Create the Life You Imagine ~ November 2019
The Three Triangle Model: Making Connections
“Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we’re frantic, life will be frantic. If we’re peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes peace.”
~ Marianne Williamson
As we continue to work inside this three triangle model, remember that life is a developmental or evolutionary process. Ken Wilbur describes the developmental process of expanding spiritual awareness in three phases: Growing Up, Waking Up and then Cleaning Up. This is the developmental work we are all called to do as human beings. The first half of life is generally devoted to Growing Up and our energy is completely immersed in learning about ourselves and about the world in which we live. At some point, often at mid-life as we start to ask deeper questions about the meaning and purpose of life, or during a breaking open experience in the wake of great loss, trauma or struggle, we experience an expanded sense of ourselves that triggers us to Wake Up to our larger spiritual identity. In the true light of our expanded spiritual awareness, we experience real transformation in our consciousness and are then called to Clean Up the habits, beliefs, stories and expectations about life that were created through our early life experiences, in order to live more fully and consciously as spiritual beings in this human experience.
In the developmental model in the image above, we start on the right-hand side of the image with our awareness firmly anchored in the lower triangle and our identity tightly attached to the small self personality. At these early stages, we identify fully with our physical body (First Chakra), our emotional experiences (Second Chakra) and our mental stories (Third Chakra) that flow from our life experiences. These are the learning chapters of life where we make sense of how the world operates and how to navigate the planet to keep ourselves safe.
The “Pre-Me” Stage: Our first stage of development in this model is what I call the “Pre-Me” stage of awareness, and this stage generally runs from about ages 0-15. This stage is dominated by first and second chakra levels of consciousness. At this stage we are simply learning to physically and emotionally navigate life, and our awareness is wholly reactive to the outside world and to the events that happen to us. Our most important learning work at this stage is about whether we are physically safe in the world (First Chakra), and whether we are emotionally safe with other people who care about us and support us in healthy ways (Second Chakra). Like preemie babies, we are not well equipped at this stage of life to navigate the outside world with any real sense of balance or understanding, and are dependent on the help and support of other adults—parents, family, friends, teachers and mentors—to guide, protect and support us as we explore and learn about ourselves and the world.
The “Me” Stage: From the ages of about 16-25, as our pre-frontal lobes start to develop and we begin to navigate life as young adults, we move into what I call the “Me” stage of awareness. At this third chakra level of consciousness, our small self personality operates with more independence in life and starts to use our history of personal experiences to form the internal stories about ourselves and about life that drive our habits, beliefs, attitudes and choices. At this stage of awareness, we see ourselves as separate beings in a complex world and the underlying focus of this stage is to feel competent and capable of meeting the demands of life. By this stage of life, even if we have enjoyed safe, loving and supportive conditions in the Pre-Me Stage, we have bumped into enough challenges, difficulties or disappointments to develop some level of anxiety or fear about living life on our own. If we have had very difficult experiences in the first chapters of life, these inner narratives may become toxically negative about ourselves or our possibilities, and life may become a defensive exercise in protecting ourselves from the next threat rather than confidently and strategically meeting the next challenge. The more trauma we have experienced in life, the more difficult it may be to move beyond this self-protective state of survival consciousness, and many adults live much of their lives stuck in small self stories and in the cycles of anxiety, shame, guilt, self-doubt, and low self-esteem that make it difficult to move into higher levels of development and spiritual consciousness.
The “I” Stage: In middle adulthood, if we have been able to successfully navigate the earlier stages of life and have developed the confidence that we can meet the challenges of life with positive expectations and an open heart, we begin to live in closer alignment with our authentic strengths, gifts and talents, and make contact with that fifth chakra energy of our True Self and enter the "I" stage. At this stage of awareness, we are not fully grounded in our Upper Triangle spiritual consciousness, but we have developed a fairly integrated personality that allows us to direct our life in some regular contact with the flow of our Upper Triangle energy. At this early stage of our spiritual awareness, however, it’s easy to get tipped over and lose our sense of balance. We may still experience significant periods of struggle when life obstacles or challenges trigger our fear or trip up our sense of confidence about life, and we may find we frequently slide back down into the lower triangle, letting our small self stories take control.
The “I Am” Stage: The first three stages of this map are the Growing Up stages of life. The "I Am" stage is the Waking Up stage of life. At this stage of our spiritual development we come into firm contact with our spiritual consciousness and this is where real transformation occurs. Sometimes we enter this stage through a breakthrough experience. It may be a life experience of such joy and light that it penetrates our awareness and wakes up this higher level of consciousness through a direct experience of the powerful web of connection and light that penetrates all things. For some, this breakthrough comes through a deep life experience like an intense experience of authentic love and connection with another person, the birth of a child, or through a religious or mystical experience. We may also enter this stage, however, through an experience of real darkness. Many of us come to this level of spiritual consciousness through the “dark night of the soul” path, where a powerful loss, a life-threatening illness, or another profoundly life-altering experience thrusts us into the darkness and loneliness of our inner life. Often, as we are forced inside our inner life to struggle against the illusion of darkness and isolation, we break through to the light on the other side and life takes on a new sense of meaning and purpose. Whether we come into this level of consciousness through the path of light or through the path of darkness, we experience a profound and fundamental shift in our level of awareness. We begin to remember that who we are is bigger than our life experiences or our small self insecurities, and life begins to flow more powerfully from the Upper Triangle as we stand more firmly in the “I Am” energy of the Soul.
The “I Am That” Stage: This level of consciousness is the realm of our mystical awareness. It is where we experience those brief and ephemeral moments of luminous knowing that we are all connected points of light flowing out of the stream of pure light or awareness that is the ground of all being. It is where we get a glimpse into the field of energy that supports everything in creation and we lose all awareness of our separated sense of Self as we fall into a deep state of unity, presence, love, gratitude, and joy at the profound Mystery of life. This level of awareness is the power source of All That Is, and during these momentary glimpses into this field of all possibilities, we recognize that everything we need in life flows effortlessly from this eternal and infinite source.
Once we consciously plug into the power of the Third Triangle and can anchor our awareness stably in the Soul consciousness of the Upper Triangle, we reverse the developmental flow of energy in our life and everything changes. Instead of feeling like we are moving through life pushing our energy uphill using the small self willpower of our Lower Triangle personality, we reverse the flow from the crown down. As we can see on the left side of the image above, when we reverse the flow and connect all the triangles, we allow the limitless power of Spirit to move through the authenticity of our Soul and effortlessly down into our Lower Triangle personality, entering the timeless flow of the eternal Now.
When we flow from the crown down, we let our Soul take control of the flow of our lives, just like the self-driving capacity of the Tesla takes control of the car. When we are operating from the small self of our Lower Triangle, we are holding the steering wheel of our vehicle with white knuckles and refusing to give up our small self illusion of control. As long as the small self has control of the wheel, we can never really heal the old stories or free ourselves to live in congruence with our highest possibilities, we just learn to navigate around all the traumas, triggers and obstacles in the lower triangle well enough to keep ourselves out of too much trouble. When we can reverse that flow by living from the power of our Upper Triangle Soul, we unleash our higher operating system to transform and heal the lower triangle stories. This is the Cleaning Up stage of the process and with this clean up complete, our Soul can now infuse all the parts of our personality—our body, emotions and thoughts—allowing our Soul to take over the navigation of our everyday life. On the way up this developmental pathway we are learning lessons through the experiences of life and evolving more and more in the direction of our True Self, on the way down we are allowing the infinite power of Spirit to flow through our Soul and into our Personality. This makes us each a channel for involution, or said another way, we allow Spirit to become involved in the creative work of the world through each of us.
If everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it, then the work of spiritual consciousness is to know from what level of our system we are operating. If we are pushing through life using the white-knuckled willpower of our small self, life will indeed feel frantic and frustrating. But if we can shift our awareness to flow from the power of Spirit and the presence of our Soul, we will open a channel of peace, love, freedom, creativity and joy as the true power source for our life. When we intentionally choose to open this channel and connect with this power, life begins to flow with less and less effort and more and more synchronicity. If we want to create a feeling of greater peace in our lives, we can practice taking our small self hands off the wheel and trusting the wiser part of our being, our Soul, to do the driving.
Wishing you the blessings and light of the Soul, as you create the life you imagine.
Tracy
Stepping Stones:
For this week’s meditation practice let’s continue to practice making that connection between these three triangles. Read through this meditation a couple of times letting your mind feel and create the images I describe with the help of the image below, and then find a peaceful place where you can sit uninterrupted for ten minutes or so. If you like, play some quiet meditative music, light a candle or burn some incense to create the conditions for your mind to grow still and quiet. Begin by simply noticing your breath. Take three deep breaths and as you breathe in and as you breathe out, let your mind grow still, remembering that its only job for the next few moments is to follow your breath with awareness and attention. As other thoughts move in, simply return your attention to your breath, and with each breath in, and each breath out, let every part of your body relax just a little more deeply.
After a few minutes, as your mind and your breathing steadies and slows, use your inner vision to picture the Third Triangle of Spirit right above your head. This Third Triangle is glowing with brilliant white light and you can feel the warmth and energy of that light flowing over your body. Now let’s imagine that you take a cord from the top of your head and plug it into that Third Triangle of Spirit. As you make that connection with the Source Energy, your Upper Triangle Soul starts to light up and the chakra lights of the upper triangle come on and start to spin and vibrate with energy. The light energy starts with the violet chakra at the crown of your head, then moves down into the indigo chakra in the middle of your forehead, and then down to the light blue chakra in your throat center. The light of these three chakras fills your head and upper body like a funnel of multi colored light, and that energy flows through the bottom of that funnel and into your chest, activating the brilliant green light of your fourth chakra. The energy of your heart chakra expands throughout your chest and lungs growing more brilliant with every breath as your heart center fills with that emerald green light. Let that emerald green light start to descend into your Lower Triangle. As it moves into your upper abdomen it activates the luminous golden yellow energy of the third chakra, and then the radiant orange energy of your second chakra in your lower back and pelvis, and then moves down into the red energy of your first chakra, as that warm red light moves from the base of your spine down through your legs and feet and down into the earth.
As these three triangles and seven chakras come into connection and alignment, imagine a channel of colorful swirling light flowing from your Third Triangle of Spirit, through your Upper Triangle Soul and down through your heart to your Lower Triangle Personality.Continue breathing through this channel, noticing the energy flowing effortlessly from the crown down. As this stream of light moves down through your chakras and out into every cell, tissue, tendon, muscle, organ and system of your body, imagine it washing over and through all the difficult experiences of your past, cleansing away any thoughts or emotions that no longer serve you, and opening the way for healing and transformation. Feel the channel of connection from the heavens, through your body, and down into the earth, and let your body, mind and spirit rest in a gentle state of peace and love.
After ten or fifteen minutes, slowly return your awareness to your body and to the room in which you are sitting, and bless the universe for providing all the connection, support and power you need for your life experience. Place your hands over your heart and let yourself smile as you receive this powerful stream of energy into your body. Do this meditation exercise several times this week to open this channel and notice what you feel in your body, mind and spirit. See the images above and below to open your imagination for the meditation.
