Facing the Shadow Self

"Meditation saved my life." 

So says Blake D. Bauer, author of You Were Not Born To Suffer in a recent conversation on Leading With Genuine Care. Meditation and other healing practices have helped Blake lift himself out of the pain and isolation he experienced in his youth, and he now shares what he learned in his writings and teachings at https://www.unconditional-selflove.com/.

Searching for Answers 

Captain of the football team in high school, Blake expected to play football in college. Then, after a night out he fell asleep in his car at a railroad crossing to be awoken by police officers. He was given a DUI and was kicked off the team. 

Getting kicked off the team was a blow to Blake's ego and shattered his sense of identity. "I thought I was invincible," he says. By the age of 18, he'd been arrested several times for drug possession. Blake descended into depression. "I was numbing out, running from myself, and instinctually searching for higher states of consciousness." He was waking up daily "struggling and suffering as a young man and ashamed of the fact that I'm suffering. And I didn't have any healthy role models," he says. He also thinks his substance abuse and arrests were an attempt to initiate himself into adulthood because of a lack of healthy initiation rituals in our culture. "We're a little bit lost when it comes to the development of the soul," he observes. 

Having seen what substance abuse had done to his father, Blake was determined to find a better way. He started searching for another path, asking, "How do I free myself from suffering?" and "What am I doing on this planet? What is the purpose of my life?" He decided to stop drinking and doing drugs and "faced suffering head on," implementing healthy habits like eating more salads, trying out vitamins and supplements, and doing yoga. "I just literally went all in because I felt like a sick animal and I was lost," he says. 

Around this time Blake moved from the Chicago area to Boulder, Colorado, instinctively drawn to its energies there as a mecca of healing and spirituality. He cites Eckhart Tolle as one of his first teachers at this time. He also listened to a lot of Van Morrison. "There was something about his soul and his energy and his journey, because he suffered a lot and people didn't take him seriously," he explains.

Through yoga Blake learned how to meditate. He eventually went to five different universities to study psychology, nutrition, and science. He studied Chinese medicine and learned qigong, which would become a big part of his own work and teaching. But, Blake says, "meditation will always be the number one most effective, most practical, biggest return on investment in terms of self healing, change and growth."

A lesson Blake learned from meditating was that he wasn't his thoughts. He talks about using meditation to release yourself from the addiction of thinking. He calls it "a superpower I didn't know that I had." As a teacher he loves to help people come to awareness that they "don't have to be a victim of their mind." 

Blake's was a journey that didn't happen overnight. "I spent years learning how to love and accept myself unconditionally," he says, and "it's not a complete journey." He's found challenges in trying to embody virtues of selflessness and generosity while also practicing self-love and self-acceptance. Even after some years at this work, Blake realized he was still suffering because he "hadn't learned how to love, value and accept myself in deeper places." 

Becoming the Teacher 

Blake wrote You Were Born Not To Suffer when he was in his early 20s to share the lessons he'd learned with others. After being rejected over 100 times by agents and publishers, he was eventually offered a contract with a big-name publisher. That however fell through. He realized then he'd been seeking validation from an external source. "I had put this publishing company on a pedestal and they had become this false idol to me," he says. He decided to self-publish his book. It eventually became the number one bestselling spiritual title in Australia, where he was living at the time. Publishers started calling asking to buy the book, and it has since been released in an updated version in the U.K. and the U.S. Blake is also a speaker, teacher and coach, sharing with others lessons he's learned to improve ourselves physically, psychologically and emotionally. 

10 Minutes a Day

The spiritual practices Blake learned, particularly meditation, have given him the space to find peace and acceptance with himself so he can better serve others. "Meditation was the thing that helped me kind of reclaim my personal power," he says. 

Blake recommends starting out by engaging in a 10-minute practice daily in the morning. This will help "calm and soothe the wild horses from running," helping to lower cortisol and setting a peaceful tone for the day. When he was 18 and started meditating, he eventually extended his meditation time from ten minutes to two hours a day "because that was the only thing bringing me relief from my suffering." It helps to feel like you're in the driver's seat. "Learning to meditate every day helped me create a container of unconditional acceptance and love on a psychological level." 

When teaching others, Blake strives to create a container for people to address their resistance to meditation which he sees as the most important tool. He challenges people on their excuses and tries to be a loving friend but also speaks from "this  conviction and this knowing that you need to just get over yourself." He points out that "addiction to thinking is the problem." He thinks it's helpful to be present for others when engaging in meditation, reminding them there's no wrong way to do it, and guiding them back to their breath and their body. 

Through meditation, we can start to calm the body and tune in, and "there starts to become more space inside of you between the awareness, the higher self and all the thoughts and all the beliefs." In that space, you can then find the power to choose your thoughts. When we sit to meditate, Blake says, "you are actually saying to yourself that I am worthy of some peace." 

After a while, Blake says, meditation helps us make space for thoughts and feelings that arise and to get curious about them, asking questions like "Where does this anger come from? Where does this sadness come from?" From these practices he's learned that becoming more present and open with curiosity also helps you become more self-aware about habits and behaviors such as overeating and excessive drinking.  As a teacher he loves to help people come to awareness that they "don't have to be a victim of their mind." 

Cultivating Unconditional Self Love

Blake believes that a lot of our thinking and suffering comes from repressed emotions. We stuff down the things that bother us in order to keep the peace with the world around us, but that leads you "to betray and reject yourself. There's literally all this stuff in your body." The unresolved hurts appear as thoughts, signals to deal with deeper issues. Left unaddressed, the repression manifests into sickness in the body and mind. Blake believes that  "depression and disease grows in the body as a result of us never learning how to love ourselves as children." 

Blake admits that even after some years doing this work, he has found challenges in trying to embody virtues of selflessness and generosity while also practicing self-love and self-acceptance. "I spent years learning how to love and accept myself unconditionally," he says, and "it's not a complete journey."  

In order to love ourselves and others fully, we need to embrace our shadow sides, coming to terms with childhood trauma and wounds. Without self-love, Blake explains, even with good intentions toward others, we'll burn out and become resentful. We need to learn to "fill our cups" and cultivate a healthy relationship with ourselves first. "Once we love ourselves unconditionally, loving another becomes an act of self-love," he says. 

The conversation with Blake D. Bauer continues on the Leading With Genuine Care, where we talk more about meditation, his journey of self-healing and self-discovery and the Dalai Lama. Connect with me on Twitter and LinkedIn and keep up with my company imageOne.