"But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ." – The Little Prince
I’ve always been intrigued by the feeling of longing. What is it that makes us reach for our phones or a glass of wine when we’re feeling lonely? What is it we are seeking when we start a text to our ex (hopefully to go back and delete it before we hit “send”)? What is the void we’re trying to fill, and has it always been there? What is the proverbial hole in our hearts that we speak of, and how did it get there? What is the missing piece, and when did we lose it?
What I do know is that this sacred longing cannot be filled by achievement, material things, a relationship, a substance, another run or backpacking trip, although these things and doings can temporarily seem to fill or numb it, until they can’t, and we go on chasing again.
The puzzle of longing is one I’m often trying to solve with clients, other seekers who always have a way of leading me deeper on my own journey, guiding me closer to the answer*. It’s the gift (even though the grief) of the end of a relationship, an opportunity to further explore the internal longing… the calling of the soul.
Can you meet yourself here?
Because paradoxically, it might just be feeling your sacred longing and meeting yourself there that Love can come in and heal it.
*A note for other seekers: the gift you offer is your curiosity, is your seeking, and not in always finding or figuring out the answer.
The biggest block to healing is judging yourself for where you are now, who you are now vs. where you want to be and who you think you should be. This is always a form of, “I will love myself when…”. (“I’ll love myself when I deem myself as perfect and never make another mistake”, is really the subconscious story many of us tell ourselves. We know this because we say we have self-love, until we make a mistake and then immediately go into self-judgment and criticism.)
Of course, it’s okay to want more for yourself, to have more money, less panic attacks, feel more fulfilled, to have less problems. But the mental and emotional work is to see where we withhold love from ourselves from our current position, and allow love to enter from there. Or here, not when we get “there”.
From a spiritual perspective, to say we should be somewhere else is to deny the divine intelligence of the Universe. (Mother Earth would be just fine without humans interfering.). If you’re feeling stuck now, it’s because your soul wants you to remember how to love unconditionally and for you to know that you are always worthy of love.
This theme of acceptance (better understood as “self-acceptance” or “self-love”) vs change is perhaps the biggest paradox of therapy and healing. It’s also nearly impossible to think through (to the dismay of my “Figure It Out part”). I could only come to understand this paradox though patience as I witnessed my clients’ struggles and gently received this guidance on pup walks, realizing my own blocks to love. Hopefully this post has made a little more sense of this paradox for you.
Integration: Where do you resist your life right now? Are you injured? Do you not have the job you want or simply think you should be doing more? Are you not where you want to be financially? Are you still having mental health struggles?
Then answer some version of the question, “Why do I believe I don’t have more money?” “Why do I believe I still have anxiety?”
Is it because you don’t believe you are worthy? That you haven’t done enough? Do you believe that if you were better, or smarter, things would be better?
It is from that wounded place, that old belief, where you allow the love in.
And the moment you allow Love in, is the moment you realize it was always within.
(Written from the perspective of the Divine Mother archetype)
I love you. I appreciate you. I am grateful that you’re here. I love all of my sons, my sons turned turned husbands, turned fathers.
But I never wanted, never needed, you to fight for me. I love you too much to ask you to pick up a gun. I only wanted you to choose me. I only wanted you to vote for me.
I forgive you.
May you be released of your pain and any guilt or shame you may carry. I know you did not want to kill your brother, your sister, your father, or me, your mother. Anger and self-hate clouded your vision, and I know you could not see. Release your burden. I hold you in no blame. You are my son (my child) and for you, I only have love.
Your anger, it is sacred- but it must be processed. The pain beneath it, witnessed. Only then you can align yourself with love and take divinely- led action.
An ask for you…
Please forgive your earthly mother. I know she hurt you and denied you of her, a mother’s love. She was doing her best to survive in a world built by men, a world that said you must be turn and must not feel. Perceiving she had lost her power, she tried to reclaim what was remained by playing your father’s game. She gave you the little love she could when she was lost herself, deprived of the same love in which you craved.
Please forgive your father. He had to be distant in the absence of himself, for when we forget the feminine, we all suffer. Or, if he too, was angry, please forgive him… he too was acting out in his own grief, the loss of what he most desired: a mother’s love.
My child, you have been taught you were unworthy, the result of fear trying to erase me. But I am always here. I am always ready to hold you in my arms, ready to bring you back home to what has always been yours. Give me your sins, your fear, your wrong-doings, and your pain. I will take them from you and transmute them. I will return you to what is yours, but was never truly lost, only pushed away and forgotten. A mother’s love. Fierce and unconditional.
I love you, always.
Your Divine Mother
*****
We are living in a world where the Divine Feminine has been erased out of history books, including spiritual texts, texts that saw women in positions of power and leadership. Mary, mother of Jesus, is recognized in the bible for little more than her “purity” and birthing Jesus, excluding the fact that she herself was most likely a high priestess. Sexual creatures or not (minus the “not”), it is women that will always birth the light. Then we have Mary Magdalene, most likely Jesus’s most “beloved” disciple, possibly partner/wife, and high priestess, but whose role was greatly reduced in the hand-picked passages of the bible (in 1969, the Catholic Church admitted that it had “been mistaken” for calling Mary Magdalene a sex worker- although this version was still portrayed in the 90s while when I attended Catholic school.) Still, we must consider why the church repeatedly found it so important diminish, or make bad, the act of sex. These are just two of the well known examples in the “land of many.” But the point is… when we rob the world of the Divine Feminine, there will be no peace, we will not be whole. In Her removal of our story, many of us have not experienced divine, unconditional love, resulting in a split from ourSelves, Spirit and ego*. This separation is the source excruciating pain. In attempt to diminish this pain, the ego paradoxically turned on itself, further cementing its identity. And so, our first step into bringing Her back is realizing, no matter what (non) gender you are, She is within all of us, and we can all embody the Divine Mother archetype anytime we so choose… we just have to be willing to choose it.
(It would also be worth writing about the Divine Father, which I will defer here for length. What I can say is that the Divine Father being revealed will be a natural cause of the Divine Mother being remembered and accepted. These two divinities co-exist in union, and when one is hidden, the other is also turned into a shadow, hence why the shadow or “toxic” side of the masculine is now at the forefront of our world at large.)
*****
If you are a military veteran (whom I recognize as various genders), I 100% understand why you would feel defensive around this post. Without elongating my story, I imagine I would be too, being in your position. However, it is always worthy to question why we feel defensive when there is no real threat posed…I’m a 5’4″ psychotherapist who does not, and will not, own a gun. My mission is to preach (real) Love, which, along with the voices of others, will hopefully one day result in war no longer being a consideration as a way to handle conflict. My goal is to remind you that your are infinitely, profoundly, Loved.
Well before Salem, women have been feared for their power. They have been called liars, labeled hysterical, and been accused of dark magic.
History repeats.
Isn’t it time we ask ourselves why we are afraid of women who stand in their power?
Why we conjure stories to diminish her gifts?
To come to any truth, we must go beyond collective believes and into the depths of the human psyche…
****
At its core, a woman’s power is her fierce love. Her ability to see through hate, deceit, illusion, and most of all, fear.
This is a love most of us have forgotten or been denied because of the separateness we’ve been sold. So instead of being faithful to Love we’ve been slaves to fear, power hungry or powerless, distant from the real power within. This is the Mother Wound, a wound so gaping yet unconscious in most of us that we do just about anything in attempt to fill it, unknowingly giving more of our power away to external forces that can never truly fill our perceived loss. Because of our pain, we turn on Her. Yet we are all Her. And so we deny ourselves what is within us, the Love that will fill us whole.
Remember, the feminine power is Her fierce love. There is nothing she cannot love. We can only resist it.
Why do we fear Her power? Because Her power can, and will, change the world.
For years, I thought Life was trying to teach me lessons. Eventually I realized, that all along the way, it just wanted to teach me Love.
****
For years, I thought Life was trying to teach me lessons. That my experiences, especially the painful ones, were things that happened to try and get me to grow, to evolve. And then I realized, Life, in its purest form, just wanted to love me. Sometimes I would see shadow parts reflected back to me, but it wasn’t to teach me… it was just to show me where I blocked love from myself.
I’ve invested hours upon hours of my time trying to learn more, trying to heal, while still hiding behind stories of lack and limitation. Again and again, the only thing my soul ever had to say to me was “Love yourself more.”
All the times I’ve cried looking at my dog or found myself in a state of awe at an alpine lake, I was simply being reminded of who I really am. Love.
The only great lesson, the only true purpose, is to love. To remember you are Love. That we are all love. Everything else is just an illusion, a dream that will eventually fade, and all your blocks to love proven unsubstantial to the truth of what already lies within you.
This is the lesson of life. The answer to your problems. The secret to remember who you are. Love.
The wild don’t have anxiety, believe in the fear-based thoughts the mind conjures, nor do they pay homage to the ego, have ties to achievement, or fears of not being enough, especially when following their heart, a path that might not lead to outward acclaim. The wild are true only to their souls.
At the same time, the wild are not reckless. They don’t egoically override fear to prove their superiority over it, which ultimately strengthens their ego identity. When making decisions, there’s no debate among the voices in their head, or even if there is, the wild can see them as fears. Instead, the wild use intuition. Their hearts are the only compass they need. They both love life and do not fear death. The wild care only about protecting the innocence of the inner child.
Guided by love and not fear, guided not by the mind but by the soul, the wild are free.
*This phrase was first said to me by Denise Mange, founder of Pet Prana, who is a pet trainer and animal communicator. She said this to me during a session with her after I said that I almost always worry about Pacer when we’re out adventuring. This made me realize that most of my fear voices, “Do we turn back? Do we keep going? Is Pacer happy?”, were mine and not Pacer’s. Pacer is happy just being outside (especially with her pack), and as always, will tell me when she wants to turn or slow down. It’s only the voices, or parts arguing in my head, that in the past would leave me confused. And truly, my fears and my general anxiety/hypervigilance around life have affected Pacer, who can pick up on my stress, causing her to be excessively protective of me. This obviously wasn’t good for her, and because I love Pacer more than anything in the world, forced me to look at myself. Really, Pacer was asking me to step into my own power, to start trusting myself and my intuition again (I’ve done quite a bit of parts work to unravel myself from the thoughts blocking me from my intuition), so we could both return to our wild nature.
Count each needle on the pines. Every blade of grass. Each petal of every wildflower.
This is your inheritance. This is your abundance.
Soak in each ray of sun. Lean into each cool breeze. Inhale the scent of the mountain air. Wrap yourself in the gifts of Mother Earth.
As the clouds come and the sun seems to disappear, count each raindrop that nourishes the ground. And when day turns to night and all turns dark, count each star in the sky.
This is your inheritance. This is your abundance.
When summer goes and autumn settles in, count each gold leaf, then again as it falls and returns to dust. For soon autumn will change to winter, and you can count again, watching as each snowflake make its way down from the heavens above.
This is your inheritance. This is your abundance.
Even as the land seems barren, and the air turns bitter, let the fire draw you in. Count each laugh you share Every smile you give. Each hug you receive. Feel your dog’s fur and count every single strand of blessed hair.
This is your inheritance. This is your abundance. And still, this is just a fraction of how loved you are.
Your first mission on earth is to remember, to remember who you really are, overcoming and rising above early childhood conditioning. The second mission is to live life from that place of knowing who you are, the space of expansive love. The third mission is natural, spreading that joy, in whatever way you may choose (there may be no life change at all, just being yourself more) to others humans and beings that inhabit this earth.
It takes consistent, committed effort to move through the dark and reach the light. You can’t just want to heal. You have to choose to heal.
*heal: to make whole , or rather, to return to (remember) wholeness after a period of unconsciousness (forgetfulness).
Many therapies assist in this practice. EMDR works in an almost similar way to psychedelics (So I’ve heard. It’s not a path I have chosen for myself but am somewhat familiar with the research and have heard recounts from several friends.) that does not bypass wounds and fears, but moves through them in a safe and contained way that allows the brain to reprocess memories in healthier fashions. Similarly, IFS helps us understand our (wounded, fearful) parts so they loosen the grip and the higher self can step through and reclaim loving power, as well as your direction in life. Still, the basic principle remains the same…we have to be willing to actively let go of our old stories, programmed beliefs, and negative thoughts*. It’s not going to happen (for most of us) just by praying to get rid of them (believe me, I tried). We have to exert the (free) will to choose it, to choose love over fear, in order to create a new paradigm for ourselves.
*If you feel there is a resistance or block or feeling stuck on your healing journey, I recommend looking at that block, or part wanting you to stay stuck, itself.
When I worked at an addiction treatment center, I remember a staff member there teaching a class. I can’t remember if it was about addiction, fitness (he was a strong, athletic guy), or something else, but I clearly remember him asking, “Do you want to know a new language? Or, do you want to LEARN a new language?” Personally, I’d love to know French. I took several classes on the language in both high school and college. But I never really wanted to learn it, and so I can only recall a few words.
Each of us must honestly ask ourselves this question when embarking on a healing journey. Do we just want to be healed? Or do we want to do the work to heal? We may certainly look like we want to heal when we read all the books, listen to all the podcast, maybe occasionally chat with a therapist or take a workshop (I’m raising my hand here). But sometimes, these are easy and often subconscious ways to bypass actually doing the work. We keep searching for the key to what we’re missing instead of unlocking the potential within ourselves.
Yet let me be clear… choosing to move through and let go beliefs and thoughts we’ve held onto for 10, 20, 30, 40, and even 50+ years is not easy. Personally, I have (somewhat subconsciously) been almost determined to hold on to the belief that I’m not enough, or I’ve just wanted it to be taken away from me without my conscious effort. In the past, I’ve started the process of resisting negative voices in myself and gave up when they got louder, letting the thoughts of failure and imperfections consume me. It wasn’t until an occurrence where my ego led and I overrode a core value, missing an opportunity to experience what I care about most in life*, where I decided “I don’t want to live like this anymore” and I found the strength to not turn back (although there were plenty of falters and half step backs, the determination was just greater).
*This was my proverbial “rock bottom”. It doesn’t just have to be getting a divorce or waking up after a near overdose.
As we move through the dark (here, defined as our pain, wounds, and programmed beliefs), what is necessary to realize, so we can be loving observers as we move through, is that the beliefs and negative stories we hold on to about ourselves are not real. They we given to us each time love was invalidated as a child. If you believe you are a failure, it’s not true, regardless of how many times your mind can conjure examples of how you believe you failed. If you believe you are not enough, it’s not true, no matter how your mind compares yourself to others. Your ego only compares based on a performance value that was given to you and your mind accepted at the time as a way to better fit in to society. Failure is a conjecture of the mind, although it is more likely you’ll miss reaching a goal (or being satisfied by it) if it is not heart aligned or was driven by fear (feelings of unworthiness).
The objective here is not to ignore the thoughts, but to see them clearly: as thoughts. To observe them with the curiosity as a small child observes a leaf on the ground, then continue to keep moving. As emotions come up, the process is similar, we feel them through awareness; not attaching to the emotion, but breathing into it, which allows for it to be witnessed and released. I found parts work extremely helpful in this process, as my mind needed more understanding. In the example above, I could witness the part of my ego that just wanted me to feel better about myself, and the way I could do that was to control how far I could go and push myself. Even though it here it led me to a poor choice, I could see how the part was doing the best it could with what it had learned. I could then insert the compassion of my higher self and reassure the fear (of the part) that I could now love myself unconditionally, empowering myself with the ability to re-take the steering wheel of my life.
The main tool here comes from mindfulness, or being able to witness your experiences and thoughts in the awareness and expanse of love. Love is the answer, my friends. As Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Commit to see your wounds (triggers will lead you there), which are essentially any reasons you have for withholding love from yourself. Your ability to insert love into those dark caves is where true healing can occur. From there, you have the opportunity to start believing what you choose to believe (rather than what you were taught to believe).
As you move through the dark, always remember to keep a steady focus on the light. We’re human. Distractions are not only easy, but ingrained in our society and imbedded in our minds. There is not bigger distraction than our fear-based thoughts. Again, see them, be aware of them, get curious about their roles, but don’t allow them to be the center of your attention.
As a gentle reminder, healing, along with commitment, requires patiences. Many protector parts can get defensive when challenged and some suppressed emotions need time (patience is love) before they feel comfortable enough to arise, trusting that YOU’ve got them…you’ve got your inner child, you’ve got you. It’s okay to take a step back. Sometimes nights can be harder than during the day to come back to a place of clarity. Just know, “this too shall pass”.
Ultimately, remember this. YOU ARE A RAY OF LOVE, a ray of consciousness, a ray of light. That is who you truly are. You are not Mike, Alice, Joe, Patricia…so far, you have most likely been playing the role that those characters have been scripted to have by childhood traumas, religious teachings, and other fear-based education. When you realize this, when you come to know this through your fierce dedication to loving yourself, you have the opportunity to insert your conscious (loving) awareness into the human you embody and create a new story for yourself.
Those who attack only do so because they are scared of being attacked themselves. Those who know who they are will never judge, criticize, or make fun of another human being. Neither will they be jealous, envious, or want to take what another person has.
Those who don’t know their own power go out and try to gain it or take it away from others.
The powerful need not do anything but be themselves, claiming only their own hearts. (Which can look like standing up and speaking about what they value.)
They don’t force others to follow. Other simply can’t stay away from their light.
And let me add… I say this all super duper humbly. Pacer (doG) knows that I am human and still working on my insecurities, all the ways I compare and control and label. But I am aware, holding myself in love, and I am trying to feel and move through my fears.
When we remember we are all on the same team, we all want peace, love, joy…to see the best we and the world holds, it is easy to see that there is never a need to be defensive and to attack, that lack is more of a perception than reality that is projected on to those who have less privilege out of fear by the privileged. In truth, there is never a need to react out of fear. The only call is to both be and respond with Love. There is only curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to rise together.
When it comes to voting, it is really important to me that we all truly (consciously) choose who we want to vote for. That we do it with our hearts and our higher minds, which is capable of un-egoic (fear-based) reason and logic. It’s also important to me that we don’t judge each other (I know this is really, really hard! Think of it as a great mental challenge and opportunity to see beyond your own blocks.) based on who we vote for. Remember, we’re all on the same team. At the same time, we can choose to call the politician we are voting for to rise up and step into their true power, or as Michelle Obama said “go high”, which means to avoid criticizing and demeaning others and instead talk about what matters most and the issues they care about. We can even demand a change in our political system without belittling those who built the current structure or being rigid (another sneaky form of fear we sometimes call “healthy skepticism” based on current structures that lack optimism or possibility beyond what we can currently see) in our belief it can never change. We can, and I know we are going to whether it is now or in the future, lean into our greatest potential as a human species.
Where do you block love from yourself? Where do you deny your own healing? Where do you become almost defensive in holding on to your mistakes, imperfections, and unworthiness?
Some of us can be so certain, hold such an adamant belief, about the negative judgment we have of ourselves (or others, but usually it’s a reflection anyway). We want to heal, but we simultaneously deny it from ourselves. Any perception that is not of love shows where we are misaligned and block our own divinity from shining through.
Because any other belief is simply a shadow of a ray of light, a shadow of who you really are.
A Dog and Her Girl 