What's in it for ME? Again the personal and non-personal

I love the conversation in Judy's place about the personal vs. non-personal. This theme has been on my mind a lot these days, in a very personal way. I shared some thoughts in my comments in Judy's blog and I feel my blog here is a good place to reveil some of my personal experiences.

To summarize, in Judy's blog I wrote that the question of dealing with personal stuff in the group or moving beyond it to reach the middle, in my eyes must be answered by both-and, in the sense that to move to the middle we've got to transcend our personal stuff, and in order to do so we have to fully own it first in a healthy way. If we try to transcend it too soon it wil start to grow and dominate our minds, from a hidden place.

The group can be helpful, especially in accepting and owning. The rest is up to me, I should say. Of course group therapy can be very effective in healing our ego's, but anyway, whatever we're doing in the group should be very clear. Are we doing therapy now (personal) or are we  creating space for the middle (non-personal or trans-personal). Furthermore, I think that transpersonal practices alone cannot heal the ego. Like meditation is not therapeutic either. If we use vipassana for instance while experiencing sadness which we don't own, we just add to the unhealthy disidentification. When that happens to me the sadness grows and keeps popping up everytime I sit to meditate. I need do do something  (therapeutic) to get a healthy identification and then I can let it go on my cushion.

So, now the personal experiences. After abiding in this transpersonal space of collective intelligence, which was love, care, wisdom, energy, direction, ..., the shadow parts got the lead the moment I was on my own again. Confusing the transpersonal love, we had been able to invite by stepping out of the way, with the personal love I needed as a kid but didn't get. This care, attention, space, love... this group was the nest I should have had when I grew up. So what was non-personal in the gathering was now grabbed at and projected onto the group, the place, to you. Owned personally and attributed in a personal way. Forgetting that it was not me and not you personally. That is was not for me in person, at least not the little me that was now behind the wheel driving my mind.

This little me saw a chance to finally win a battle, forgetting it had already lost it. So what's on my plate now is this. Accepting the loss of this battle and stop trying to reject it. To fully own it... And set you all free form the task of filling my holes.

Realizing this brought also great relieve. Brought me back to where I am now. With a tremendous sense of purpose.

I remember now seeing this happen in many groups, although not as clear as now, when it's me falling in this trap myself. After the gathering the personal, the egos, popped up trying to own all the goodies. Especially with groups that met at a regular basis this caused an immidiate loss of the community spirit. The next meeting, the first thing they needed to empty themselves of in order to create a space for the middle again was exactly this: this personally owned love and frienship.

Perhaps, being in a transpersonal realm for a while, experiencing collective intelligence, this sense of community, especially the love and care, brings out our shadow parts more quickly. Making them come out of their hiding places. Giving us a great opportunity to work with them. Perhaps knowing this, we can be prepared for it. Adress it in the circle when we're close to saying goodbye. Or am I the only one?