My system now embraces that we have needs, and that some of them are better or only met with others. This no longer discomforts me or strikes fear into my heart, thankfully it has become something beautiful to be experienced, shared, received and celebrated in relating with beloveds and strangers alike. 

What still goes against the grain of some of my parts is neediness – the grasping, stickiness of its energetics and the undercurrent of self degradation that I sense in it. My avoidant protectors feel an instant ickiness at the proximity of such an energy, even more so when the grasping is directed towards my energy or being.

Thankfully I have clarity on what sets these parts off about neediness and how it is distinct from having needs:

First of all having needs does not make a person needy! 

There are many who, conditioned towards hyper-independence, cannot differentiate between having needs and being needy. And unfortunately suppress or deny their needs and don’t allow themselves to ask for support. Though I do not share that perspective and experience anymore I sure know it intimately and viscerally.

There is no weakness or lack in having a need or perceiving another as having needs, it is merely one facet of human expression in the moment. 

Needs are temporary, consistent or recurrent phenomena we all have to dance with in being embodied. They may shift and change, we may go through periods of being in need of more or less support – none of which defines our value or worthiness. The latter are innate and untouched by life experiences to my mystic’s consciousness. 

Neediness, in my current understanding, is a descriptor for an unskillful way someone expresses and attempts to get their needs met. While having a need is about a sensed, felt, experienced reality – it simply is and therefore is neither good nor bad.

We can express and bid for getting our needs met without ever coming close to being/vibrating neediness, in fact verbalizing of needs and requests for support can be incredibly empowered, admirable and magnetic no matter how vulnerable and tender it might feel to us. 

I welcome open communication of needs, wants and desires as it invites me onto an equal playing field of relating, where I get to inquire into my state of being resourced, my openness and willingness and my capacities to meet said needs, wants and desires or make a counter offer of what I can provide or alternatively express what I am not available for. 

That aligns with my vision of sovereign relating amongst equals, which is my explicit preference.

Neediness happens on a playing field of implicit inequality, assigning to the requesting the one-down position and the requested the one-up position. And it does not approach another with a straight-forward expression of a need and/or bid for support but comes at the other indirectly, often with unconscious and manipulative veneers of wanting to share or “give” to the approached. While there is a strong pulling on the energy of the approached, in some cases even an unconscious vampiristic attempt to utilize the other’s energy in balancing out a perceived lack. There are aspects of learned helplessness, victimhood, etc. which are all predicated on the person giving away their power and asking another to give it back to them, which of course is an impossibility.

I feel compassion for the predicament of living with this conditioning and trauma response, there is love in me for the being that meets me from that energy. And yet I will set very clear and unmovable boundaries with my protective parts, make my energy mercurially in-graspable, while being present with them from the detachment of the indifferent self. 

Essentially throwing them back to their own devices where they play hide and seek with themselves. Yet, wherever I am called to support them in facing their true, underlying need and meeting it in more skillful and honest ways, I will gladly be of service. 

I am just not available for the ‘song and dance of delusion’ their pattern creates for them and all who will step into the miasma of this distortion. My awareness, presence and energy are way too precious to me to invest, or waste, them in such a senseless way.

On the other side I love to meet straightforwardness and courageous expressions of needs with as much of a *yes* and support as I can muster. Reminding us that having needs is a natural and beautiful aspect of being human we share. And making a point of expressing and embodying that it is a privilege to be of service to them in this now, in order to see them soar and shine in the next. 

I happily embrace being a channel the universe uses to support another being, joyfully participating in waves of kindness, compassion and love that ripple and flow through our field of consciousness to the benefit and growth of All That Is.

Neediness is something I am no longer willing to engage with, even less so on its distorting playing field.

Photography: ‘Bad Breakup’ via Everett Collection

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“The shadow goes by many familiar names: the disowned self, the lower self, the dark twin or brother in bible and myth, the double, repressed self, alter ego, id. When we come face-to-face with our darker side, we use metaphors to describe these shadow encounters: meeting our demons, wrestling with the devil, descent to the underworld, dark night of the soul, midlife crisis.” 
~ Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow

Ending denial and avoidance of our shadow enhances our health and releases a vast reservoir of our energy which had been invested in suppressing the shadow and distracting ourselves from its existence. Knowing our shadow furthermore clears our perception from the distortions and delusions that arose from our painstaking avoidance of what we subconsciously denied. Shadow work is an indispensable tool of integration and emotional maturation.

“When I talk or write about shadow work I mean the practice and work of making the shadow conscious, confronting and getting to know what we unconsciously keep hidden from ourselves.”
~ Carl Jung

Photography: Black Fever by Flemming Leitorp

The post Definition of Shadow Work appeared first on Venuskind.

Titration includes two things:

1
Titration is the act of slowing down your response, be it emotional or physiological, to a VERY VERY slow pace. You become the director of the pacing of your processing, making it extremely slow, in effect opening up more space for the settling and integration of numerous activation/arousal responses and all associated information coming at you at once. Titration is the skill set that involves managing the speed of processing.

2
Titration is the act of taking only a tiny piece of your response to deal with – a VERY tiny piece – and leaving the rest for another time. You become the director of how much you process at one time. Titration is, therefore, also the skill set that involves managing the amount of content to be processed.

..

Titration / Slowing and Portioning tells the nervous system: “You now have all the time you need to process what happened.”

Slowing and Portioning tells the innermost deeply held emotions: “You now have the time to come out one at a time rather than all at once. I have slowed down enough now for you to go through your natural processing.”

Slowing and Portioning tells the states of shock and paralysis and helplessness: “I will no longer shock you with introducing anything – be it good or bad – too soon when you are not ready yet. I won’t stack shock onto shock anymore. I am here to allow you to unravel tiny bit by tiny bit. I am protecting you because I am competently managing the speed of integration. I promise not to let anyone or anything override your internally generated and essential process of re-integration.”

Slowing and Portioning tells the mind: “The emotions are important. Stop and listen and wait. Listen longer. Make space, make room, make time for the emotions. The body is important. Stop and listen and wait. Listen longer. Make space, make room, make time for the body.”

~ The Art of Healing Trauma, see the whole post here 

Photography: Black by Kenji Aoki

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The all is mind; the universe is mental.

II. Correspondence

As above so below: as below, so above.

III. Vibration

Nothing rests; Everything moves; Everything vibrates.

IV. Polarity

Everything is dual; Everything has poles; Everything has its pair of opposites; Like and unlike are the same; Opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; Extremes meet; All truths, are but half-truths; All paradoxes may be reconciled.

V. Gender

Gender is in everything; Everything has its masculine and feminine principles; Gender manifests on all planes.

VI. Rhythm

Everything flows, out and in; Everything has its tides; All things rise and fall; The pendulum swing manifests in everything; The measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; Rhythm compensates.

VII. Cause & Effect

Every cause has its effect; Every effect has its cause; Everything happens according to law’ Chance is but a name for law not recognized’ There are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the law.

Text: Kybalion, Illustrations: Unknown

The post The Seven Hermetic Principles – Definition appeared first on Venuskind.

More contemporarily, the concept has referred to a psychic manifestation, or thoughtform, occurring when any group shares a common motivation—being made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of the group. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation (as a juridical person or legal entity) and the meme.”

~Wikipedia

“There is an occult concept of the “egregore”,” a term derived from the Greek word for “watcher.” It is used for an immaterial entity that “watches” or presides over some earthly affair or collectivity. The important point is that an egregore is augmented by human belief, ritual, and especially by sacrifice. If it is sufficiently nourished by such energies, the egregore can take on a life of its own and appear to be an independen, personal divinity, with a limited power on behalf of its devotees and an unlimited appetite for further devotion. It is then believed to be an immortal god or goddess, an angel, or a daimon.”

~Joscelyn Godwin, The Golden Thread

“…the home or conduit for a specific psychic intelligenc of a nonhuman nature connecting the invisible dimensions with the material world in which we live.”

~ Mark Stavish, Egregores

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