Tag: life

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The Inner War & How to Rise Above

(A Heroine’s Journey)

What I think is important for all of us to understand is the battle we are fighting isn’t out there, even if it appears to be. It’s inside of us. *
*This is why the title of Steve Magness’s newest book Win the Inside Game is so brilliant.

This theme of dark and light, showcased in all our favorite books and movies: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia…these battles are all happening within our minds. Our heads have always been the projector playing these movies onto the big screen of life. These battles may appear “out there”, but the war that really matters is within. Which is why I’ll add another book/movie favorite to the list, Alice and Wonderland, which I’ll write a bit more about in a few paragraphs.. We all, if we so choose, get to go on our own hero’s, or heroine’s journey. 

Recently, I’ve heard a differentiation between the hero’s and heroine’s journey. From my perspective, they’re not that different, but manifest differently because of the female embodiment. At the essence of both, we are reclaiming the divine feminine. After all, isn’t this the whole point of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code?* The woman reclaims herself** . The man learns to honor, to surrender to, the part of himself he rejected. Non-binary people are viewed with the utmost respect, having already harmonized themself in the two energies. We see the oppressor for what it is: fear. Fear and the stories our mind creates around the emotion. We hear the siren’s call (The Odyssey) but learn not to turn towards it. We fight not with weapons, but with our hearts. If fear is the opposite of love, it cannot remain standing in the face of Love’s light.
*While I admittedly only read part of the book, this is also the point of Brian C. Maruresku’s historical research and book, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name.
*Recommended read: The Girl Who Baptized Herself by Meggan Watterson

As we reclaim the divine feminine within- our inner knowing, our truth, our love- we watch as our inner dictators lose power. We know, and begin to understand, this ancient truth: “As within, so without.” “As above, so below.” (Hermetic Principle). “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” -John Milton, Paradise Lost. And of course, “The kingdom of God is within you.” – Jesus, The Bible (Luke 17:20-21) My guess is that you can see, if you’ve done any inner reflection, how the characters in your brain often seem to play out in the world. Donald Trump is no worse than my inner critic. I have dated too many guys with chauvinistic and covertly manipulative tendencies. Yet I also have my trusty sidekick and great love, my dog, by my side. I literally have an Obi-Wan who guides me (Reiki Master & Mindfulness Coach) and Galadriel (my therapist, with a touch of Ginny Weasley). (I swear, my Reiki teacher and therapist look just like these “fictional” characters). My own dad, who first gave me his old, dusty copy of Lord of the Rings before I entered the hospital for an eating disorder in 7th grade, possesses wizardry no short of Professor Dumbledore, or Gandolf, twinkle in eye and sense of humor in hand. Who are these characters in your own life?

As the battle reaches its peak, we see the contrast heighten: the female is repressed and shunned, called a liar or a witch. Darkness seems to grow as authoritative power seems to increase- in response to fear of being defeated. Again, this is the war within our own minds. And it is here that we must believe in our ability to conquer. Not with maleficence, for we need our minds, but with clear seeing, forgiveness, and love. This is also where most of us want to give up, to turn back. We question our worth and our abilities. While I rarely admit this out loud, I have said to Obi-Wan, “I don’t think I can win.” My own programming- my own darkness- felt too strong. We all ask ourselves, “Who am I?”. I think of the tiny hobbit, Frodo, trying to admit defeat, “I can’t do this, Sam.” Alice (Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carrol) doubting her ability to slay the Jabberwocky, the incessant inner critic of her mind*. But this is where our team comes in- love- the ghost of Harry’s parents as he duels Voldemort, Sam replying to Frodo, “..Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something… That there’s some good in this world.” It’s the call to my sister when I need help finding a better thought. My therapist letting me know how much I have grown. Obi-wan always seeing the best in me, when I only see the worst. And in the name of love (or doG), we say, “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.”, proclaiming like Joan of Arc, the brave heart warrior archetype we all possess, even though we may be shaking. 
*Not being able to ignore the synchronicities, which are, according to psychotherapist, psychiatrist, psychologist, and author, Carl Jung, signs you’re on the right path, I finally decided to go on a psilocybin/psychedelic journey- I was in the safety of therapist’s office and guided by friends. While I was hoping to give my Default Mode Network some help, a common experience for many “journeyers” (although perhaps slightly exaggerated in Michael Pollan’s otherwise informative book/documentary, How to Change Your Mind– admittedly, another half read for me) part of my message is that I still need to be the one to do it, to experience my own power. However, what I was shown was why I experience so much inner pain, a glimpse at some of my gifts, and a big nudge that I needed to trust myself enough to use them.

The journey​, if we choose to say “yes’ to it, is hard. Arduous. We hope it lasts but a few hours, maybe days, growing wearing when it lasts for years. ​We’ll get bloody and grow weary. ​We’ll want to give up. Keep going. Look up at the night sky, and a shooting star will remind ​us a loved one is near. A friend, or perhaps a dog, will remind ​us that Love will never leave ​our side. And even if ​we die in the pursuit, in that Love, ​we will always find safety. That makes ​us brave. ​We may wander, but we are not lost. There is purpose to our journey. There is good, there is gold, there is doG worth fighting for. W​e realize that ​we are the Hero/ine of your story, even if just a mere human. And somehow, in that acceptance, ​we realize who we truly are. 

We reclaim what we thought was stolen and burned, but was in fact, only hidden. We forgive our minds, because they were doing the best they could with what they perceived was gone. We embrace. We find the lost pages of Mary Magdalene’s gospel (I highly recommend Mary Magdalen Revealed by Meggan Waterson). We fill that hole, that void we’ve been trying to fill all our lives. Discovering that that too, Love, has always been within. We are Love, Herself.*

We come back Home.

*This, of course, is why the last Star Wars movie had to be women led.

****

Below is a channeled message. A good friend (“Obi-Wan”) has been gently encouraging me to share more of my gift of channeling, so here it is:

You are so loved. Your mind is trying hard to maintain power- it’s dictatorship. 

You are bigger, you are stronger. 

Keep going.

This is an opportunity for you to know your true power. 

It is not the mistakes you make that matter, even if it was your mind (brain’s programming) that caused you to make them. It is how you talk to yourself after, how you love or judge yourself.

You are becoming Love. You are Love. 

This is your battle to win. 

Not through opposing dictatorship but through love, compassion, and forgiveness. 

You win by clear seeing. 

Dictatorship runs off of fear. Its voice is loud but you are stronger. You are more magnificent. 

You have the power to lay down your weapons, knowing you cannot fight your mind into submission, and to see your oppressive voice for what it is: f.e.a.r. (false evidence appearing real). 

You can love the fear, the scared child, back into wholeness, while quieting the siren’s call (turning away from the voices in your head). 

The battle is within. To be fought with love and clear seeing. 

By standing in your truth, firmly and defiance- 

You (we) are Ray of Light.

***
(I thought this was worth sharing in full)

Frodo: “I can’t do this, Sam.”

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness, and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo…and it’s worth fighting for.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien

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Revealing Potential

“What is it that gets in the way of us, human-spirits, living our highest potential?”*

Lack of love for ourselves, self-hate, thinking we are not enough, that we are broken- these beliefs are all childlike energies stuck in our psyche, manifested in the body, and buried beneath layers of neuro-wiring. These beliefs need nurtured back to love, so they can return to the light. It is through consistent nurturance and compassion, being shown and not just told they are safe, that these young energies can release the mental myths they clinged to and naturally be reformulated and reconceptualized into Truth. With Love as our base- then, we can be BRAVE.
We can venture out into the unknown- towards the destiny blocked by the egoic eye- to the potential that lies beyond the shadows.

As always, Love is the answer.

* I received the message recently that I was meant to share, and trust, more of my intuitive gifts, gifts that are still very much in the infancy stage due to undernourishment (after all, I did grow up in the Catholic Church where only men were allowed to preach) and often being passively shunned throughout my life (still, so many men don’t want to receive messages from women). With that, not everyone will get these messages, and that’s okay- they might not be for you. Those meant to read these messages will most likely be others who identify as seekers, highly sensitive people, empaths, wanderers, spiritual enthusiasts, people who don’t feel like they quite fit in, and those who love beyond ordinary measures.

(Psychology note: A classic example used in Attachment Theory is a child at a playground. A child that has a secure attachment (a child who feels loved unconditionally and knows a parent is there supporting them) will feel both more brave to venture out into the playground to explore and, yes, PLAY, but also to know his/her/their current limits and to wait to say, try the monkey bars, until they feel more ready to do so.)

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Grasp

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Draft

I try to grasp…

Everything is moving so fast.

I beg to Time to stop.

But He just smiles at me.

So time continues to slip

as if it were water through my fingertips.

The more I cling,

the more pain I bring.

I plead.

I bargain.

I deny what it in front of me.

I tell myself a lie,

trying to counteract the belief inside:

Things will never be this good again.

I falter.

I flail.

I fall.

Here at the bottom, the only thing left to do is cry.

In the seemingly cruel reality of paradox, I know this is my only opportunity to fly.

As I weep into the Earth,

She holds me.

Not forcing me to rise,

but knowing that in Love,

I will begin the climb.

The Tree next to me tells me it’s time to leg go.

They know this is my only path to peace,

to remembering what I already know.

Death is but a new adventure,

a place we will all go to together.

It’s really not unknown,

because only in myth have we ever been alone.

I fall back into the Infinite,

and begin my journey-our journey to the Sky.

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“Grateful”

Grateful.

I could also say “Grief.” Which really, says the same thing. Both belong to Love. 

I was briefly discussing this topic and dogs with my therapist yesterday (even as a therapist myself, it’s good to be seen by someone else)… we concluded with the fact that, “I love deeply.”

It pains me that perfect moments pass so quickly. Adventures end. Loves of our lives grow older. People die. Animals pass. Summer ends. Fall begins. Beauty shifts. Our days together won’t last forever. 

One day, “Pacer’s Pack”, won’t have our leader. Or rather, she will be pure Sunshine.

I try to savor. I try to be present. Yet when I hold on, when I cling, the pain is only worse. 
And so I just let go. I release the waterfall within. Currently, the my own water flow trajectory is at least once a week, sometimes at home on the floor, often in spaces where I know the Sky and Earth will hold me. This pattern has been monthly for more years that others may warrant as necessary. But I will stand strong in my deep empathy, my love. Things are still good, We are still agile, but my mind projects into the fading future, as well as the current breezes. 

In the end, it is only Love. It is all Love. 

I cry in grief. I cry because I am so goD damn grateful. I cry because I love so deeply. 

And if that is the greatest burden of my life, it is also the greatest gift. 

…and when I die, may I fade into Love and never know the difference.

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When I say dog, what I really mean is Love

When I say grief,
what I really mean is Love.
When I say pain,
what I really mean is my perceived absence of it. 
When I say fear,
what I really mean is that I have forgotten.
When I say dog, 
what I really mean is Love.
When I say Love,
what I really mean is that I have remembered.

***

Fear was created when we first felt separate from our parents or caregivers. When our needs or emotions weren’t met with care and compassion. To an infant or child, our earliest caregivers represent Love, or God. This is to stay it is during this time we truly felt separated from Love, which created fear in the body. Through developed mental processes, that fear materialized into stories of unworthiness and not enoughness. This created shame in the body, and further perceived separateness from Love. 

To remember who were are is to connect back to Oneness, to Love. We have to let go our stories, free (allow) the stuck emotions to be experienced, and surrender back to Love. Which takes Trust, because most of have forgotten a time when it was there. (Dogs and other animals can help remind us.) So ultimately, your trust fall is letting go of fear and falling back into Love.

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You Can’t Find Me There

“You can’t find me there.”

Today, on what would have been my “older” sister’s 41st birthday, I find myself searching for grief. I find a little, but no tears fall. Part of me feels guilty, like I should feel sad, like I still should be mourning her “too short life”. Guilty, knowing this might be my last post on my sister’s birthday. Like I should continue to feel weird for being physically older than my older sister ever got to be. Yet, I can hear my sister say, “You can’t find me there.”

And in truth, I know what she means. She’s free. She’s expanded. No longer bound by the limitations of human perception. The part of me that clings to grief as a way to connect, the part that tries to hold on to grief… while they served a purpose, those parts aren’t actually me.

So when I search for grief, I must dive so far into the well that at the bottom, I only find love. Then, when I find myself swimming in the joy of that Love, I know I’ll find her. I’ll be reminded that actually, we’ve never not been- we’ve always been- connected.

While my path back to finding her has been nothing short of wayward and wanderlust, she’s always been sending me signs, whispering “You can meet me here. You can be free now, too.” (while still incarnated). Just the other week, I was driving back home and asking for a sign on what to do. Before I could fully comprehend what was happening “Can’t Stop the Feeling” by Justin Timberlake (one of Amanda’s songs) comes on the radio while an RV pulls in from of me that says “T-Align”! The synchronicity of this is that my nickname for my older sister growing was “T” (and for the life of me I can not remember why) and lately I had been playing around the idea “what does it feel like to align with my True Self”?

Somedays, I can almost feel my sister holding my hand, just as I did for her when she was finding her way back Home and letting go of her human identity. She’s guiding me back toward the light, the truth of who I am. Who we are. Knowing that, if you are reading this, you came to earth for self-realization. To remember you are a soul in a human body. Away from the falsities and myths and limitations of the ego. She’s leading me back towards my deepest desire, to be free.

Here, I hear her say, “Yay!”

*Please be respectful of and honor your own journey with grief. There’s no time lifeline and no agenda on your path.

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Freedom & Death

And isn’t freeing to know…
…that we are all going to die?

That everything matters…
…and nothing matters?

Soon, it will all disappear.

The clothes and cars, yes. The people too. And you, the human.
The human with the stories, beliefs, and attachments. The story of you.
The limitations. The doubt. 

So yes-

Go thrust yourself into the beauty of life.
Climb that mountain.
Have your adventures.
Dance under the stars.
No, better yet…
dance in front of a crowd a let everyone whisper, “I wish I was more like her.”
Become her. You are Her. Free.

Know this too:

The mountain that you didn’t climb,
the adventure you never had,
the relationship you were never in
-those things never really mattered.

Your perception of wrong or right, 
bad or good,
you can’t take those when you go.

So laugh, cry, sing.
Release and die into the moment.

Letting go.
Back to stardust.
Back to Light. 

Share

****

While we’re in these physically bodies, it is important we live, but live without the pressure of living and doing “things right” or trying to do “everything”, because then we’re living in fear, not love. Yet love is often a forgotten state for many of us, and it is through the death of our limitations- our beliefs, our stories of not enooughness, our shame, and the continual allowing and surrender of our emotions- that we can return to love. And so, it is through the “death” or our small self, that we can become free while incarnated, then reclaim our small self that is now inspired by Love rather than fear. 

***I alway feel like I have to add this too, to cover my therapist basis. It’s never us, unless it’s really our time and then there is no choosing, that wants to die. It is always a PATTERN or a PART. It’s a shame-based belief system that our soul is ready to let go of. That is, essentially, what is asking to be seen, loved, and let go of/die. Our souls want us to experience the joy of being alive.

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Try this: validate your shame.

You don’t need to agree with the voice to validate the emotion.

The “Emotions Wheel” has “ashamed” in the category of sadness. If I sit and feel into it, it’s fear, sadness, and anger combined. Then, there’s usually emotions under that, as the inner shamer is different from the part being shamed.

Honestly, the story you’re living in, the story that you’re broken or not enough, is really hard. And the shamer is just doing what it knows how to do.

We always do our best with the skills we have. If you dig into it just a bit, you’ll most likely realize that your inner shamer sounds a lot like one of your parents, enhanced by some other mean voices you’ve heard on TV.

The experiences and voices of others that gave birth to your inner shamer are most likely not from super memorable situations. It could be a small thing that felt really big and confusing in your little body.

For example, when I was a little kid and I said something “bad”, I would get my mouth washed out with soap. This might sound extreme now, or you might think, “why didn’t your parents just have your brush your teeth or use mouthwash?”, but this was fairly common in the 90s. Now, I was a really good little kid… and I was a kid. I can’t remember what I would have said, it just couldn’t have been that bad. But even if I said a swear word or was mean to one of my sisters, it’s because I didn’t have the skills to regulate my own emotions and the only thing I could to to release some of the anger or frustration or despair in my body was to let it out verbally. Again, I didn’t have any other tools, and this is probably what I saw others do. My parents too, were of course doing the best they could with the parenting and emotional skills they had. Unfortunately, that didn’t prevent my little mind from making up a story that when I mess up or have big emotions, that I’m bad*. Something is wrong with me. Which brings in a huge energy of fear, as I then question if I’m lovable. The story I further create is that I’m only lovable if I’m perfect. And in this fear, I strive to be perfect, but because I’m acting out of fear instead of love, I inevitably make “mistakes” (miss the mark) over and over again (and also, because I’m human). Because the only skill I learned was how to shame myself for making a mistake, I keep doing it over and over and over again. Until I learn about, and start practicing, self-compassion and Love, which my dog has been trying to teach me for over a decade.

*While I used a personal example, this is really how all our little brains work. This is called “egocentric”.

What we can start with is forgiveness. Forgive your shame for being so hard on you. It’s been doing the best it could with what it knows. Forgive yourself for anytime you missed the mark, because you were doing the best you could with the emotions and energy you had stuck inside of you. (We only do “bad” things if we feel bad inside.) And, half the time what you did was probably just fine, you put that “not good enough” story on top of it.

From there, you can practice self-compassion. Find compassion for the perfectionist, the achiever, and other critical parts of you that have been doing the best they could. Allow the inner child, the one that has been shamed, to feel all of his/her/their fear, confusion, frustration, and grief. (This will take time and most likely multiple therapy or journaling sessions.)

Then Love. This is less of a practice than going within and finding the Love within you that’s been buried. It might be breathing into your heart charge, or drawing on your dog’s beingness for inspiration. Ultimately, Love is your most natural state.

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Failure Wrapped in Love

A Path to Enlightenment

Failure may actually be one of the best and most efficient ways to get in alignment with the truest and highest versions of ourselves. A path to really living our best lives. …IF we can wrap failure in love.

The more mistakes we make, the more we learn how a choice or path isn’t for us, or we realize the way in which we are trying to get where want to be is out of whack (fear-based), and the more we have the opportunity to remember who we really are.

Which takes us to the blocks around failure. Shame (a topic I’ll talk more about how to work with soon) prevents us from evolving and seeing the failure, or simply the situation, with clarity. When we get lost in shame and stories of how we’re bad or not enough, we can be assured we’ve identified with our subconscious programming (small selves/ego) and NOT our Higher Selves. The irony is that the more we stay in shame (which believes we’ll make a better choice if we’re super mean to ourselves), the more likely we’ll take the take the wrong path again, make the same mistake, and fail again. (If the emotion is in you and still in the shadows, you probably won’t even know when you’re doing this.)

Yet, if we see failure through the lens of love, or rather, we love ourselves when we make a mistakes, we open ourselves up to new ideas, paths, and…to use a super spiritual word, EXPANSION. Loving energy helps us see new options and make more optimal choices (we’re past good or bad when we’re in this space).

Because we know we “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”, to quote Albert Einstein (a super spiritual dude and scientist), it’s not thinking about being kind to ourselves that’s going to get us out of this one. Which to me, is a relief, because my neural pathways are pretty set on how I really did screw things up. (Yes, I’m right here with you on this topic.) In addition to working with childhood memories on how our shame got its origins, what we can start doing is FEELING into the energy of compassion. Personally, I have no problem doing this with my sister, my dog, my dad, etc. Once I conjure up this feeling thinking of them, I can then PRACTICE (it is a practice) turning it towards myself. Try it our yourself.

I’ve got a lot more to say about shame coming up, when I have time to write more of my thoughts down. For now, here’s some food for thought and some compassion to feel into.

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Gifts of Evolution (Part Two): A New Reality

One thing that I didn’t mention in my previous post on considering that every experience in your life is happening for you, even the one you don’t necessarily like, is that in addition to rising from victim mentality to to hero of your story (thank you, Joseph Campbell, for first writing about the “Heroe’s Journey”.), you’re entering a new reality.

Before I explain further, I’d like to thank the YouTuber who left a mean comment on my last video- all my haters seem to always come from YouTube. (I don’t actually upload any videos individually to YouTube, it’s just connected to my Substack, but I use YouTube often to listen to podcasts. Because I’m practicing becoming the focus of my attention (subject) rather than the outside world (object), I just turned off all my YouTube notifications. Look up Dr. Sue Morter if you’re interested in learning more about her “subject-object-subject” practice). I’ll return to the YouTuber and his (or the bots?) role in my evolution shortly. 

What I’m going to attempt to do for you here is explain 3D to 4D & 5D reality super simply, as it’s taken me years to understand it. 

If we take a situation and simply tell it as it is, the story, or plot, is pretty flat. “I have been injured.” What most of us do, from the place of victim mentality (which arises from unprocessed fear), is say “I’m so frustrated I’m injured. This is sucks.” While it is important to honor our emotions, the thing that keeps us stuck are beliefs such as “This is bad.” “Bad things always happen to me.” “I have no control over this.” And, while it is true that you might not be able to magically heal from the injury overnight, what you DO have the ability to shift is your perspective over what happened (in this example, the injury). This doesn’t mean you have to know why right away, but simply holding on to the belief that there is something for you in it can return you to a place of power, and perhaps paradoxically, actually support your healing. (Honestly, I don’t care if you believe everything happens for a reason or that you can simply choose to give any circumstance meaning…both are way more empowering then playing victim and labeling what happens as a negative experience.) 

With that understanding, you can now create a new story around the plot. It might start with, “I’m injured. And part of me feels sad about it, but I also know that there is something for me here to support my growth.” Later, it might turn into, “As much as I didn’t want to be injured, it really helped me pause and go inward. I have more peace in my life now, because I learned how to create it within me, than I ever did before. I’m actually glad I got injured.”

Realizing this post is getting long and I have work to do, I’m not fully going to differentiate 4D and 5D reality (in truth, I’m also still trying to fully understand it) and because I wanted to get to the YouTuber story. The short version is that 4D reality says, “I don’t like my current reality, and I can DO things to change it”. 5D reality says “I don’t like my current reality. I can shift my inner experience (emotions) to BECOME a higher version of me, and ALLOW a new physical reality come to me.

Okay, one more short story. So let’s say I’m the hero of my story. I decided I’m the main Player in the video game called Life. When the YouTuber/Villian writes a mean comment, I first allow myself to feel and heal some of the emotions from my old victim programming. Then, I realize that the Negative Ned YouTuber/Villian is just another challenge for me to get to the next level. I realize he can 1) support me in my aforementioned) healing and 2) is trying to throw darkness my way so I continue to dim my light at stay at the level I’m at, 3D reality. Having been at the level so many times, continuing to fail and calling on another life, my soul, or Player is finally evolved enough to see another path. Actually, I realized the YouTuber isn’t an enemy I’m trying to fight off. He’s actually trying to support me in my journey and challenging me to NOT dim my light this time. With my light now actually brighter, I decided to share what I learned with other Players (You), so we can all start moving to the next level, or reality, together. 

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