Most of us are operating from only a part of our selves. To become more whole, and generate more vital energy for whatever we are doing, we want to draw on more of our selves, including personality aspects we may have repressed or denied, or that may have checked out altogether. Dreams help us to recognize these other aspects of our selves. But there is also a very simply waking meditation I like to give people that can be enormously helpful. Try this:

In a quiet, relaxed place (turn off the phones and draw the curtains – or do this alone in nature) and ask yourself this question, over and over: “Where is the rest of me?”

Experiment with putting the stress on different words in the question, and see how it feels when you make the shift.

“Where is the rest of me?”
“Where is the rest of me?
“Where is the rest of me?”
“Where is the rest of me?”

Close your eyes and allow pictures and memories to come to you. If your kid is away at school, you may notice that part of you is with her – a natural and untroubling example of soul separation. You may start seeing images of yourself at different ages, or engaged in different activities you have let drop. You may see a part of yourself that separated because of an early trauma, or the loss of a loved one or a relationship. You may locate a split-off part of yourself that refused to leave your former home, or your former partner, or your previous job.

You may see a larger aspect of yourself, stronger and brighter than you have ever allowed yourself to be, until now.

These sightings are giving you rich resources for soul healing and for embarking on a richer and juicier life.

Make a list of all the aspects of yourself you were able to glimpse. Now ask yourself what you can do to celebrate and engage each of these parts of yourself in your present life. You’ll want to come up with an action plan for each one. That very young child self may want candy and play in the park. That beautiful young teen may want to dress up and go dancing. The writer or artist in you that you left alongside the busy road of life may need you to write the poem or paint the picture and to heck with how anyone else will judge you.

You are now on the road to soul recovery. As I wrote in Active Dreaming, soul recovery, in the fullest sense, is not only about reclaiming our younger selves. It is also about meeting and integrating all our personality aspects, including as much of the energy and insight of the larger or higher Self as we can manage to contain at this stage of our life journey.”

Follow this road far enough, and you may find – as in Julie Heffernan’s magical painting – that you are not only another battered wanderer on this earth; you are a big world.