What do Rick Rubin, Seinfeld, David Lynch, Lady Gaga, and Liv Tyler all have in common? Yeah, they all meditate. Yippee! Good for them, you might chime.

Think what you may, but consider how the well-regarded Jungian analyst James Hollis believes that our gift to the world is to return to being who we are. And an excellent way to do this is by ‘sitting’ with yourself.

No, this isn’t sitting at the kitchen table munching on a snack. Nor is it lying on the sofa and scrolling on the iPad. This is sitting and doing jack all. ‘Meditation’ is simply the term we often use to give sitting more color.

When you sit with yourself, things you've resisted may surface. Your awareness sharpens. You can tune in to the nature of reality with more objectivity, clarity, and compassion. When you notice what you notice as a bystander—your identity and labels melt away.

For a moment, it’s just you - naked (not literally unless you’re sitting clothless). There is no external world, no internal landscape, just you being.

Lurking in the Shadows

In the plot that is your life, there are certain scripts you’ve been abiding by. It could be ‘I don’t have or am not enough’. It may be that ‘the universe is giving me a raw deal and not providing for me’. Or maybe it’s ‘I must always be strong and never show weakness’.

But what would happen if the Director of your movie were to hand you a new script? The old one is tossed in the bin and you are directed to try on a new one. Or better yet, what if there was no script? And you had to completely improv - relying on your instincts and intuition?

Whether through shadow work or some other practice that helps you awaken to our outdated patterns, the freedom lies in the conscious choice of how you want to be. Working with clients, we often devise a prompt akin to WWBD (What Would Beyonce Do?) or HWBB (How Would Beyonce Be)? When we take a moment to ponder before we respond, we hold the power, we consciously exercise choice.

Our job is to take responsibility for the crossroads in life we find ourselves in and to become a steward of our unique gifts, to embrace our talents, and indulge unique callings. It’s not to ignore the pitfalls of a transitional phase but to lean right into them. While we may feel overworked, overwhelmed, or overstimulated - Hollis explains the invitation is for us to step out of the maze and the, “Fantasy of fitting in.”

Actions as the Answer

I love this story: ”There were two chefs who alternated shifts at a cafe in New Zealand. When a customer made a modification to the dish they ordered, the one chef always cursed the customer—if we thought the pork benny would taste better with salmon, we woulda called it the f*ckin salmon benny. The other chef would always go, ‘I can do that,’ and then make the best salmon benny you ever had.”

Life is asking you a question, and your actions are the answer. Our job is to heed the call, to see the possibilities.

Borders and Borderline

The philosopher Byung-Chul Han diagnosed what he dubs ’the violence of positivity.’ It derives from, “Overproduction, overachievement, and overcommunication.” We’re so stimulated by the Internet that we paradoxically cannot feel or comprehend much of anything. Even before TikTok, the pre-internet brain already had so many inputs to draw from.

Your feed can oftentimes deliver a dope dose of dopamine which feels so good, but then you need another, and another. In many ways the web is bipolar: you aren’t sure if what you see will resonate or devastate. Each time you indulge it’s like rolling the dice in Vegas. And there are a limited amount of jackpots!

Whether it’s an external input like the web or an internal stirring fuelled by your saboteurs, your job is to take notice. You can accept all parts of yourselves, the ones that hold you back and the ones that set you free. With this full expression of yourself transcending and including your shadow — you no longer resist or repress. There is no diverting or bypassing - but integrating those tendencies that peer out from behind the curtain.

Whether it’s an external input like the web or an internal stirring fuelled by your saboteurs, your job is to take notice. You can accept all parts of yourselves, the ones that hold you back and the ones that set you free. All parts are inherent to your existence and your mission is to integrate your repressed self with your expressed self. With this full expression of yourself which transcends and includes your shadow—you no longer resist. There is no diverting or bypassing, but welcoming those tendencies that peer out from behind the curtain.

Becoming Yourself

The acceptance of what you’re resisting, your source of suffering— can become the fertile ground for personal transformation. Embracing what we often deem as icky, sticky, and negative can so often be exactly what we need to do. Rumi expressed it best, “The cure for the pain is in the pain.

Ironically, it’s when we acknowledge our finitude as human beings, that we might experience the infinitude of possibilities of what it means to be alive. You might ask yourself:

Will this path diminish or enlarge me?
What wants to come into the world through me?
What am I in service of?
What does my heart yearn for?

Your being permeates all experiences. “Experiences eclipses being. All that is necessary is to allow being to outshine experience,” writes philosopher Rupert Spira. To ‘be you’ is to notice before experiences, perceptions, scripts, and relationships— your beingness. Only then can you truly meet your soul. Your essential self is too often obfuscated by the noise of life, but it is always there.

While we could cling to surface self-care commodities like candles or crystals these are outside of us. The ego always seeks to defend itself and it can cleverly convince you that ‘you’re doing the work’. Your ego will play whatever tricks it can so you don’t have to face the piper. But it’s in these shadows where the opportunity for growth rests. Only here can you come back home to yourself.

This is what Carl Jung was getting at — “What you resist not only persists but will grow in size.” So the invitation is to get moving right now - and on that note, I have to stop writing as I have an urgent appointment with my soul.