Where fear and yearning meet.

All fear comes from a forgetting of who we are- when we forget life isn’t happening to me, I’m creating it. When we forget I’m not a tiny powerless thing in the universe, the whole universe is in me! When we forget the darkness is here simply to help us remember, we get scared.

And when we remember life is here to make us conscious, not happy- we can again embrace the arising with the acceptance it needs. We can give our fearful inner friend the hug it needs- because what it needs, is to be seen and held.

What fears are holding you hostage from living your fullest expression in the world? What’s the risk you cannot afford not to take?

I just got off the phone with a dear friend facing the crisis of having outgrown her own cocoon. She knows it’s time to step into her dreams, and she’s afraid of facing the unknown and the potential disappointment of asking life for what she wants and not getting it.

She isn’t alone. Sound familiar?

As the spring comes into bloom, it brings new yearnings in our hearts- and each yearning must meet the fear that keeps it chained before it can be realized. This is natural- ever impulse to expand is met with its polarity, until we can integrate the two. That’s the beginning of wholness.

Yes- there is a space for fear and yearning to meet, to know eachother, and ultimately transform into ease and fluidity.

When I started Come to Center I had to sit with similar fears. And the truth is, as we meet our fears, they morph into newer ones. If you’re waiting to feel fearless before you take the next step in life, I want to remind you that every fear is a gift. It is an invitation into the next step of your evolution.

It’s the next dragon on your hero(ine)’s journey.

In fact, it’s something I help people through all the time now. Because I know it isn’t about not feeling afraid, it’s about learning to hold our fearful inner child with love and compassion, while growing it up. As Liz Gilbert says, fear gets to come on the ride, but it doesn’t get to drive the car.

All fear comes from a forgetting of who we are- when we forget life isn’t happening to me, I’m creating it. When we forget I’m not a tiny powerless thing in the universe, the whole universe is in me! When we forget the darkness is here simply to help us remember, we feel afraid.

And when we remember life is here to make us conscious, not happy- we can again embrace the arising with the acceptance it needs. We can give our fearful inner friend the hug it needs- because what it needs, is to be seen and held.

How can we turn fear into alertness? How can we meet it with open hearts when it’s busy shutting our heart down?

Consider this:

In our last session, I asked a high performing client who was feeling stuck with fear of a pending decision and who is basically a master at whatever she tries, to identify something “She sucks at” and go try learning it.

After fishing for a while, she decided she definitely couldn’t write songs and was shy of her singing voice. So naturally, I made that her experiment for the fortnight. 

Today, she came back for our next session, bubbling with excitement about “all the things I am just terrible at! Which are SO fun to try! I forgot how much fun learning is! I didn’t just try a song, I tried everything! I even tried juggling- and I suck at juggling but people were cheering for me saying how cool it was to see me approach it so fearlessly- and to see me improve as I went through the process.” 

And then, she sang the song she’d written.

By the time she was done singing it, we both had tears rolling down our faces. She had written the song about the fires she was facing in her own life and meeting the heartbreak and beauty of all that is unfolding. It was real. It touched my heart. It was her first song.

And she said, it’s been changing even as she sings it…isn’t that a metaphor for life? 

When we stop taking everything so seriously, when we stop avoiding, and rather embrace our fears, stare our imperfection in the face with love, it only brings us deeper wisdom, and love, and joy and connection. 

The pending decision was still daunting, but the fear could no longer debilitate her, because she’s experienced the beauty of fear paving the way for fluidity, all it takes is the willingness to meet it.

It is a privilege to do this work, with people willing to go into these places with me!

So, what’s the risk you can’t not afford to take?

What’s the fear stopping you from living your fullest expression?

How would it be to transform that fear into fluidity?

What could open up in that reality?

If you’d like to dig deeper and are curious about 1:1 work, let’s talk. All you need to get started is curiosity!

My fiercest hope for humanity lies in YOU!


That’s my fiercest hope – is that we come back to the natural intelligence that flows through us, instead of constantly negating it. It’s surrendering to the impulse that is the driving force of life. That’s the impulse of creation coming through you!

What could be more natural?
What else could bring fulfillment?

Click on the image for the full podcast episode!

Dear one,

I had a colorful conversation on my soulful colleague Andy Cahill’s podcast, the Wonder Dome last August. He asked me what my fiercest hope for humanity is- a beautiful question he poses to each of his guests.

I realized my fiercest hope for humanity lives in you. It breathes in the way you and I show up in the world, and in these catalytic times, our way of being is more important than ever.

In this intimate conversation we talked about being human and whole, and the juicy possibility that emerges when we come together as one- in service of a world that consciously and lovingly includes and transcends all its parts.

If you’ve been in one of my group courses you know this place of possibility, and if you haven’t, I hope you’ll join me. The world is begging us to show up fully for ourselves and eachother.

You can meet me in all my colors if you listen in! 

with hope and love,
Ishita

SHOW NOTES:

Come to Center
Call to Coherence Intensive
Un Becoming Podcast
Sanskrit
Bhagavad Gita
Francis Briers
Stoicism
Dharma

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What drives me, what drives you?

Ever wonder what it is that drives you? What you yearn to bring forth?

It turns out, purpose is always about something bigger than ourselves that we are asked to stretch into.

What is your yes to in life? That’s the elemental question of purpose.

I get asked this often, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what drove me to end a decade long career as an architect and start Come to Center — a holistic transformational consultancy, that constantly has me walking the edge of discomfort, asking me to face my demons every step of the way.

And the answer is L O V E!
Big love.

A love of life itself, a love of something bigger than me, love of those in search of light, of truth, of something bigger than themselves.

So often in our world we go looking for fulfillment outside of us- marketing is great at perpetuating a paradigm of lack- get the new outfit, the perfect job, the perfect partner and then you’ll be happy! And we believe them, until we actually ‘get it all.’

We can have the perfect job, the perfect house, a helluva lot of money and still feel empty, disconnected and meaningless. We can have three PhDs and a lineup of accolades and still know nothing about our own nature- who we are, why we came to be, how to live a joyful life!

We can go through a whole lifetime in unconsciousness, driven by compulsive consumption- without ever honoring our deepest yearning, without ever knowing the exquisite privilege it is to be alive!

Seven years ago I saw through the illusion I’d been living in a way I could no longer deny. I had always suspected there was more to reality than met the eye.

And this seeing shattered everything I thought I was, I wasn’t, everything I thought I knew and my whole worldview itself.

It gave me absolute response ability. It silenced the yearning in all my questions. It plunged me into a bottomless hole that grew so big, it swallowed everything up and left a Wholeness that has never since left me, even in the darkest of times, even as I’m still falling through the hole! It’s the wildest, most fun ride I’ve ever been on!

So fun that it had to be shared- you know, like when you find the most incredible secret, so simple and profound, you want to TELL EVERYONE? Like that! So I listened to my heart and let my spirit drive.

I now live and share a simpler, more authentic and fulfilling way of life. I know what I am, I know why I’m here:

I’m here to know myself ever more deeply in relationship- with life, with all of creation, with you.

To be unapologetically me.

To heal inner division.

And I’m here to embody and teach a new way of being- one that lets us love ourselves fully and deeply.

To provide an alternative to existing in stress and turmoil.

To empower conscious evolution.

To bridge the wisdom of the East with the gifts of the West.

And holy shit, is it scary!

It turns out, purpose is always about something bigger than ourselves that we are asked to stretch into.

You will be tested along your hero’s journey. Every day I face some flavor of my shadow- my shyness, my reticence to really be vulnerable, shame in asking for my needs, to allow myself to be seen in my power, to let you know I know what I’m talking about and a hundred other defense strategies I’ve perfected over lifetimes…

But beneath all of that, there’s the love. It permeates everything. It shines from behind the fear and guides me through and to the light. There is much to learn and be and do and share!

So, what are you driven by in your life?

What is your yes to? Can you let your deepest love be your guide?

Come to Center is an invitation to join me on the ride. To turn suffering into growth. To return home to yourself. To live from the center of your being- to align with your truth, your beauty and your power- and bring it through in how you meet life, in this moment. And this one. And this one…

Come with me. Collective transformation starts with us!

no-thing

Let me preface this by saying once again that words are never true and all forms of communication are inherently subjective, and this one is no exception.
That said, living from non-dual experience, it is pretty clear there is only One. Because ‘things’ are just processes disguised, it feels more correct to say there is only One process than One thing.
However, as I noticed at some point in life, not everyone is experiencing existence without separation. It’s kinda curious isn’t it? In the dual experience multiplicity is mistaken for separation, fueled perhaps by the perceived evolutionary need for self preservation- which appears to necessitate differentiation between self and other, the formation and attachment to that identity. And the One/Self/Whole nature becomes forgotten.
Even the different stages of awakened consciousness models are inherently embedded in a dualistic model at a level. As I pointed out my discomfort with this to a teacher (Steve Ulicny) in a discussion, he noted there aren’t different states of consciousness, but different experiences of Totality.
But of course!
The Whole/One/Formless is unchanging. There is only One Process. The experience of it as such however, changes with the neurophysiological state of the ‘experiencer.’ So, there aren’t different stages of consciousness, but simply different degrees of experience of Oneness. In the fully integrated functional neurophysiological state (enlightenment, the culmination of spiritual awakening), the experience of Oness/Totality is total.
No remnants of a separate self remain, and as the ultimate alignment within solidifies, deep trust emerges, leading to surrender of individuality. The piece of the whole (the small wholeness) begins to function in coherence with the Whole, of which ‘it’ is a perfect and complete reflection, ultimately totally.
So, from this perspective, it’s obvious that everyone everywhere is capable and wired for the experience of re-cognizing/re-membering/coming home to Self/One/Wholeness, often termed Awakening, and the delusion of the separate self falls away.
And while there is only One Process, there are as many ways of experiencing it, as there are its reflections. 7.2 billion people on this planet = 7.2 experiences of Wholeness. Here to be/experience just that!
It’s why formlessness keeps coalescing into form in the first place.
Which is why a role I play in the world is to serve as a constant reminder to look inwards, within, without attachment to method, process or external models to compare experience to- which leads to distortion of isness. But instead, to look within and see what is true for you now! What has the One Process incarnated into you to experience fully, in this moment? Allowing it to be seen, held, known, loved, celebrated! That’s the premise behind Open Meditation.
Reminds me of a poem Shunyata (voidness) I wrote a while ago…
“existence smiles, experiencing itself
as you in me in me in you and I”

embrace

transformation can only occur in embrace.

embracing I
am
become

love,

transforming holes into wholeness.

look-
where did    you      ever       find
a piece of the          whole
(a (small) wholeness)
less than,
that?

did you find shelter from your shadow in the womb of darkness?

in the great No thing
where Allness
hides

swallowing form
forgetting to remember
whence you came?
how will you know the shadows you carry?

without
ever turning to the Sun

in embrace

 

 

*photo by Nikki J.