The Four Selves Meditation - Nature’s Pull Towards Wholeness

Many spiritual traditions across the world and through the ages have spoken of us all having four selves within us: our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical selves. These, in some traditions, align with the four cardinal directions, the four elements and the four seasons.

It’s especially easy these days, given what is going on, to find ourselves out of balance. Sometimes this is because we are not respecting, validating and listening to each of these selves. They can be at odds with each other.

For example, if I sustain a physical injury, my mental self can be impatient and judgemental towards my emotional self for being so disappointed, which in turn is seeing itself as the victim of a weak physical self. My physical self might just be needing some love and attention from both of them.

If we can get them to work together as a unified whole, then we are able to lead ourselves and others way more effectively and we can find inner peace, health and happiness.

If you can, try to listen to this 15 meditation out in nature which, in its completely integrated state, always pulls us towards 'wholeness'. Actually, not only outer nature but our inner nature is also pulling us towards wholeness. Emotions and thoughts and feelings are constantly tugging at our sleeves and calling for our attention. They need to be listened to and cared for, the 'positive' ones just as much as the 'negative' ones.

It's easy for us to focus on the positive or the negative as polarised opposites. However, that can put a lot of strain on ourselves. What about the positive inside the negative and the negative inside the positive? To continue with the above example, were it not for my physical injury I may not have spent so much time with my family or I may not have changed my diet to look after my body more. Rather than seeing things as particularly good of particularly bad, we can feel into the wholeness of a situation and learn to see it as simply the way life is. The spiritual self, our true nature, is particularly adept at this.