We have surely all come across the sentiment of gifting our younger selves with some wisdom we have earned if given the opportunity, and I’ll go ahead and start this off by sharing one of my nuggets of gold: do not try to tame your wildness for spiritual endeavors, like ever. Stay clear of that tiny, rigid box. It is in my experience, useless, frankly.

You are not a monk, and you know it, so why try to take the same rules of renunciation and apply them to your life? Meditation is a natural state for everyone, and it need not be forced. 

I started my spiritual wellness journey very young, and quite naturally this is a lesson I needed to learn. I wanted to delete parts of myself, including but not limited to, the wild one who caused too much raucous, too much disruption. Then I’d go on to blissfully create a balanced version of myself that had the reactivity of a seasoned monk. Maybe then, I would conquer the areas of my life that felt like they were lacking; the cramping into that teeny, tiny box ensued for some time.

I actually believed this modification of myself was possible and even worse, that it was necessary– what a silly idea. Whether or not the concept is possible lacks true relevance here, because quite simply this wouldn’t be appropriate for me, and I don’t believe it would be right for the majority of the folks I have taught over the years. 

Yet, in so many spiritual lineages we are told to stay quiet, be still, burn away desires, cast away any longings for status or novelty, and be a little more….monk-like? Let that sit, and vibrate with your inner being. For me, when I consider that notion, it brings out my inner rebel (and I rather enjoy her company). Consider (lightly), how wonderfully wild this broader existence really is, how terrifyingly raw and fragile life can be, yet when undisturbed, the natural world has an unmatched harmony and flow.

If you are reading this blog, I am assuming you have chosen to not take a path of renunciation, and instead, you’ve chosen to be intimate with life- with places, things, people, ideas, and intentions for yourself. You are intimate, and, you are wild. There is a core, substance-of-bones-truth to be seen here, one that feels like validating the unique expression of the universe itself that you actually are.

This points to what my teachers Camille Maurine and Lorin Roche have coined as “The Path of Intimacy”, and it could not make more practical sense to me. We have available to us a rich, sensory experience of living and along with that, many doorways into a natural meditative state, one that is overflowing with medicinal benefits for your mind-body system. 

When we welcome all of our parts, including the wildest, untamable aspects of our being into the meditation space, we open ourselves to the full range of our experience. From there, our brilliant mind-body system gets the opportunity to truly shine; to sift through and process all that needs to be without repression or shame. 

Without modification of our uniqueness to fit a certain mold, our instinctive wisdom has space to emerge, and healing can happen on a multitude of levels. Meditation is a space that should be considered as a safe, deeply personal container, where we can explore our inner worlds and heal, but if we shun certain aspects of ourselves we may be creating a damaging shame, leaving behind an impression much like scare tissue. And eventually, this shame needs to be addressed too.

Instead, we can give ourselves permission to ride the waves of our own unique experience, with the same enthusiasm we would bring to a theme park, and to embrace the inner characters (archetypes) that show up and present us will valuable insights. 

We know from research on meditation, that the brain can access healing states that yield a form of rest deeper than the deepest sleep, even when the brain is allowed to access a multitude of thoughts, and emotions. Focusing on a mantra that means nothing to us individually, or trying to remove our deepest desires has no bearing on our ability to heal through meditation. 

As a fellow explorer, I invite you to play with your wild parts, ask them to join the party in your inner world. Being in absolute wonder of the full range of our being is incredibly inspiring, healing, and hopeful. From my own experience and from what I’ve gathered from working with others in this way, this continues to hold true. 

I also invite you to ask yourself, as I ask myself continually, ‘is there a part of myself that is not fully accepted into my practices?’ and following that with ‘what would that aspect of myself have to teach me about my broader experience?’

Now, I don’t know about you but I have been on many literal wild adventures in my life, but the most curious and entertaining are the rides I take daily in my inner world, exploring myself more deeply- what a treat! At my meditation table, the wildest and most serene of my inner characters are communing, relating, and evolving together. 

I’ll leave you with one sentiment, as a result of this style of meditating, I simply cannot wait for my next meditation– I’m excited to witness my own process there, and to open myself to the kaleidoscope of sensory experience to be had.