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I’ve had a chance to travel recently which, in the process of transit and spending time in hotels, had given me time to read and reflect. An interesting topic that came up for me whilst reading the new Integral Life Practice book was the concept of the “Phases in the Practice Life”. What resonated was how it related to the phases in my previous yoga practice and how it now relates to my current strength training practice that I pursue as a yoga. As a roadmap of what potentially to expect at each stage of a strength training practice I thought this would be worth sharing with the group.
Quick overview of the theory (Integral Life Practice: p. 368-372)….
Practice takes time. An over time, as you engage practice, certain phases often unfold organically. A series of different “seasons” will appear…[being The Honeymoon, The Plateau and Falling from Grace, The Fruits, The Dark Night, Responsibility].
The Honeymoon is usually for a period of at least several years, practice involves the process of establishing a new orientation in life, breaking old habits, and establishing new conscious routines;
The Plateau and Falling from Grace, the regularity of practice will have become second nature and awareness expanded and stabilised with practitioners, unaware that they had become addicted to the experience of expansion, begin to feel like their practices aren’t working anymore;
The Fruits, new, free capacities bloom and awareness effortlessly expands. We worked hard and now we re seeing results. Were gratified. Proud. Identified . Attached. And, inevitably, full of it!;
The Dark Night, At a certain point your practice life may seem to fall apart. You may lose all motivation, no longer able to believe that practice is going to get you anywhere. Awareness of the underlying selfish motives for practice may become so acute that you despair of the whole enterprise. You may discover that something essential is dying. The awful aloneness and sense of limitation that you may have hoped to escape through practice has now engulfed you. Despair is inescapable; your aspiration to infinity will never succeed. You are going through a kind of death, one you cannot escape. Congratulations - this defeat is the doorway to profound freedom;
Responsibility, This phase of responsibility contains all the previous phases flowing together in a stability whereby the fruits of practice may even gracefully deepen - perhaps becoming the liberating illuminations described in our ancient spiritual traditions.
My reflection, and hopefully a point of discussion, is focused on The Dark Night phase. I experienced similar feelings and reactions on my yoga practice to the point where I have abandoned this practice almost entirely and replaced this with a Integral strength training practice. And while I am very much in “The Honeymoon phase” of this practice - motivated by the energy and intensity of the new practice - a cannot ignore the residue of the feelings I had in experiencing what I believe was A Dark Night phase. I’ve discussed this a little in this forum as my reflection is that I’m concerned by my own capacity for a superficial shadow motivation for pursuing strength training practice even as a form of developmental practice may lead to a deeper, more intense Dark Night than potentially other modes of practice. This is a generalisation and dependant on an individuals relationship to practice and their own understanding of shadow motivation.
So what I want to explore here is The Dark Night, Shadow motivation, and the superficial motive. If you have experienced a Dark night phase - how did you recognise it, what were your physiological reaction, did you continue/persist with the practice and for how long or did you radically change the mode of practice to overcome the experience as I have, have you emerged from A Dark Night and again how did you recognise that and what part of that phase still is residue in your current practice post experience of this phase.
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