Our luminous center is the core essence of our being. Our core essence brightly shines through us out into the world when we feel passionate about life. Longing ignites our essence and fuels the flame of learning. This luminosity is easily seen in babies and young children who glow with a light from within. Core Essence can be seen in the light in and behind our eyes.

Our essence is the most essential nature of our being and is completely unique to each individual. I love this poem by Mary Oliver; reading it connects me with my essence- sometimes for me essence is more of a sensation than words:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
Over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Our essence is always present and alive, but sometimes it is difficult to remember this. Let us recognize who we are inside. We are our beautiful core essence. Underneath all the layers of shadow material that shroud this we are light.

In childhood and growing up in the world today, your inner light may not have been supported and reflected back to you in the loving eyes of another person. To reclaim and recognize your essence, look for places that give you joy. Look for times that you feel really great in your body while you are doing something. Here is an excerpt from my journal that illustrates a moment when I was in touch with my essence. “Pleasure in the food garden is breath taking. That’s this feeling where things are so fresh, appealing, it’s a bit indescribable- the carrots- I get a lot from the effort I’ve put into it.”

When we recognize our essence we are stronger, more focused, and able to create space for ourselves to shine. We can live more relaxed and let the adrenals step down and come out of the flight or fight response. It is our most basic nature. It is the deeper goodness within each of us. It is who we really are. It is from this place within that all our creative energies arise. It is the eternal fountainhead within each of us from which all our creations come.

How the shadow shrouds your essence:

When we are infants there is no separation from the ground, no inside/outside, no ego, and no awareness of our core essence. We are not exactly aware that there are such things as feelings in the early period of life- it may be more like an awareness of sensations. The ground is experienced in our mother or caregiver and we are merged with her. The core essence develops a conscious relationship with the earth and the world around us when we start moving and exploring our environment. Some of our early explorations become habitual responses to life. They develop very young, and can come from our earliest wounding- creating shadow material or blocks that are held in the area of the psyche that allows sensual earth energy into the body. As a person starts to reclaim these wonderful life giving energies by valuing the joys brought through our core essence the old patterns can be recognized, changed and healed.

Here are some common ways people respond to emotional energy that creates shadow material; ways that people do not integrate earth energy and shroud their core essence are:

• freezing the feeling, emotional coldness, when the energy is held deep in the body and not expressed freely
• projecting the feeling out onto others, not experiencing the feeling as your own, which leads to both care-taking and blame.
• stuffing the feeling sensation, believing it is bad to feel and that expressing an emotional truth will lead to humiliation
• attacking others rather than feeling, not processing the feeling but sending it out at other people
• controlling feelings in order to appear appropriate

We all do these things- the goal is to become aware of when and how you go into shadow. Question what is really going on- value the feelings as feelings and own and integrate the information that comes through the experience. Try not to invest your precious energy in shadow creating thoughts and behaviors. You will know the shadow by how it makes you feel. When things get difficult; your journal, wise books, support groups, good friends, therapists, and healers can be great allies

Some of our unconscious patterns are related to how we were parented during the first 3 years of life. The good-enough parent can identify for the child what the feeling is (such as the anger of a temper tantrum or sadness when there is a loss), and provide a way for the child to understand themselves by making a safe place, explaining why the child might be having the feeling and giving the child some possible choices on how to respond. When children are ignored, blamed, humiliated, attacked or rigidly controlled, feelings are believed to be bad and avoided at any price. A lot of energy goes into avoiding the bad side and all those experiences held in our memory and held in the tissue of our body. Integration happens as we learn to hold these extremes with compassion for ourselves- when we learn how to be the good-enough parents for ourselves- when we develop a strong inner dialogue, positive self talk, and self-awareness- In other words, through practice.

5 Ways to Strengthen Your Essence

Because we are all different- some of us like to journal, some of us like to experience, some of us like to think, some of us like to visualize, and some of us like to do all these things- here are five more creative ways to strengthen your connection to your core essence.

1. Open the breath to nurture your core essence

You can create the space for your core essence to shine by focusing on your breath. The breath is the only part of the body’s function that can be controlled both voluntarily and also by the autonomic nervous system. You can create relaxation because conscious, diaphragmatic breathing directly influences the unconscious, autonomic nervous system. When you take a deep breath with the diaphragm, the ribs open slightly and the internal organs are compressed and massaged. Children naturally breathe using their diaphragm, not their chest and shoulder muscles. Using these accessory muscles to breathe takes 30% more energy. Although chest breathing has now become natural and involuntary for many of us, it is really part of the flight/fight response that is aroused when we are challenged by some external stress or danger. Because of the reciprocity between breath and mind, chest breathing in turn, gives rise to tension and anxiety. All techniques aimed at providing relaxation of the body, mind and nervous system are ineffective unless chest breathing is replaced by deep, even and steady diaphragmatic breathing.

How to Breathe with Your Diaphragm

1. Place one hand on your upper chest and one hand on your diaphragm.

2. Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose, imagining that you are taking air into your abdomen. The hand on your abdominal muscles should move out, and the hand on your upper chest should not move.

3. Exhale slowly. Remember: breathe in, abdomen out: breathe out, abdomen in.

4. Three- four breaths are all it takes to bring yourself back into balance.

If you do not regularly breathe using your diaphragm, try practicing abdominal breathing for 10-15 minutes every three to four hours or more until it becomes automatic. This is the natural way to breathe, the way we started out- as radiant newborns- experiencing the earth’s element of air. Whenever you notice you are off your center or stressed-out you can use the breath to bring yourself back into balance. Diaphragmatic breathing is a simple way to create a feeling of safety in the nervous system and automatically nourishes the adrenals and allows the glands and the body to come into a balanced relationship with each other.

5. Focus on a mantra to strengthen your essence

One way to create space around these areas in life that hold a lot of emotional energy is to use a mantra. A mantra is a phrase or word that one repeats over and over in order to remind the self of the higher intention for healing and wholeness. Mantras can be used in meditations some mantras are passed down through the lineages of gurus which give them to their students in initiations.

Carolyn Myss has looked cross-culturally and found seven general principles for health. You can choose one or more of her sacred truths that relate(s) to your situation and support your essence. Use these like a mantra; they are good tools for mentally centering yourself when you feel off, ungrounded or confused. Here are Carolyn Myss’ 7 principles for health from her work that combines the chakras, the Christian sacraments, and the Tree of Life:

1. All is one

2. I honor you

3. I honor myself

4. Love is divine power

5. I surrender to divine will

6. I seek the truth

7. I am present in the here and now

3. Personal Journal Exercise to discover your essence

Try to write around 3 pages in your journal answering these questions that will point you towards your core essence:

• What do I long for?
• Where do I feel the deepest longings in my life?
• Imagine a life where you are living in your longing. What would that look like?
• What touches my heart?
• When do I know I am centered in my heart?

4. Looking for your core essence

Work with a mirror for this exercise. Spend five to ten minutes looking at your self in the mirror. Look deeply into your eyes and connect with what you long for in life. Then feel into your upper chest area, find the connection between your longing and your upper chest and let it resonate in the center of your body in this area. This place will support expression of your essence. Here in the body is a source that motivates our soul’s path, the place of passion, childlike desire, and excitement. Sometimes there can be a sweet sadness at the recovery of your longing. Again, this is where our soul speaks to us most directly about the purpose of our life.

5. Personal time line and core essence

Review your life for joyful experiences. What is it that makes these times or events joyful? These are the qualities that nurture your essence. Pick one (or more) of these times and in your journal answer these questions:

• What is the quality of your thinking while you are doing this activity?
• How does your body feel?
• What are your emotions?
• How is your energy?

When you do these exercises you can get a clear sense of what your unique essence feels like and aim yourself in this direction by the day to day choices you make. One of my teachers, Barbara Brennan, writes about core essence in her book Light Emerging.
“Once you experience your core essence you will be able to find it everywhere. You will find it everywhere in your body. You will find it everywhere in the field of energy that surrounds you, your aura. You will find it in your intentions. You will find it everywhere in your life. You will find it stretched out into the far reaches of the universe. You will find it everywhere you look for it…
Where your essence is fully expressed are the places you are healthy and happy. The places where it is expressed the least is where you are the least happy, have discomfort, or have problems. It is as simple as that.”
I encourage you to each day consider and ask yourself:
“What do I want the world to look like?”
“What is my role in this world (where my essence shines brightest)?” “What can I do today to make that happen?”

In closing I offer you this poem from Marianne Williamson:

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful, beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

we painted our faces
red and blue in innocence,
peace, balance
and spoke to the fire and the animals

the stars fell across the sky

their long journey found
the Earth’s chocolate unwrapped

we prayed to the river with tobacco
planted red welcome banners on two bamboo poles
offered corn to the Earth’s center

the star gates opened
eagle light flew through us

now we rest in the after glow

Linnea Hadaway 2002
 

I sit down a hill,
back against a short needled conifer,
an anchor in the woods where the sun reaches
the air pushes by, it comes up from the Temperance,
our Singing River

cools everything
makes my right ear and neck cold,
the center of my chest and forehead
where the light beams
heat.

Linnea Hadaway 1999

Linnea Hadaway 1999

Slips into our old loggers cabin
right through the screened windows

settles over the breakfast table
where last nights yellow and violet bouquet
and the newly green wine bottle vanish

my hair is in tangles

Linnea Hadaway 2002
 

Swedish grandma
her spirit has settled
into me
like smoke

the smell of her
is under my arms

I am an American
in recovery
of my ancestry

Linnea Hadaway 2000

She looks at me

I have stilled the doe
quieted her curious fawn
She looks at me,
I am not still
I am driving this Mississippi roadside
the air is red now
it is dawn

I look at her and remember
a line read in the Tribune –
“Only people can see the stars”

She stares me down
Her wild eyes are of a child
they take me in
then flow through me
like a spring – fed creek
clears the shaded gaiter glen
like poppies pulse auricular light
She climbs my spine
with sure footed goat laughter

I look at her
She looks at me

Linnea Hadaway 1998