Episode 7: ARE YOU STRUGGLING? Let’s do some DEEP THERAPY!

Music: 0:15

I won’t be afraid of the shadows in the dark. They will lead the way to the hidden pathways of the void, To one secret place. That is where I find my start.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:31

Welcome to the Shadow and the Light podcast with internationally renowned meditation teacher, davidji.

davidji: 0:38

And heart healer and psychotherapist Elizabeth Winkler, as we guide you through our unique fusion of ancient wisdom and modern psychology.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:47

Get ready to awaken your true essence, heal your wounds and transform your shadow into.

Elizabeth Winkler: 1:19

Hey, davidji.

davidji: 1:20

Oh, hello there, Elizabeth. So great to be here with you and welcome everyone to another episode of the Shadow and the Light, and that’s us. We’re here to dive deep into all sorts of different conversations that might touch you, awaken you, poke you, trigger you, heal you and guide you to the memory of your wholeness, so you can make better decisions and so you can truly step into your power and own your impact. Before you joined us here, we were talking about we were talking about stagnancy.

davidji: 1:55

Stagnancy. What a concept. Anybody ever been in a rut?

Elizabeth Winkler: 1:59

Or feel stuck.

davidji: 2:01

Or find that you’ve plateaued in some aspect of your life.

Elizabeth Winkler: 2:05

Feeling like you’re in Groundhog Day. I heard that a lot during COVID. We’re way beyond that now, but there may be areas of your life that you feel like you’re not growing or flowing and you feel a bit stagnant. So we’ve talked a lot about denial and bringing light to the things that we aren’t. Well, it’s hard to know what you’re not conscious of if you’re in denial of it, right? So maybe this conversation is an invitation for you to become more conscious of something that you’ve been holding on to that you didn’t know was holding you back.

Elizabeth Winkler: 2:40

So I have this story that I often offer to my clients, the metaphor of the story that I offer to people walking and they come upon a river and they need to cross this river and they’re on a journey to this mountain. But there’s a river they need to cross. There’s two canoes, so they each take their canoe across the river and they are done crossing the river and then they’re going to go through this field to the mountain. One of them takes the canoe on their shoulders, the other one puts their canoe down and the person is holding on to their canoe because it was really helpful and they’re clinging to it, thinking that they may still need it. The other person has let it go. So what I often say to people is has this practice in your life, or anything that you’ve been working with, become a canoe? Is it a canoe? So what are the canoes?

davidji: 3:29

It’s so unfair of you because I’m a hoarder and so this is so perfect for me. Do you know how many canoes I have in the parking lot? Do you have any canoes I have strapped to the roof of my car? Tell me. I don’t even know how you’re sitting here with me, because I have my canoe under this table and I think it’s impacting the sound board. Oh my, yeah, oh my Again.

davidji: 3:54

As we said before, how you do one thing is how you do so many things in your life, and I think that even if you say no, I don’t really have any other canoes that I’m hauling around suddenly you may realize there may be some aspect of my life it may even just be conceptual where this is a piece of my past baggage that I’m bringing with me into this moment. This is not just something like oh, probably not a bad idea to have my phone charger with me because my phone may run out of juice. We can take this to an extreme. But how many different components of my past and my relationships do I have mini canoes and maybe speed dials to canoes. It’s not even just the canoe, but can I get a little access to the canoe if nobody’s looking so the speed dial to the speed dial of the canoe, and then the larger question that I would ask you not just to justify, explain, defend or insist. Not to Jedi my response but is it so bad to have a, perhaps an extra canoe hanging out?

Elizabeth Winkler: 5:03

Nothing is better good, it’s just limiting potentially. So the way I look at it, this doesn’t have to be negative, positive anything. I remember I used to have a meditation practice that became a canoe for me. I was incredibly rigid about how I did my particular practice. I did this same practice every single morning and after a year of doing it I was very my ego was very proud of it.

davidji: 5:29

Right, so did you start into question that. Did you tell other people too? Was this like a badge of honor or just an internal no?

Elizabeth Winkler: 5:36

it was within myself and I started to notice and I was okay, this is becoming something else, this is becoming dogmatic and it’s limiting. I knew it was limiting me and so I just let it go and I said I’m just, I’m gonna try something else. That was one experience for me, but often we could throw that away and be like, oh, I can’t ever do that practice again. That’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s like saying a teacher that you once learned from is no longer good because you had a bad experience with them. No, they brought you something. You learned something. You don’t throw the whole thing away. The canoe was useful. That’s why I talk about it as a canoe. It got you across the river, but you don’t necessarily need it anymore. You’re going through a field and you’re gonna climb a mountain. It’s just gonna kind of hold you back, it’s gonna limit you. You can’t move beyond where you were.

davidji: 6:20

I’m finding myself making excuses. But what if suddenly it started to snow? I just watched the gray with the Liam Neeson, and what if we needed some kindling and to make a fire because we were gonna be so cold, and so thank God I had my canoe to break it up and burn it. But I say this, elizabeth, because that has been ways that I have rationalized so many things in my life. What’s the reason for this?

davidji: 6:50

I think I mentioned to you when I originally came to California a bunch of years ago. I had over 700 boxes of stuff Poetry from when I was in college, pictures of my dead mother, notebooks and all my diaries and journals, and I was a Franklin Day timer person. So I had every single schedule, but only for 20 years, every single day of all those things that I have on and on. When I first met Summer, I said Summer, oh, by the way, I’ve never deleted an email in my entire life. In fact, every time my emails got too full, in whatever job I had, I asked the tech person to please download all the emails and put them on a drive for me. And so I have the drives of every email that I’ve ever had in every job that I’ve ever had in my entire life. Summer worked with me because she’s no Marie Kondo.

davidji: 7:47

Summer was said to me. I think you could let this one go, that email that you’ve been saving for three years, you could delete it. And so she worked with me. You’re looking at me right now with this giant grin on your face, summer. Yeah, it was a very long and slow process and I do that. Now I do delete and I’m down from my 700 boxes to about 300. Now that’s 400. Letting goes that I’ve done page by page, book by book, journal by journal. I did ultimately part with all my Franklin Day timers and I let go of some really old technology where emails from 20 years ago were stored on. It was a process and I needed to feel safe in it and I really needed to have real reassurances that it was okay to let go of the canoe by someone who had let go of the canoe and had a really positive response from it.

Elizabeth Winkler: 8:41

Well, it just makes me think of trust. When you asked about what if I need the wood Trust, that’s what you always say to me.

davidji: 8:54

Trust the process, trust life or fear, because I know I’m hanging out with you and I have the canoe In case you couldn’t. Don’t worry, I got the canoe. I’m schlepping that canoe for both of us.

Elizabeth Winkler: 9:06

Right, but so when did this begin? Let’s do a little therapy. When did this begin, this, holding on to things?

davidji: 9:12

Well, I could certainly say oh, obviously, this began the day my mother died.

Elizabeth Winkler: 9:18

Well, is that true? That might not be true. May have started when you were five, who knows.

davidji: 9:21

Oh, I can never even go back, who knows.

Elizabeth Winkler: 9:24

When do you first remember holding on to things?

davidji: 9:26

I think it’s a falsely embedded memory that everything began when my mother died.

Elizabeth Winkler: 9:31

Okay, so when do you remember being?

davidji: 9:33

Or you know what, maybe before that, when my first girlfriend broke up with me.

davidji: 9:38

So, it’s a loss. Oh, I’m sure this is purely a abandonment or loss that I’m overcompensating for and have been for my entire life, but I’ve had some reinforcement of that. I remember I was like I’m gonna let go of everything and I called up my sister and I said listen, I’m going through a box and it’s got pictures of you and me as little kids, and can I let go of that? And she was like I don’t care, of course you, can I go. Do you have these hoarded in your past? She said no, I’ve thrown all those away. I said, well then, there’s no record. I must keep them. Since you threw them away. I need to do that with you. That’s a really powerful and important component. But she gave me permission. She said you could throw out anything that you want that has my name. I said you sent me letters when I was really young. What about those? You could throw them all away. So she gave me permission. We went item by item throughout our entire life because we’ve never really lived in the same place. But she gave me permission to do all this stuff in part with it and I was like okay, and I got so enthusiastic and so excited.

davidji: 10:39

I opened up my first box and it’s oh, it’s a letter from my sister in the garbage. And then you pick up the next thing and it’s, oh, my sister’s high school yearbook in the garbage. And I go, maybe I just take out a whole bunch of these, I don’t even have to look at them anymore. And so I pick up a giant stack of five things, maybe five inches high, and I throw it in the garbage. And I look down in the box and it’s a picture of my mother and I’m like, oh my god, maybe I just threw out a whole bunch of pictures of my mother and she’s been dead all these years and I don’t have a lot of pictures of her.

davidji: 11:10

I don’t even remember her voice. I don’t have any videos of her. I conjure up her voice, it’s probably not even her voice. And so suddenly this massive loss, abandonment, all that stuff. Then I dove back into that dumpster, picked up those five inches of things that I went through and went page by page and of course nothing else was in there. But I was like, oh, I could never go stacks at a time. I have to go slice of paper by slice of paper, for fear what if I throw out another photo of my mother, and if you do, it would be okay.

Elizabeth Winkler: 11:43

Perhaps it would be okay. Perhaps, Because I think the fear of holding on could be holding you back more than allowing you to release and experience that grief, potentially, that is being held in those things you’re holding on to, potentially.

davidji: 12:06

Yes, perhaps that’s true. I remember in one of my books. It’s always a quote that I think of when I hear sentiments like what you were just saying. It’s a quote by Anayis Nin, and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. But I’m not there yet. As long as I have a place to hoard all my boxes, I’m not really suffering with that pain, but it wreaks havoc in all other aspects of my life because it’s always filling up space and we can never accept new things when we’re filling up space.

Elizabeth Winkler: 12:46

Well, I’m not you, so I don’t understand your experience, but we did both lose our mothers at the exact same age of 19. And so we do have that shared experience of losing our mothers at the same time. And my biggest healing was I didn’t know it was going to be this, but it was the healing of my heart around my mother’s loss which was working with the dream which we talked about in a previous episode. But really it was like a back door. I was working with this fear image so you could use your boxes, which is where it’s trapped for you, potentially. Right, I don’t want to name that for you, but these boxes, what you’re hoarding, could be that thing and you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to burn them. You could do it in a meditation. That could be a meditation. That’s what I did.

Elizabeth Winkler: 13:35

I went into a meditative state and I invited the rat, which was the feared energy, and I allowed the rats in and they bit me and licked me All these things you would not want rats to do. But I was stayed in a relaxed state, a meditative state, and by just being with I can be with this. It’s okay, everything’s fine. So you could just imagine all of that burning or whatever, and see what happens in your body. What happens? The body doesn’t know anything, a difference between imagined or reality. Well, what happened inside of me was all that fear turned to white light in the hole I felt in my heart that I was very aware of cleared, and it’s never been there again. And that’s when I changed everything about the work I do. That’s when I called Mindfulness the Bullet Turn your Freedom, because it was the energy that it activated inside. So if it doesn’t feel safe to do it in your reality of Well, it has spread into so many other aspects.

davidji: 14:37

I have every book that I’ve ever bought, so I’ve got boxes of thousands of books. I’m also a vinyl record collector. I also have tons of CDs. I don’t have any ATRAC, so at least I’ve at least some level of orchestrates. A thin line between hoarder and collector in my world, but it’s distinct and as someone who emotionally allows things to pour in and pour back out, I’m very receptive and empathetic to energy from people, but hard, tangible things.

Elizabeth Winkler: 15:16

Taurus.

davidji: 15:17

Isn’t that interesting earth sign? Is that why it’s an earthy thing? Yeah, as Omar Little in the Wired would say, do tell.

Elizabeth Winkler: 15:27

Taurus energy is earth energy holding on to things. I’m a Taurus rising Taurus is earth, so it’s all about more solidity, material things. So it’d be interesting to know where your moon is as well. I understand some of this because I have some of what you’re talking about. My moon is in the second house, which is about, like, personal, material things, so I get that, but I guess I would do an inquiry around it. What is this all represent? What is holding on to Well, because it’s so distinctly different, physically and emotionally, emotionally.

davidji: 16:06

you throw shade on me. I can let that in, breathe it in, have it ripple through every fiber of my being and release it.

Elizabeth Winkler: 16:14

But it sounds emotional.

davidji: 16:15

And I’m not there at all Yet. Give me a box full of potential things that might be from my past.

Elizabeth Winkler: 16:23

But isn’t that emotional? Sounds like it’s emotional.

davidji: 16:27

As Dr David Simon would say, 90% of your physical toxicity is emotionally derived. The fact that I have all these things that I’ve written down and what you can’t see right now, as I’m holding up all my molluscene journals. But if I didn’t have them then they wouldn’t be sparking me with great ideas for our time together.

Elizabeth Winkler: 16:50

Well, maybe not.

davidji: 16:53

So maybe not.

Elizabeth Winkler: 16:54

Maybe not, and I do think. I would just question if it’s the emotional, this emotional clarity or flow. We’re talking about stagnancy and flow. You say you feel that flow in your emotional life. If you have that in your emotional life, if you can do it in one place, you can do it any place. So if you feel like you can allow this emotional stuff to come in and go, well, then why can’t you bring it there? Yeah, yeah, it’s fascinating, well, but I just think it’s a shadow for you.

davidji: 17:28

I think it’s maybe a, of course, and you’re my light in this particular shadow.

Elizabeth Winkler: 17:32

So what are you willing to maybe commit to?

davidji: 17:36

I’ll throw this away before.

Elizabeth Winkler: 17:38

He’s throwing up. He’s holding up a napkin that was in his pocket. This is not a big stretch.

davidji: 17:45

It’s a start. Come on, it’s the beginning, bean by bean. There are days where I have, when I’ve gone through these deep things, where I’m in cleansing mode and I’m pouring through boxes I didn’t let go of half a box a day. There were weeks where I just dedicated myself to let me just release everything in here. And again, it’s not just that picture of my mother. I think I’m using that as an excuse, because that’s like a very understandable, oh, abandonment, complex type of thing. They’re all canoes, elizabeth. They’re all canoes as I think about them. It’s. I need this because this could happen or this might happen, and I have a very clear understanding that the canoes that I carry, I may require them to be bonfires at some point.

Elizabeth Winkler: 18:33

They’re creating one.

davidji: 18:35

There’s a big bonfire ready to happen.

Elizabeth Winkler: 18:37

So there’s a. You’re making me think of a quote. That’s one of my favorite quotes Without worry, we arrive at the same place just more pleasantly. You could say about without worry, because a canoe is kind of like a worry. Oh, this could happen. This could happen without worry. We arrive at the same places just more pleasantly. We’re talking about anxiety, we’re talking about worry, we’re talking about fear.

Elizabeth Winkler: 19:02

That’s what it is, and you very clearly have said to me many times two choices. What are they again? Fear and trust. You’ve always said fear or trust.

davidji: 19:14

Why do you fear? Because you do not trust.

Elizabeth Winkler: 19:17

Yes, and fear is what Resistance. So what are you resisting?

davidji: 19:23

My definition of fear has always been false evidence appearing real, until I met Elizabeth Winkler, and her definition is friend existing as resistance.

Elizabeth Winkler: 19:35

Right. So it’s a friend letting us know that we’re resisting something. So these boxes are holding their friendly reminders that there’s maybe some resistance. We know on the other side of resistance is freedom. So fear is not something to run away from. It’s actually a doorway to your freedom. So however you want to navigate, that’s your personal choice. Every one of us has canoes.

davidji: 20:02

I feel so unproductive now just sitting here talking to you when we could be clearing out boxes.

Elizabeth Winkler: 20:08

We are. They’re in your mind, they’re in your heart. I would recommend a meditation.

davidji: 20:12

And if you’re listening right now, do this process with me. Go through this meditation with me and allow yourself to have some healing as well.

Elizabeth Winkler: 20:22

Doing a meditation of this, of imagining that entire. This might be going in the deep end, but I like to go in the deep end. I had the rats just come in and they were like licking and biting. I didn’t control this. This was just what my imagination did and it cleared my entire heart. But what if a torch went to that area that’s holding all those boxes and it just went up in flames? What if that were to happen?

davidji: 20:47

What’s that Japanese poet, the haiku Barnes, burnt down. Now I can see the moon Matsuhide.

Elizabeth Winkler: 20:55

So we don’t know what we can’t see when we’re limited by these things. We don’t know what the canoe is holding back when we’re putting all of this attention on keeping it steady on our shoulder and it’s breaking our back and the other person’s walking very gleefully through the field and up the mountain while we’re being held back by this energy, whatever it is. Now we all have these and it’s hard to see them. My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon Masuta Masahide.

davidji: 21:28

Right, nice. Thank you, summer. I’m a hoarder and that’s why I watch hoarders on Netflix, because a helicopter’s not coming to lift my roof off so I can get to the pizza boxes under my bed. So I feel so empowered, right, but I watch hoarders. I’m like, damn, these people are constricted. I’m amazing. Right, I’m amazing as I peer out from behind my boxes. Yes, you’re right, it’s all related. That’s why it’s shadow and light. My boxes are my emotions. My deep breath in is no different than my release of the thing into the dumpster.

Elizabeth Winkler: 22:04

And if anyone’s listening and thinking oh, I can’t relate to this at all. We all are hoarding something. We all are. Yours is a physical box of things, of memories or whatever it may be. We all are holding on to things. When I created that course hate, healing, hate. The first the H is what are you holding on to? We’re all the only reason we’re not enlightened.

davidji: 22:26

Please walk everyone through your hate acronym.

Elizabeth Winkler: 22:30

So hate is related to our own doubt, fear, criticism that we are all holding on to. So the self-hate, the ways in which we judge ourselves or others. So the H is what are you holding on to? Identifying that? What am I holding on to? Finding energy in your body, bringing attention to it? And the A is can I accept this? So, david G, you’re holding on to a lot of boxes. Can you accept that? Are you willing to accept and feel in your body the energy that you’re holding on to? That’s related to that? Can you accept this? Yes or no? Yes, okay, we need to always get into a yes or no on that and then trust. Can you trust that this, this energy, whatever it is you’re holding on to, has a path to take in your body, has wisdom?

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:25

Yes, I believe every stat has wisdom, so yes, and so this energy, can you trust that it has a different path, that it knows to take, that it’s not the path that you’ve been holding on to Well?

davidji: 23:36

this would be the classic? Maybe not, but this is where I would ask myself, what if it wasn’t true what I think? Or what if my master plan could perhaps not necessarily be that path?

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:48

Right. So when we move to T, the trust, can you trust that this energy has a path to take? That knows the path? It’s your relinquishing the wheel. We’ve been holding on to the wheel of that energy, saying I know which way for it to go, and we’re saying I’m letting go of the wheel. I trust that this energy knows the path to take to complete itself.

davidji: 24:10

Well, my sister, distinctly, has been able to make that full on trusting of that and not be trapped by that choice.

Elizabeth Winkler: 24:19

So, yes, so I can trust.

davidji: 24:21

I trust.

Elizabeth Winkler: 24:22

Yeah. So the fourth and final E is expand. I give my body, my mind and my heart and this energy permission to expand however it wants, inside or out of my body. You’ve taken the hand of the energy by saying I accept. Then you say I trust you let it take the wheel and then giving permission for it to expand allows the energy to alchemy into something new and fresh and move beyond the ways in which we’ve been running our lives. Yeah, so it’s a step process, it’s a method that you work with internally, meditatively.

davidji: 24:59

Yeah, I receive a lot of gifts and a lot of cards and a lot of crystals and a lot of bracelets and a lot of t-shirts. I’m abundant in all these things, but there are t-shirts that distinctly don’t fit my spelt form anymore, and every time I open my drawers and go there may be a day. One day I would like to certainly lose these 20 pounds and fit back into that. I guess it was like three months ago I started giving myself permission to bring some of my old swag to the Goodwill Big. Oh yeah, summer’s looking at me with her eyes popping out of her head. Yeah, that’s huge. Yeah, so I get it.

Elizabeth Winkler: 25:45

I get it and no buts.

davidji: 25:47

I get it and I need a deeper dive into the causes of my holding on, because it’s not just those boxes.

Elizabeth Winkler: 25:56

Of course it isn’t. When do you remember first not wanting to let something go? What’s your first memory? Just take a moment, close your eyes, remind me, tell me.

davidji: 26:07

It’s early childhood.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:08

Okay. Do you have a picture in your mind? You have a feeling in your body. If you don’t have a picture, that’s okay. You have a feeling, you have a constriction. Close your eyes, check it out. What do you notice?

davidji: 26:22

It’s a childhood thing.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:24

Right, so this is the thing it sounds. I hear your fear that you’re going to implant something and we’re not doing that. You can just go to the physical sensations that you’re feeling in your body, right?

davidji: 26:34

now.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:35

Any tightness, any constriction, any level of fear or anxiety. Just notice, bring your awareness into the torso.

davidji: 26:43

No fear, just comfort in my belly.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:46

Just comfort in your belly.

davidji: 26:47

Describe it as best you can.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:49

If I were to draw it on a piece of paper, bring your awareness to it and just find its color, its shape. Is it smooth, is it rough? Is it three-dimensional, is it flat? Is it moving? Cold, dark light.

davidji: 27:08

Dull pain inside my solar plexus.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:14

Okay, and is it? What shape is?

davidji: 27:16

it, constricting my breath.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:18

Okay, and what is the? If I were to draw it, what shape would it have? What size is it?

davidji: 27:25

Sort of like a deflated, amoeba-like basketball. Okay, smaller, little smaller.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:32

Deflated. Deflated on the front, or just.

davidji: 27:36

Well, it’s not like a round thing, it’s more like an amoeba-esque shape of.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:42

Okay, so, as best you can. This is the first step of the hate, just the H. What am I holding on to? This is the first step of. So can you just bring your attention to it and just fill that with awareness, like you’re bringing breath to it, like you’re giving it light and just saying can I accept that this is here?

davidji: 28:00

Oh yeah.

Elizabeth Winkler: 28:01

I accept that this is here and can you give it attention and love like you would if it were peaches? Just say hello to it.

davidji: 28:09

Oh well, it’s been in my life longer than peaches Recently. I’ve had this canoe for most of my life.

Elizabeth Winkler: 28:16

Okay, so greet it with loving awareness, if you may. So just bringing your loving awareness to it and bringing that breath into it, maybe into places that hasn’t seen breath for a while. Just breathing into it, saying yes, hello, I see you, I hear you, I’m here. And as you do that, does anything happen? Anything may happen, something may. Sometimes these things shift and change, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they just breathe, and sometimes they change or move.

Elizabeth Winkler: 28:55

But just simply saying I accept, I accept, I accept this energy and as you stay with it and accept you can move into, can I trust that this energy has a path to take in my body? Can I trust that this energy has wisdom for me that I may not be aware of? Can you trust that? Can you trust this energy? And as you maybe move into a yes, just saying yes, I trust. It’s like when you it’s been here a long time you took its hand like it was a younger version of you. Maybe I accept your hand and I trust that you know where to go, what to do. I trust, I trust. Let your breath bring more levels of trust into the energy. Just notice as you communicate. I trust, I trust, I trust, I trust, trust. What are you noticing as you communicate? That Sometimes the movement will occur. Changes, different colors, vibration Any changes? davidji.

davidji: 30:30

It’s not its texture, but its makeup was more dense and now it’s arier lighter. From heavy to lighter, from more dense to wispier.

Elizabeth Winkler: 30:56

Like sometimes they spread or thin.

davidji: 31:01

When I said basketball, I was thinking of like a basketball texture, that leathery rubbery, thicker, heavier, but now it’s not that lighter, arier, spacier.

Elizabeth Winkler: 31:21

So now you can just move into. I trust that this energy knows what to do. I trust it has a path, that has its own wisdom, which it can communicate to me now and as I move on and I give it permission to expand however it would like, inside or outside of my body, and I give my body, my mind and heart permission to allow this expansion to happen, however the energy would like. And just permission is key and, as that happens, allowing. Sometimes the energy moves out, sometimes it resides because it needs to inhabit some other place, and all we’re doing is just staying present with this, just kind of watching it, like the weather. What are you noticing?

davidji: 32:38

It’s dissipating.

Elizabeth Winkler: 32:41

Just stay with the dissipation, just watching it. This is the wisdom of the wound. The wound is the way, allowing this energy just to transmute. What are you noticing now in that area?

davidji: 33:10

The red.

Elizabeth Winkler: 33:11

Color red.

davidji: 33:13

Didn’t have a color before. Well, that was very dark, shadowy, maybe dark brown.

Elizabeth Winkler: 33:20

So now it’s red Red. What else do you?

davidji: 33:26

notice it’s not the shape of a deflated basketball, no Sort of, just clouds, different colors of red, being in and out itself, but that consistency now of a cloud.

Elizabeth Winkler: 33:44

So, just accepting and trusting and allowing these things to expand however they would like. You are the sky. These clouds are moving through, moving by. Accept, trust, give permission for them just to continue to do their dance. They know what to do. All you need to do is just be there. Hold space, hold awareness, be the space. What are you noticing?

davidji: 34:23

It’s moved from my solar plexus into my throat.

Elizabeth Winkler: 34:30

Okay, so this often happens, that these energies move into different areas, and if you, we can go to the throat. But let’s just go back to the solar plexus. What’s at the solar plexus? Is it empty and open, or is there anything there?

davidji: 34:46

There’s the residue of some physical pain there, okay, but not that overwhelming blanket of congestion that was there.

Elizabeth Winkler: 35:01

So we can stay with the residue if you would like, or we can move to the throat. It’s your choice.

davidji: 35:11

Let’s go to the throat, okay.

Elizabeth Winkler: 35:14

Go there. What do you notice there?

davidji: 35:21

It’s being released with each exhale. My inhale fills it, but sky filled with smoke, with the breeze coming in and dissipating it, lessening it, lightening it, cleansing it, but it’s dependent upon the exiles.

Elizabeth Winkler: 35:46

Maybe not Just give permission for the energy to expand, accept and trust and expand that I have nothing I need to do. It knows what to do. I don’t have to do anything, just be here. Just be here.

davidji: 36:04

Colors changing from yellow to green.

Elizabeth Winkler: 36:07

In the throat. So just be a witness. Just be a witness to the color change. It’s kind of like you’re. You get to discover something new in each moment. Just be a witness. You get to watch a light show or a shadow dance, or whatever it may be. What are you witnessing, what are you noticing, knowing that you have nothing to do but to watch and allow?

davidji: 36:36

Yeah, yellowish, green and just the lightest aspects wisps of clouds, clouds doesn’t really describe it. It’s sort of like, after there’s been like a whole bunch of fireworks, sky’s filled and then, just as you watch it just.

Elizabeth Winkler: 37:06

So trust, whatever’s releasing, whatever’s passing through, it’s all just part of the dance, part of this purification process. We don’t need to understand it. The wisdom is within. All the best thing we can do is get out of the way. We do that by accepting and trusting in the reality, just saying yes. Just say yes A gentle. Yes, not an authoritative. Yes A gentle, yes, pretty sure. I don’t have a clue. Exactly what are you noticing now?

davidji: 37:47

Lightness in my body, in my belly, in my torso, in my chest. My throat’s a little sore from this releasing.

Elizabeth Winkler: 38:02

So you might just, if you would like you can drop in to. I’m open and available to any wisdom that this energy wants to gift. I’m open to the wisdom of this wound. It may not rise in this moment. You may get a word, you may not, but as you move into the rest of your day and evening, when you invite that, you often are gifted with lots of messages In your dreams, through songs, in lots of different ways. Just awareness, anything else you want to share.

davidji: 38:39

I am open to the wisdom Good.

Elizabeth Winkler: 38:44

How’s your solar plexus now?

davidji: 38:47

Great.

Elizabeth Winkler: 38:47

Really Okay. So now you can go back to that original thing we were working with and we can see how the wound is away and this shadow is such a wonderful teacher and that fear is a friend, existing as resistance, because it was a friend saying, hey, come hang out with me, I know the way. Just come, take my hand, accept trust and expand, so honoring that within you and others Break, okay, take your time to stay with that, or, when you’re ready, to come back into their eyes, open, if you like, how those boxes feeling lighter.

davidji: 39:45

What boxes?

Elizabeth Winkler: 39:49

We’ll go have a bonfire later.

davidji: 39:52

Wow, hopefully you had a similar catharsis to mine, and this is why it’s so important to have a guide, because, of course, all this work can be done on your own, but to have a guide allowed me to really fully surrender and having you as my trusted guide.

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:14

No.

davidji: 40:15

Yeah.

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:16

My honor.

davidji: 40:16

Feels great. Yeah, feel lighter.

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:19

Good yeah, the shadow and the light.

davidji: 40:26

Join us on our next podcast, the lightness and the heavy.

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:32

Thank you for sharing your inner explorations Wow.

davidji: 40:35

Yeah, how long was that?

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:37

40 minutes.

davidji: 40:38

Wow.

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:38

Yeah, but that’s important.

davidji: 40:40

Well, I think that, had you rushed it, I was very aware that I had all the time in the world.

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:46

Well, you had to. You can’t rush that. Yeah. So the canoes. How are you feeling about your canoes?

davidji: 40:51

now. Oh yeah, the canoes, so you ready to put that canoe down.

Elizabeth Winkler: 40:55

A few of them. We just set some down in that.

davidji: 40:58

Oh, we, totally. I don’t want to make it generic. I absolutely put down a few canoes there and it wasn’t that I just put them down. Some canoes still got a couple of canoes, but I really released a bunch of canoes. I no longer believe that I will need to burn them to keep me warm when the snow comes.

Elizabeth Winkler: 41:22

Wow, that’s amazing. What did you come to know to be true?

davidji: 41:28

Nothing.

Elizabeth Winkler: 41:30

What do you mean?

davidji: 41:31

Nothing and everything. That’s really what happened. Suddenly, it was like all right, you should have some canoes, but you don’t need a fleet. So I released the majority of the fleet and I could have figured out well, I could have been in the canoe selling business and that probably would have made it a lot more worthwhile, but no, it was powerful. So if you’ve just joined us for this our longest episode ever on the shadow and the light I would encourage you to listen again, because, whatever your canoe is, Elizabeth Winkler will guide you through a powerful putting it down, setting it down, letting it go or at least giving yourself permission to begin that journey. This is davidji, One canoe lighter and the transformational alchemist, Elizabeth Winkler. Thank you for joining the shadow and the light podcast. We’ll see you on the next episode. In the meantime, put down your canoes.

Music: 43:19

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.