The mirror is your friend

As I was growing up, if I wasn’t dancing, I had my nose in a book. My mom was a psychologist, so she had shelves of fascinating books that I’d squirrel away.
Learned Optimism, Being Happy, The Way of Zen, You Can Heal Your Life... these are just a handful of the books I had at my fingertips as a young teen.

And I consumed them, both in written form, and as cassette tapes!

Louise Hay touted the power of mirror work, so I'd sit in front of the mirror and affirm: I am smart, I am beautiful. What I didn't know was that later in life, a very different sort of mirror work would jolt me out of the story of me.... the story of a being that doesn't feel good enough, an individual who needs to prove, to strive, to attain. And into the very spaciousness of Being itself.
Sitting in front of the mirror helped me discover that I don't have awareness, I Am awareness. You don't have awareness, you Are awareness.

The practice is simple.
Looking in the mirror, at your own eyes. "I am not that story." I am not that. Whatever comes up, you are not that. You never were. And what you are begins to emerge. Uncovered.

It's always been there. Clouded by roles. Covered by identification with the things you think you are. And by identifying what you are not, what you are, that ever-present awareness, becomes even more clear.

When I meditated, I was often looking for "the witness" that which is observing experience. And through this new sort of mirror-work, I realized that there IS NO WITNESS.

There is only witnessing. Only awareness - aware of itself.

And that knowing changes everything.

This presence of myself as awareness isn't with me every moment of the day... the old conditioning is still present much of the time, yet who I truly am becomes clearer every day, as the old conditioning dissolves and drops away bit by bit.

Here's a video to hear more! And the radio show