The Art of Inner Communication

Description

Each moment of our incarnation is in some respects a choice. A choice about what?

About what is being listened to in the system and taken as truth in any given mind-moment.

The truth about myself. About the other. About whether I’m in real danger. About who I can actually trust. About my job. About my lover and whether they understand me. About the situation in front of me. About what’s going to happen to me and all of us.

Our different parts (facets of self) are constantly characterizing these things for us. And just as there is no unified perspective “out there in the world,” there is none to be found among the various conditioned voices on the inside. One day we are sure we need to leave the relationship, and the next day, another part comes in that is equally sure we need to not give up on it for the sake of the children. When being honest, many people will describe these inner voices as a kind of ongoing assault that appears to have no resolution at the level of their relative psychology. They can meditate, do yoga and kind of “calm everything down,” but the fundamental issue of what is trustworthy - what is actually capable of guiding the system through the labyrinth of life’s decisions - is left unaddressed.

As our spiritual unfoldment progresses, this becomes an unsatisfactory arrangement. Why? Because any authentic spiritual development increases the overall sensitivity of the system to untruth - to the facets of our life and relationships that are not being lived from true nature. This sensitivity registers in the self as a “split” - a longing for healing in the places where a regressed part has the driver's seat and is calling the shots. The spiritual embodiment process is more or less a grand tour through these places, spontaneously and perfectly orchestrated by true nature for the benefit of our own healing and transformation.

This process has two essential steps, which form the backbone of the material and techniques presented in this course:

1. The repair of Self-trust and the willingness to re-awaken and actively use the full bandwidth of our spiritual resources. This statement is really the foundation of the course, and it can act as a kind of initial prayer or intention as we enter into this material. Many, many techniques and strategies will be offered to accomplish it. But at a basic level, what we are talking about is the ability to see, hear and feel the precise and inconceivably wise communication that is coming each moment from your own heart-essence.

2. At the same time we are repairing our connection with Self (the primordial wound), we are working with the parts that are skeptical of it, or scared that if we inhabited our knowing fully, something really bad would happen. The part(s) that have been in charge of creation and maintenance of any and all conditioned adaptive strategies must be worked with directly in a compassionate and patient way! Not punished. Not subjected to superficial displays of will-power because we don’t like what they are doing. But worked with. From a place of the deepest love and with the support of the Self and its many, many resources. As this happens, there is a profound renegotiation and repair. Self is allowed to return home to guide, navigate and make decisions in every facet of our humanness, and the parts are freed up to do the jobs they were meant to do (and want to do).

Course Material 

Guidework
Our particular approach to opening up inner communication begins with guidework. What does that mean? Well, it means different things to different people. To some folks, it simply means that aspects of the psyche or Self can become personified so that we can communicate with them more easily. For others (most human beings in history), it simply means the world is animate - a collection of forces, seen and unseen, all happening within something we basically cannot name. In either case, what is emphasized, particularly in the beginning of developing intuitive skills, is the relational component - the very real experience that there is active support being offered by specific beings if we invite it. 

In our experience, this sense of being supported by the unseen is absolutely essential to deep inner work. The wounds encountered in the deep end of the healing process are often very, very young, and thus there is something developmentally appropriate about establishing supportive connections between these parts and the guide realm (the sense that the young parts are “doing it all alone” is one of the internalized perspectives that most locks in conditioned patterns).

Awakening the Senses
As our connection to our inner support system is re-established, the channels through which we take in and process information from ourselves and our environment begin to transform and “sensitize.” Basically, through our willingness and practice, we become available to a much, much wider bandwidth of sensory and energetic information. This course will involve a number of specific exercises in this realm, with specific work around inner/outer vision, sound and inner voice, the felt-sense, and even taste/smell.

Developing Inquiry Skills
As we begin to “see, hear and feel” at more subtle and attuned levels, we will refine our ability to engage in the process of inner dialogue with the guidance system. One aspect of this is the art of generating prompts and questions and developing a more informal, fluid and conversational relationship with your intuitive system.

Working with Parts & Entities
As our link with true nature as the inner parent deepens, the healing of our conditioned facets is organically precipitated. This course will explore, and help you understand, the variety of parts and forces you will encounter in your movement to unburden/unwind the conditioned forces in your own system. We will look at working with parts all along the developmental spectrum (all the way to preverbal), entities that come from your immediate family lineage, patterns that have been with you for more than one lifetime, and other forces that are more collective in nature.

About This course

Generally, we recommend that anyone interested in doing ongoing group or one-on-one work with us take this course. It lays our approach to developing the fundamental skills of intuitive inquiry - the ability to see, hear and feel the wisdom-information emanating from true nature - as well as how to enter into healing and repartive dialogue with parts (facets of self) that have taken on conditioned adaptive strategies as a substitute for being connected with the Self and its many essential qualities.

Taught By

Megan Cowan & Chris McKenna

FORMAT + STRUCTURE

This course includes two sets of recordings (the original 2021 recordings and the updated 2023 version - 14 sessions total).

In addition to the video recordings, you will have access to three class handouts detailing the practices covered in the talks, as well as questions/reports from other students with answers from Megan & Chris.

This course in particular benefits from doing the course instructions in sequence in a disciplined way. We recommend leaving about a week between sessions to really work with the material thoroughly before moving on.

PRACTICE SUPPORT

You are invited to correspond with Megan & Chris confidentially over email as you progress through the material, either with questions or simply with reports about your experience working with the material. We love to receive these and will usually try to respond to them within a few days.

If we do not know you or haven’t met you before and you feel a short (15-minute) session would be supportive, we are also happy to arrange this free of charge (information about accessing longer/more involved one-on-one support from either us is available here).