally did, I realised that I had always known, deep inside. I’ve been called naive, the sort of person who only saw the good in people, I firmly believed that everyone was good deep inside and what made them ‘bad’ was the trauma they went through. It is an easy trap to fall into when you do a lot of self-work and see the wounds behind your own misdeeds.

But no, it is not trauma that separates the good and the bad. There are people who have been through the worst hell and yet emerge like butterflies, bringing joy to the world; their blood if anything, stains their wings and adds to their beauty. And there are people who use their pain as an excuse to hurt other people. They exist. And until we acknowledge that, we have no way of protecting ourselves against them.

When I woke up one day to the truth of this, I realised that I had always known, deep down, always identified the people who were comfortable hurting people and carried no remorse for this, but I let them in anyway, because I judged myself for seeing what I saw in them. ‘There are no bad people, it’s just their pain‘. No. It’s not. We feel like less spiritual people if we simply call out evil for what it is, but the real spiritual approach would be to see it for what it is, without judging or hating it. Refusing to acknowledge their existence is blindness.

What I didn’t expect was that this reflection allowed me to trust more in people who genuinely cared about me. Ignoring our gut feeling about people works against us in both ways – we trust people we shouldn’t trust, and we don’t trust enough the people we should. Ultimately in relationships, there is always scope for being wounded, but when we open our eyes, we can steer away from those who approach with negative intentions.

Of course, straight away jumping into the ‘I am a good person’ belief is also silly. Maybe what will help is taking a deep, sincere look at our own feelings and coming to terms with what lies inside. If we judge the bad behaviors or people, then we cannot identify those within ourselves and heal or transmute them either. We all have certain percentages of everything, but also we all do fit into categories too.

So, How do we deal with this then?

OK, so assuming you agree, and then proceed to run into someone who is clearly comfortable hurting other people, I believe the seeing of it itself allows us to create distance, the rest often happens on its own.

Generally speaking, I’ve learned that it is risky to associate with them, because many times they can make themselves extremely useful (or trigger us in other ways where we are drawn to win their approval to reinforce our identity), so the temptation of taking their help can over-power our warning bells, we tend to push that aside thinking ‘oh but they’re nice to me’. It’s a trap.

Practicing consciously choosing our emotional safety above all else really helps over time, to prioritize people in our lives that sincerely contribute to our well-being.

Sometimes the spiritual pathway can become one of beauty, glory and the mystical…. and nothing else. The unpleasant – and critical aspect of self-work is identifying and integrating those parts of ourselves which we don’t want to acknowledge or admit – even to ourselves.

What is this Shadow?

Growing up, certain aspects of our personality were shamed or beaten into hiding. These can be positive or negative qualities, but somewhere, subconsciously we learned that if we were to express these parts of ourselves, we will not be loved, accepted or cared for. Over time we judge these aspects in ourselves and others too, and depending on whether these are positive or negative qualities, either we come to worship these aspects in others, or despise and look down upon them.

In either case, these are abandoned aspects of ourselves, and the hardest to identify and re-integrate since we are blind to these sides of us.

Can my Shadow Hurt Me?

It always does. The aspects of you which are suppressed are always trying to come to the surface and grab your attention because deep down, you want to be whole and want to be loved for exactly who you are, warts and all.

So the shadow shows up in various ways. Either it can manifest as irrational, abusive behaviour on your part as you try to control life and situations so that your shadow remains hidden, it can manifest as addictions if this goes too far, and it also manifests as repetitive patterns in our life, where we attract over and over people who reflect our hidden aspects.

For example a person who ‘never gets angry’ might repeatedly attract friends or lovers with anger problems – here anger is the shadow and the person would need to get in touch with her own anger in order for this to heal and stop. Someone who keeps getting rejected and abandoned by loved ones over and over would need to delve deep within and face their own tendency to reject others on an emotional or energetic level.

Will I become ‘bad’ if I embrace my shadow?

One of the most common fears that come up in shadow work is ‘will I be comfortable with being a bad person?’. If I embrace my anger, will I be comfortable with shouting at people? If I embrace my desire to hurt people, will I be comfortable hurting others?

No, on the contrary, shadow work brings our darkness into the light and these tendencies lose their grip over us. When we work on ourselves properly and integrate these aspects, we can transmute them into strength and learn to channelise these aspects so that they work in our favour rather than against us.

Is it hard?

If you’ve never done shadow work before, it can certainly seem hard in the beginning. After all, most people don’t enjoy finding out that they’re two-faced, judgmental, mean, or other horrible things. Over time however, we start to see the benefit of bringing these aspects into our awareness and this work becomes exciting rather than scary because we are fully aware of the light this brings into our lives.

What do I gain through Shadow Work?

Healing and embracing our shadow shifts a lot of things around in our lives. For starters, relationships improve because healing the shadow lifts the veil from over our eyes and we can communicate more clearly and see and hear them for what they are in that moment instead of perceiving them through the filters of our past experiences. This clarity of perception also improves creativity and problem resolution skills. The continuous inner struggle to keep the shadow hidden takes up a lot of our energy, so dropping that leads to better energy and health as well.

How Do I Begin?

The most essential requirement for great inner work is the capacity to see non-judgmentally. For this I strongly recommend starting with Deep Listening.

Once we are able to see more clearly, we start slowly becoming more and more aware of our own inner motivations behind actions or inaction. This awareness slowly starts to shift the direction of our lives.

As we go deeper, we can start using the world as a mirror. We start realising that every single thing that upsets us about the world is nothing but a reflection of our own shadow. This however, is difficult for a beginner as the idea simply sounds ridiculous because one’s vision is still blurred and foggy. Once we’re at the point where this actually makes sense on a deep, fundamental level, then the work becomes much faster and easier.

This past year has been interesting. I reached a point where I felt like I didn’t have a clue what love was. After having been in a few long term relationships, that was just strange, but I felt like I didn’t have a clue. And I soon discovered that some of the most remarkable, open hearted women in my life were feeling the same way. ‘What is love?’ we kept asking each other, only able to rest in the comfort that it was OK to not know, and we weren’t alone in having all our ideas of love shattered.

And I know it is a definition that keeps changing, evolving. But it has been a journey of great discovery and I put it here hoping that it can help someone else in the world find deeper love too.

There is SO much we confuse love with. We confuse addiction with love, we confuse obligation or responsibility with love, we confuse financial security or sexual attraction with love, we confuse longevity (in relationships) with love, we confuse drama with love. And most importantly, we confuse relationships with love. Katherine Woodward Thomas lovingly said one of the most profound statements to have ever fallen on my ears –

Love is unconditional. Relationships are not.

One thing I do know about LOVE is that it is freeing, liberating and expansive. When you love someone, their presence – even if you speak once in a few years, makes you a better version of yourself. In powerful relationships this is even more obvious. Your health improves around them, you feel emotionally healthier, and you might work better, think better, live better. So that’s a big one to look for – after getting into a relationship, or around a certain person, are you a better version of yourself? Failing health, gaining/ losing weight in a bad way, or losing focus in work are all signs that something is amiss.

The second thing I’ve noticed is that in loving relationships, giving is effortless. I’ve never heard statements like ‘I do so much for you’ in loving relationships. You naturally want to do things for the other person – because doing those things make you happy. So even when you get nothing in return, it doesn’t hurt at all, since you already got the return on your ‘investment’ in the joy of doing what you did.

This is not an idealistic statement – I’ve very much seen it in action in my own as well as many other lives. Yes, sometimes there can be phases where responsibilities are extreme and the sharing of burden is not equal, creating anger and fighting, but it is still not going to create a feeling of not getting enough in return.

Love vs Abuse

It has taken me many, many years to learn that when there is love, you know.

SO many of us get into relationships where there’s attraction but no love, and then we spend months, sometimes years, stuck in relationships where nothing we do is ever enough. It’s a couple where every fight is about ‘I do this and this for you, and you do nothing for me’, it is years of trying to meet the expectations of the other person, trying to be good enough for them, trying to make them happy.

When the real problem has always been, you’ve been seeking proof of love because you know deep inside that there is none. You can go years without any proof sometimes, but when there is love, you know. You can be hurt by a person, you can be betrayed, you can be hated for a while, but when there is love, you just know.

I know from experience that there are very few things more devastating than realising that a relationship – especially a long term one, is loveless. But it is an understanding that is worth inculcating, because it allows you the space to open up to really loving, and to really being loved.

I find it fascinating, because where there is love, there can sometimes be cognitive dissonance along the lines of – ‘he clearly doesn’t love me, or he would have done this or that’ and it is confusing because you still feel loved even though you don’t see proof. In abusive relationships you’re confused and lost at why the other person – as they often claim – does so much for you and yet it is never enough.

The price to pay for a loving relationship is never too high, and you’d gladly go through all the pain for them all over again if you need to. Abusive relationships tire you out, being in the relationship overall is painful (the frequency of the ‘highs’ reduces over time) and it slowly sucks the life out of you, leaving lesser and lesser energy for other areas of your life. It’s a constant struggle, and you cannot figure out what you need to do more in order to make the relationship fulfilling.

Love vs Addiction

What IS love? To me it is this underlying thing that makes pain in a relationship worthwhile. It’s a little different from addiction though, where people confuse relief, or the high (between cycles of abuse) as love or bliss. There can be layers and layers of damaging patterns that need to be healed before people can rest in truly loving, so even when there is love, the journey is not necessarily easy.

There’s a powerful connect between two people even in addiction though and this can easily be confused with love, because this kind of ‘love’ is very blinding, since people use addictions – in relationships as well as in life – to essentially run away from their unpleasant inner reality. The other person through the pain they expose you to, helps you distract yourself from this unpleasant inner reality, which is why the addiction is so great.

A telling difference would be that in addiction, one allows for persistent violation to happen and both people are not rooted in their personal power. In love, there is no waiting for the other person to change, you love them as they are.

Love Vs. Relationships

Love enriches, regardless of the direction the relationship itself takes, because love just is. Relationships are expectation. In the total absence of expectation, like in platonic relationships, love can be a lot more free sometimes. The most powerful experience in my own life was when a friend looked deeply into my eyes as we said goodbye, with so much love that I cried the whole way to the airport and wrote a poem while still weeping.

One can have life long, love-less relationships – most people do, and one can learn to co-exist without much distress. One can be stuck in abusive, love-less relationships. One can have long-lasting, deeply loving relationships, and one can also have short-term deeply loving relationships that cannot last for a variety of practical or emotional reasons. Ultimately the harmony of a relationship depends on the maturity of both people. The depth of it depends on the love. The longevity is a matter of fate, and in case of unhappy relationships, possibly a lack of courage.

The Foundation

While love itself can be there, underlying the external drama in a relationship, to be able to co-exist peacefully in a loving relationship, one needs the foundation of powerful self-love. Learning to listen deeply, learning to self-soothe, stand in our own power and draw healthy boundaries, all form the foundation for a strong, balanced relationship. When this combines with a deep love for each other, it then becomes very powerful and empowers both people.

Love is Quiet

Except for a few highs in a romantic relationship, love is mostly quiet, almost like a substratum lying beneath the surface of our emotions. Without drama, the highs and lows disappear and with drama, this love can remain hidden. This can also cause people to walk away from actually loving relationships and into abusive ones because abuse offers a lot more excitement.

Love Goes Both Ways

Now, this is admittedly arguable and I speak from my own experience here. However, I am yet to come across one-sided love. If it is one-sided, it is usually not love at all. It can be lust, it can be addiction, it can be a lot of things. But not love.

People can also sometimes choose other things over love, since sometimes patterns of addiction and abuse can be too heavy for a person to actually break free and choose love over fear, but the love is still, undeniably there. There may be a lack of commitment, interest or acknowledgement, but the love will still be there, underneath everything.

So if you’re in a relationship thinking ‘wow, I never actually felt loved’… look carefully. Chances are that you never loved, either. It’s a hard one to digest, but it also sets you free. Some connections just are.