Yes, I do realize it is February, almost March, and most people are way over Christmas. But I, the 7 year old in a 34 year old body, believes the spirit of Christmas lives on (after all, according to pagan belief, winter solstice is about the coming of the light). Plus, as I was doing this meditation for myself, which originally just started with a question, the name “Ghosts of Christmas Past Meditation” just popped in, so I think my higher self wants me to go with this name too.
First, a little more background.
Early one wintery and windy February morning, three questions popped into my head: 1) What am I resisting/not clearly seeing? 2)What lesson do I need to learn? 3) Where is my intuition wanting to lead me?
These 3 questions came to me after an already long journey of moving through pain and deep inner work. By then, I knew myself well enough that something was stuck and needed to move. The first question led me to both realizing I was carrying something (energetically) that was not mine and releasing a block, while the third question pointed an arrow to the direction my life was moving. The second question, however, was the key to unlocking an old pattern that was keeping me stuck, that I couldn’t fully recognize while being in the tiny perspective of my human self.
The funny thing is that I’m really good at doing this for my clients. One of my roles as a therapist is connecting the dots for a client, and then reflecting them back for a client so they can see it too. In my mind, I literally imagine a connect the dots coloring page, and we see the full picture coming together.
Yet when I started meditating later that evening on the question and wanting to see my past patterns, I quickly got stuck in my analytical mind. I wanted to go straight to my “trigger-> reaction ->past experience-> core wound” map, which is a handy journaling tool. Yet for me it was still too sticky for this moment, especially because I couldn’t see how several, quite different relationships all connected. I realized I needed to step out of myself. I needed to connect with my higher self, or what Lee Harris (and the Z’s) call the “Eye of Awareness” or what others call the inner observer or inner therapist.
In choosing to access my higher self, I shifted my energy (this can be just using your imagination) to just above my head. Some people call this the 8th chakra, but again, just do what works for you. Then, I imagined myself in a few scenes of the relationships I wanted to examine, but this time I pictured it as if I was looking at the memory as an outsider. Or rather, it was like I myself was the ghost of (Christmas) past and watching myself and the other person in the scene. (In EMDR, for particularly traumatic memories, we/trauma therapists will often ask the client to picture the memory as if it were on a TV screen, perhaps even making it a black and white movie.) From this perspective, I could see it. The people were all different, some with very good intentions and some with negative vibes, but I could see how I abandoned myself, playing out the negative belief of not being enough, with each person. Perhaps it was not speaking up for myself for fear of ruining a date with someone I really liked, or just accepting things as “not that bad“.
In doing this, in seeing things from a higher perspective, I gave myself the opportunity to stop myself from having to repeat the cycle and learn the same lesson again the hard way. Spiritually speaking, once we have actualized a lesson we came to earth to work through, we can move on and transform at a more enlightened level. From my core, I now know that I need to act on the inner knowledge (it was a lot of work just to start believing that deep truth!) that I am enough and speak my truth in relationships, even if I fear the outcome (whether it be a partner getting mad or a relationship, romantic or friend, ending.)
Okay, so here’s the short “how to”:
Ghost of Christmas Past Meditation (Aka Accessing your Higher Self to End Unwanted Patterns)
- Find a time and space of at least 10 minutes where you will be uninterrupted. If it feels good, light a candle or put on some high vibrational music.
- In your journal, write down your question. It might be something like “What is the pattern I am not seeing?” “What lesson do I have to learn here?”
- Close your eyes and begin to focus inward. First, notice what sensations are in your body and if there are emotions that need to be released. You can do this by simply breathing into the spot where you are noticing the sensation. It’s totally normal if you need to cry for a bit.
- Call on your higher self for guidance. You may intentionally shift your attention and energy upward, above your head, anywhere from a few inches to a few feet. (Again, if you can’t feel it but simply use your imagination, that is 100% okay.)
- From this “distance”, lightly touch on and observe memories related to the pattern you want to see more clearly, end, and learn from. What are you noticing? If you catch yourself getting too analytical, just use this as a nudge to gently pull back and return to the higher perspective.
- Write down any insights. It might be helpful to read them again the next day.
- Offer gratitude to your higher self.
A Dog and Her Girl 