Mary O’Malley takes us through her concept of the spells that we had imposed on us as we grew into our “ego” bodies- R&D discuss with Mary the anti-dote to the spells and the self talking storytelling that crowds our minds all the day long! Real practical how to info for the stretched and compressed lives we live. And Mindrolling celebrates our 100th Podcast!
Episode Outline:
• Meeting the Immediate Experience (With Heart) – Mary chronicles her early years in coming to the path and highlights a few key individuals as being particularly game changing, including Stephen Levine
• I Put a Spell on You (The Struggling Self) – The clouds of fear, self judgment and abandonment may loom large over our hearts, but we mustn’t forget the beautiful meadow in which we reside – the storm of struggle is not who we are
• Curious Attention – We have the capacity to notice and observe our anxieties, rather than identifying with or being consumed by them. We open to what they have to tell us about our internal development, how we can use them to realize that ‘what is in the way, is the way’
• The Heart – (The Main Brain) – ‘Healing is bringing awareness and mercy into that we have held in judgment and in fear’
• Demon Dealings (The ‘No Way Out Place’) – Tightening down into a state of helpless, hopeless, despair is decidedly crippling, and often demands a level of immediate relief that can seem completely out of reach. When we can bring our attention into the immediate experience, without identifying as the sufferer, we create a small window in which to operate. It starts with a remembering, and a commitment to being here for the experience of life, not getting lost in the storyline about life. We then integrate the heart of compassion, shedding shame and judgment, in an effort to move forward with a spacious and unconditioned awareness
• Condensed Energy – When we can approach our fear with an open heart, we will find that it is just bound up energy. We dialogue with dread, and discover a compromised energetic system that we then integrate into our lives
• Attention – One-pointedness is primary in beginning to work with this process. No meditation practice is too small, a single moment can be an eternal window
• Fear (Food for the Storyteller)
• Trust (The Antidote to Fear) – Fear is the core state of the separate self – faithful awareness is our natural state of being. There is something smarter than you that underlies the natural world – Trust in the dance of your daily life
• How Do We Notice? – Allowing, if only for a moment, the truth that your natural state is free-flowing aliveness – You are life. Become attuned to your own tension, and release it into the natural flow of the world around you – Discomfort is your guide, reveal it for what it is – energy
• Appropriate Suffering – We take on just enough to open us to our deeper being. From discipline to discipleship – we discover a passion to return to our true home
Recommendations:
Books:
Mary’s Book: What’s in the Way Is the Way
– Prince of Ayodhya – Book One: The Ramayana
Photo via Inspire Me Today
