Tag: spirituality

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Transcending Fear (Part Two): Becoming Unshakeable

[Part One: https://adogandhergirl.com/2023/06/24/transcending-fear-part-1-the-voice-of-doubt ]

“You are a powerful manifestor, Ray!”, said the psychic in an an email after a pet reading, which was half an email about me honing my own energy.

People have mentioned some variation of this to me before, commenting on my intuition or healing energy. “But what do you actually mean!?”, is the shout I often keep quiet in my head. I often feel like a young Jedi Knight or first year Hogwarts student, shooting off my magic without knowing how or what I’m doing.

After all, I don’t have a van (yet), a book deal (yet), or enough money to pay off my student loans (yet). 

Yet, I do know I have to be careful about what I say or write down…

Naming my previous car “Surry”, short for “Surrender”, meant I had to learn how to actually surrender. I had a flat tires near Taos ski resort, a dirt road in Salida, and off the highway towards Denver, plus car issues in Leadville and up a mountain road in BV (this is the short list). For those not familiar in the area, I was often in the middle of nowhere, or on a highway stretch that AAA normally won’t help on. Yet each time, it all worked out, with my favorite time being when I met the very friendly elder and his faithful dog in the small town of Leadville. This was years ago, so he may have very well been the sole mechanic around. His garage was so packed with miscellaneous parts you could barely walk through it, let alone get a car in. He sent me and Pacer up the mountain to explore while he first went to lunch with friends and then worked on Surry the Subaru (my current car is named Serenity, obviously my current journey). If I get a tattoo with a meaning attached to it, I better be prepared for the experience to not just understand the meaning, but know it. “You want to know what it means to only respond to the first arrow (a Buddhist teaching) with love?”, my tattoo asks of me. Well get ready… Name my private practice “Wanderlust Counseling”? Well I better get ready to explore the liminal phase completely and hold on to my North Star.

This past January, I completed Gabrielle Bernstein’s yearly Manifesting Challenge. Early on, I wrote my key manifestion hope down in both my journal and on a sticky note, which I stuck to the backside of my Murphy bed. It read “To move (travel) freely while following my heart and serving others.” My human self thought this meant potentially getting a van or a small cabin by the mountains and being able to run the trails pain free. What my soul heard was that I wanted to be free of my ego (fear), free of my human suffering (doubt), free to take risks and fail…free to follow my heart. Michael A. Singer might call this “living untethered.” 

Shortly after this, I told my new therapist that my goal for therapy was to become unshakeable. “I want to have so much confidence in (love for) myself that I become unshakeable.”

I didn’t mean this in the narcissistic way, where an outer shell portrays a false god-like exterior to the world while big insecurities lay buried deep inside. Although really, I also wanted to know that if I ever happened to see the aforementioned ex-lover (from part one) walking around with a new girlfriend, that I would be unfazed, only wishing the happy couple love. 

So to clarify to the therapist, I added “Not so that I never get hurt, but so that I can experience big emotions, let them pass more easily, and still know that I am okay.” 

With that statement, I put the ball, or rather the intention, in motion. 

Which also meant lots, and lots, and lots of opportunities to practice self-love in the midst of my human foibles. 

*****

I don’t think I really realized how little I loved myself, or so conditionally, until I was 34. I had gotten over the self-loathing depression states by my early 20s and felt that I at least liked myself. But love? 

Though really, how could I love myself when I was still understanding what love actually meant? Since my parents divorce as a kid, I had been debating for most of my life if love was even real. Between that and some fear-based ideas of love that I was taught in church, my ideas of love were, to say the least, skewed. And greatly, greatly, limited.

By the turning of the year and the words that came out of my mouth to the therapist, learning how to love myself, in the expansive, unconditional way, became my only option for survival. Could I be there for myself in heartache? Could I be there for myself when worried my body would never heal? Could I be there for myself when I rushed into the new tattoo? Could I be there for myself when faced with the doubt of making a big decision? Could I be there for myself, could I love myself, if that decision failed?

*****

Of course, my manifesting powers made sure this was all about to be put to the test with the decision I was about to make: to continue to hike the CDT, or stop and drive back to Colorado. The plan was always to stop if Pacer wasn’t happy. She was still definitely healthy, but giving me more of an “eh” than a “let’s go!” Ultimately, that would lead to my answer, obvious in hindsight…but oh, how my doubt likes to control my thoughts! Brood, re-think, ruminate! “You’re so silly for trying!”( risking clients, income, safety, approval of family…the latter not being a thing, although my ego always seems to think so) as well as “Try harder!” yelled different parts of my ego. Yet a pause, a breathe, allows for some separation… a space to choose between self-hate and self-love.

These times of inner adversity have led me to asking myself a new, soul-level question:

“Can I love myself so fiercely that no matter what decision I make, no matter what mistake, no matter how badly I fail (or succeed), that my love never waivers?” Perhaps it even grows at I watch myself walk through life with the bravery to truly LIVE. “Can I become UNSHAKEABLE?”

“Yes.”, I answer back, quiet but firm. Unwavering. Even though this felt-sense is still a whisper, there’s a deep knowing at my core that I, my higher self, will always have my back. That I always have been and will always be unconditionally loved. No matter what. The way a girl loves her dog. Unshakeable Love.

*****

Of course, after this first decision, my ego mind wasn’t ready to leave without a fight. My OCD part (little on the compulsion, heavy on the obsessive thoughts) that I developed early on in childhood still likes to come out from time to time and chime in. Or rather, try to run the show. But thats another story, the next post of this series on transcending fear. I’ll simply say that later, driving back to Colorado, I had to fight for Myself. Still, I heard the answer in a whisper under the loud noise of my ego, the only answer there ever could be: “Yes.”

In addition to my manifesting, there was also the prophecy-in-poem-format written by my older sister in 2019 before she passed, her last Christmas gift to me:

Determined to be more than just survivors of life, we 

Reach for a ray of sunshine in the darkness, and

Out pours strength from those here and gone who love us most.

Peace will find us in our weakest moments and help us

Sail across the sun.

Overcoming our obstacles, we reach the top of the mountain, free and

Fearless!

Journeys of 1,000 miles start with a single step forward, and we find

Unwaivering support from all that surrounds us. But we still

Pray we can live up to and fulfill all expectations.

In times of both turmoil and 

Triumph, we

Explore what both amazes and humbles us, ultimately

Realizing not all who wander are lost!

****

“Lost paragraphs”: Usually, blogs don’t take me too long. They just kind of flow. Perhaps because I waited so long to finish this one, I struggled with what to include. I decided the following paragraphs didn’t flow:

I had just spent a month on an adventure I called Following Sunshine: Traveling at the Pace of Joy on the CDT, sunshine meaning joy and intuition (main topics to be explored in Part Three)…and my dog. We were still on the 2-week break from thru-hiking after finishing a 150 mile section together in New Mexico. We had planned to flip north since my sister and her partner were running a sky race just past the border in Canada. In the previous week while still on “break” we hiked/run up and down Mt. Elbert, which had been Pacer’s first 14er and was currently one of the only 14ers in Colorado in near summer conditions. Pacer seemed fine, but then again, not 100% herself, meaning that when we reached tree line, she wasn’t trying to herd every single person in front of us. This is when I realized I had a decision to make and fear started to kick in. Would I make the “right” choice? I doubted myself right into anxiety, flipping through every possible scenario and outcome. (I should mention, the plan had always been to stop if Pacer was at all unhappy- but she had done well in northern New Mexico. Still, admittedly, her “meh” was covered up by my self doubt.)

Fast forward to June 23, 2023. Now I’m in joyful tears driving back to the hotel in Alberta, Canada after a hike/run to Haig Lake. I think back to 8 years ago, when I didn’t love myself enough to stop. Instead, I took ibprofen after ibuprofen, somehow managing to finish the 100 mile race with out overdosing, considering I’m just shy of 5’4 and started taking the pills before the race even started (I hard partially torn a calf muscle a few days before). But I loved Pacer enough to stop hiking the CDT (obviously not because of injury-I would have stopped in an instant then- but because of happiness), and in that, I loved myself enough to stop too. To not hold myself in guilt or shame for trying, for risking so much (a place to live, clients, approval, income) and failing. Instead, I could honor myself for my bravery and hold myself in unconditional love. Man, that dog…I knew she was a beacon of light, that I could understand unconditional love because of her…but to teach me how to love myself? doG, I tell you…]

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Transcending Fear (Part 1): The Voice of Doubt

Did I mention that I’m terrified?

Actually, I’ve been terrified about most major life and big adventure decisions that I make.

My stomach churned the week before I flew to Tanzania on my own at the ripe old age of 23, and I was constipated the week before I started the Colorado Trail. The week before starting grad school, I was nauseous, even though I was starting the school year with a hiking backpack rather than one for books. I sweat through my first t-shirt during the 8 hour drive across the state to see the guy I had a crush on for 10 months, although I had luckily thought ahead and brought a change of clothes. EVEN before getting Pacer, I worried. More recently, before moving into a yurt for the winter, my mind anxiously debated (taking up most of my mental space) for nearly 2 months if it was the right move. Then, after deciding to take a sabbatical (the professional word for an extended vacation) when my bank account was already low in an attempt to hike the CDT with my dog, I often teetered the line between terrified and trusting. Luckily by this time, I had learned some inner tools on what bravery and self-love …but really, I was just at the beginning of the process.

Currently (as of 6/20/2023), I’m petrified (truly, nearly frozen in place) on making the decision of whether to continuing hiking or not. There’s fear of being stuck in the middle of nowhere in Montana with Pacer, or the fear of having no idea what to do or where to go should we return to Colorado, having no place to live and little income to work off of. After being close to a panic attack, I return to three questions:

Am I not trusting myself?

Am I not trusting (the goodness) of others?

Am I not trusting the Universe/Divine?

While it would most definitely be a big challenge, I know I would protect Pacer “Sunshine” and figure it out if we continued on and did get stuck in Montana (should Pacer decide she was done). Yet I don’t want it to be up to Sandi to rescue us (again). More so, I want Pacer to be happy. This brings me to the heart of my fears: the fear of making the wrong decision.

At this stage of my life, the fear is rarely on either end of the decision, but the doubt in making one. The suffering is in the the liminal state between thought and action.

My inner chatter goes something like this:

Am I making the wrong decision?

Am I being dumb for attempting to hike across the country with a dog?

What if the critics were right?

What if my mom was right?

Am I wasting time on a hike that might not work out when I could easily be playing on my favorite Colorado mountains and going to a local winery after?

Maybe I’m not brave, maybe I’m just ignorant.

Am I burdening others with problems I’ve created for being stupid?

If I choose to stop, would it confirm all the above?

Eventually, I catch a beam of light coming through the darkness. I use ALL of the tools I learned in the last 8 months and wrote about in “Light & Dark: Reflections on the Human Experience”. I return to that which roots me: my values, meditation, prayer, and love.

My core values (family/friends, adventure/freedom, growth, and kindness) orient me back to the life I want to create myself, one that does not offer certainty, but does require fully living and offers personal expansion. In the form of prayer, I offer up my pleas for help and guidance from the divine and the spirits who walk withe me. (Okay, often I’m asking for answers and really hoping that an angel comes to me in a vision or I receive a vivid dream where I am given me the specific, detailed, outlined, double-spaced in size 12 font answer… and then I just remind myself to surrender.) I meditate (after much procrastination and googling all possible solutions), coming back to my center in the midst of the chaos of my mind. Slowly, I return to my heart and the new found love (although I can feel its ancientness) I have for myself. Even without the answer, I can trust that whatever happens, whatever decision I make, that it will be okay.

*************************************

I am a big believer in both psycho-emotional-somatic inner work that I do in therapy, as well as energy work. In using both, it almost amazes me how fast things can move (albeit, the rush of intensity of the “negative” energy can be a bit overwhelming before it clears out). I wrote this piece and part two (currently sitting partially in my journal, partially in m mind), in the few days around summer solstice and driving through 3 national parks, using nature and intention to quicken and aide my healing.

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A Wanderer is…

A wanderer is brave.

A wanderer is willing to face death in order to be reborn.
A wanderer respects the power of her emotions.
A wanderer accepts her pain.
A wanderer honors her healing.

Sometimes, a wanderer stands still.

A wanderer chooses the path of joy, knowing it will require great suffering.
A wanderer enjoys good company, but loves her own the most.
A wanderer knows how to befriend her fear.
A wanderer’s path is a spiritual path.
A wanderers best compass is her own values and her heart.
A wanderer both awaits and creates.

A wanderer willingly steps into the unknown,
but is rarely lost.
[If she is, it is only for a moment,
for she is guided by her dog. ]
A wanderer stays true to herself in the face of doubt.
A wanderer is led by her intuition,
knowing light will always lead the way.

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Beginnings

Oftentimes, I cry at endings.

Sometimes, I cry at beginnings, too.

My then boyfriend, now friend, can tell you exactly how I looked when he dropped me and Pacer off to start the Colorado Trail, just a few months after moving to the state and having only done one very, very, short overnight backpacking trip on the AT. He’ll tell you that I looked like I was about to cry, that he could see the fear written around the worried lines around my smile. I actually didn’t know he could read any of my emotions in that moment until he repeated this scene to me a few months ago, because at the time, he knew what he had to do. He remained stoic, not allowing me to linger too long in our embrace, and sent me and Pacer off down the trail.

My tears are usually a mixture of emotions. Sadness, fear, and excitement all wrapped into a ball, moving from my chest to my throat.

The sadness is partially still from the ending that transitioned right into the beginning, but also a grief for the people I can’t take with my on my journey. It’s a love, really. The tears if sadness also mix in with tears from pure fear…a new beginning is stepping into the unknown. And, even while at this point in my life I know all will turn out okay, the fear of the unknown seems to be embedded into my DNA. Its grip has simply loosened. Blending in with the fear then, of course, is the heart of my adventurous soul singing out loud in excitement, for there is surely much beauty to be seen.

So is the cycle of my life. An ending, a beginning, and all the emotions in-between. Beauty in every step.

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“Life is Too Short To Be Anything But Happy”

The death of a loved on has the power to shift our perspectives on life.

To realize what truly matters.
To realize what is actually worth stressing about…
little to nothing.

Getting a flat tire. Waiting in a long line at the grocery store. Needing to go to the bank.

I’m sure for some, this could further add to the overwhelm, but for me in August of 2020 my only thought was “My sister is dying, and you’re going to worry about that?”

If challenged, I would have been tempted to play the dead sister card throughout that fall.
Most people would have understood.

(Side note: From my understanding, people used to wear black in the year after a loved one’s death not simply to mourn, but so that others could recognize them in their sorrow and offer love and support. It was a way for love to be let in in the face of loss. Beautiful, right? Why do we try to hide our pain now?)

Why do we continue to stress about things that don’t really matter?

As my older sister would say to me and her friends in her final years “Life is too short to be anything but happy.”

Some of us want to brush that quote off as cliche, too simple, too aspirational.

As a mental health therapist, I don’t strive to be happy 100% of the time, but I do strive to live a happy life. My compass is always pointed towards joy in the face of hard choices and difficult decisions.

That relationship. That job. If I’m not happy or passionate about it at least 75% of the time, I’m out. I don’t have the time for that.

This means living by my values, dreaming big, going on adventures, and not giving energy to the negative voices- mine or others- who question my choices.

It is in choosing my own path that I honor my sister and her reminder “Life is too short to be anything but happy.”

…and sometimes, I just have to create the way for others by being the example.

Picture 1: Me and Pacer on top of San Luis Peak during our Colorado Trail thru-hike.

Picture 2: A plaque from my older sister.

Picture 3: Easter 2018 featuring my older sister, me, and our cousin.

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The Law of Opposites

The Law of Opposites

The law of opposites states that to know one thing, we must first know its opposite.

Night/Day
Suffering/Joy
Confusion/Clarity
Hate/Love
Fear/Trust
Dark/Light

The old debate among the spiritual community revolved around the question: “Is the opposite of love fear or hate?

When examined closer, we realize there is no need for debate.

We only hate what we fear, and we only fear what we don’t understand.

The reverse is also true.

When we shine a light on what we don’t understand, we begin to know its truth, and we can only love what is true. 

We find that to know the darkness is to know the light.

**************

I can still remember the first time I heard the song “Accidentally in Love” by Counting Crows.

I can almost picture myself walking out of the movie theater after seeing Shrek with my dad and sister, when Parmatown Mall was still actually a mall and had a movie theater. 

But the stronger memory is of the felt-sense I had of the closing song, how the high vibration of Accidentally in Love still reverberated throughout my body. The first Shrek was released in 2001, which marks the “post period” for me. Post death of my uncle (the firecracker of the family), post parents divorce, post Dad’s nearly fatal heart attack. Every once in a while, I still had the wild feeling of love, of zest for life still in me, when my mom let me wander through the trail-less woods alone or after seeing a movie in the theater, but for the most part, this light had disappeared. So when I heard Accidentally in Love for the first time, it was more of a longing that I felt within me. 

Would I ever get that feeling back?

When I decided to take a deep dive into my healing journey a few months ago, I didn’t really understand what needed healing. I didn’t know something was missing. I didn’t know how deep I would have to go into the dark. I just knew I didn’t feel how I wanted to feel, and so it really was my emotions that pointed the way. 

As it turned out, it all came back to returning myself, to the joy within me. To get truly excited about the little things, to the excitement of just being alive. Allowing my imagination to once again run wild. Getting back to art and creating, just for the sake of playing.

So when Pacer and I found ourselves at Great Sand Dunes National park, paws and shoes in the sand, without thinking about it, I just followed my urge to run. Then, on the drive back, I just started to sing to the songs on the radio, without hesitation in my untrained voice. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was me returning to my light. It really all happened accidentally. Falling back in love with myself and life.

By surrendering to my darkness, I was reunited with my light.

This feeling of joy, of course, isn’t constant. For like every other human on planet earth, I suffer from the collective amnesia. I still miss the man I fell in love with over two years ago, but simply because I miss his beautiful soul, not because I miss my own (insert Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney here). Sometimes I still wake up with a sense of unease, and not giving into doubt is still a daily practice. Yet I return to the knowing that I will always be okay. I look up and see the love around me, my sister and brother-in-partnership who let me join them on full moon skis, my dog, my Sunshine, who will follow me wherever I go, my dad in his willingness to fly across country, eat “weird” vegan food , and tells me and my sister that we are his “happy thoughts”, my mom who will text me jokes on a “FriYay!”, my sibling by magic (I’m a Gryffindor, they’re a Hufflepuff) in Denver…

…”You are immensely loved” the psychic told me. For the first time, I believed this. I felt it for myself. The more I come back to this feeling, the more I remember, and the easier it is to return to a state of joy. Of gratitude. Of love. Of light. 

Pic 1: Me and Pacer (Sunshine) at Great Sand Dunes National Park
Pic 2: It really is the little things…completing this puzzle with my family came with so much joy.

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Fighting for Light: Realizing I Am What is Worth Fighting For

Not even 10 minutes into my Reiki session, I burst out crying “but why does it always have to be so hard?”

What I really meant was “why does it always have to hurt so much?” I felt like I had been cycling through periods of intense pain over the past several years. Even in just the last 7 months, I had been closely attentive to my body, battling to stay in it though I badly wanted to dissociate, and letting all my emotions arise as they came up. Yet it felt like it was never ending. And I was exhausted. While I never wanted to end my life, I had been ambivalent about living it. The voice inside of me that said “I don’t really want to be here anymore” was no longer unconscious. I heard it. Yet I quickly dismissed it with thoughts of Pacer, living in the mountains of Colorado, and having a loving family.

So, when at the end of the session my Reiki teacher told me the clear message that he had gotten for me was “Fight for Yourself”, I was confused. What did that even mean? I don’t even like using the word “fight”, anyway.

At my next session, two weeks later, even as he explained it again, I still didn’t understand. I would stand up for myself, I thought. I’ve fought against societal norms and resisted living a traditional lifestyle (not that there is anything wrong with that), and I had begun to actively speak my emotional and intuitive truth on social media. Somewhat frustrated, I said “I still don’t get it.” My Reiki teacher gently reminded me that I would, but that my focus should lean towards finding joy and not needing to having the answer. I left feeling somewhat better, less but still frustrated.

It was another week later, when I was listening to someone else tell their own story via a podcast, that I understood. It was that voice in me, that small, unhealed part of me, that didn’t want to live. That was my darkness. Could I fight for my light?

This may be confusing to some. For anyone who has followed me for some time, you’ll know I often talk about the magic and joy of life. And I 100% feel that that magic and joy. But I also can feel the contrast just as intensely (also finally understanding when Abraham/Esther Hicks talks about contrast).

Until that moment, I didn’t understand what a strong hold that part of me, even if small, had on my soul. How, sometimes unconsciously, it could stop me in my tracks. It could make me small and prevent my light from being fully expressed. Actually, I often hid between the shadows of my hermit archetype and introvert labels.

Yet, even as I understood that this was actually the part of me that needed the most healing, that I actually needed to fight to keep my light both going and growing, I didn’t know how. I still associated with this darker part of me. “How do I just make it go away?”, I wondered. I knew, deep down, I wanted to live and to live fully, but I wanted more peace and clarity inside of me too. Less pain, more joy. So then the question turned to, could I believe that was even possible?

It took me awhile to understand this part of me and how it showed up. In the morning, this was the taint I felt in my soul. In the previous years, it showed up as a heaviness in my heart and a shortness of breath that I described as “existential angst.” As I continued to heal and released some of the heart pain that wasn’t mine, it simply felt as if someone had taken a dropper, filled it with a dose of pain, and let it drip into my essence. Like a cloud inside my light, keeping it from shining at full capacity, from waking up in the morning excited about my day, even when I living a life I thoroughly felt grateful for.

Tracing this feeling back, I remembered the panic attacks I had in high school. Waking up early to run but not really wanting to face another day. The times I never felt good enough, the fear I held in my body at every basketball game, every social event. Luckily, I had a few good friends who never left my side and let me be me, but I still kept my pain away from them, and from my parents and my twin sister. We just weren’t a family who talked about these things. The one time, my twin sister, brave enough to say anything about her own pain, I clearly remember my stepdad saying “What do you have to be depressed about?”
(I have so much compassion for my stepdad now and can see how he still holds on to and buries his own emotions.) And so, my pain became my secret.

Plus, even before high school, my pain was evident just by looking at my appearance. Anytime you see someone who is skin and bones, or becomes large enough that you can no longer decipher their true form, you’re looking at someone who’s “I don’t know if I want to be here part” has taken over. It may be unconscious, especially for a 13 year old girl, but it’s evident. And then, I was basically put on medication (that I would spit out), sent to various doctors, and a mental health therapist. All this told me, or rather confirmed, was that something was wrong with me. This was the belief I was already working off of and trying to cover up with perfectionist tendencies. (Obviously, I’m all for therapists now, but even if kind, the majority of therapists in the early 2000s were still working off of the disease model of mental illness.)

The origins of the pain were still somewhere underneath that. Contrived somewhere earlier on in childhood when I was punished or unseen, especially the part of me that has always been a sensitive, empathic soul. A gift my parents just couldn’t know was actually to be cherished, for their own world had been made up of harsh realities. They were simply trying to protect me from the pain. So my sensitivity became my kryptonite, a superpower better to be hidden.

The pain started to leak out in my late 20s, first releasing some of the pain I took on from the world. I’d see a video or get a piece of mail about the inhumane treatment of animals, and I’d soon be crying on my bathroom floor. I think it was easier for me to make visible the pain I saw around me than the pain within me. It seemed more acceptable, more honorable. And to be honest, my soul was truly confused and hurt by the created darkness of the world.

So, the battle in my 30s became the battle within.

My years learning to be a therapist, speaking to my own therapists, processing with my graduate school cohort, using my skills to guide others on their journeys… this all was a practice for my internal fight. Still, I hesitate the to use the word fight. With no offense to our military, I can only see the external wars in our world as nonsensical. How truly ridiculous that we kill each other over power, fear, and inflated egos? Yet defending beautiful, innocent people is another matter, and here I lean on the example set by Nelson Mandela and other great peace leaders. (This is too big a topic to dive into in this blog.)

The first part of my own battle was surrendering to my own pain. It felt insurmountable at times, as it had been built up for nearly 3 decades. Still, I continued to be a witness to my own suffering and eventually the edges wore off and I gained more compassion for myself. Yet even as the heaviness dropped away, the part of me that felt ambivalent about life still persisted. I didn’t know how to release that darkness, although meditations focusing on “breathing out clouds and breathing in sunshine” provided some relief.

Then, I had yet another opportunity to practice.

In many cases when I have a decision to make, I’ll stay stuck in a type of anxious freeze mode, and I have a debate in my head about my choices, over and over and over again, not making the final decision until I absolutely have to. Then, every once in awhile, I’ll rush into a decision… particularly around tattoos. It’s not that I didn’t want this last tattoo, I just agreed to a drawing that wasn’t exactly what I wanted before having it sketched into my skin. Actually, to make it worse, I only “semi” rushed…I actually had 2 hrs between seeing the image and agreeing to it, with a full opportunity to wait another week since the tattoo artist was heading out for vacation. For me, this was a perfect recipe of wanting to blame myself. While I’ve mostly trained myself out of negative self talk like “you’re stupid”, “I can’t believe you did that”, “why aren’t you better?”, etc., the internal feelings of shame that look like a panic attack on the outside were still very much prevalent. Could I choose to be kind to myself?

Could I choose to forgive myself for acting too quickly? (No wonder why the majority of time I can’t make a decision, if my other practice is beating myself up whenever I make the “wrong” decision.)

Could I choose, instead, to see the lesson?

This practice, too, was a fight. I wanted to go into self-blame. Being perfect and making the so called “right” decisions was what I knew how to do, how I had learned to protect myself from the fear of not feeling good enough. The hope, from my ego’s perspective, from this protection mechanism was so I didn’t make the mistake again, so I wouldn’t be the mistake.

Stepping away from the shame for a moment, I gave myself the opportunity to realize this was a lesson I had to learn. Humans, yes, are fallible. But is a person, a child, ever a mistake themself? Hell no. We simply become better versions of ourselves when taking the time to learn and gain meaning from our mistakes. The more simply stated, common phrase: sometimes we have to learn what we don’t want to know what we do want.

This tiny step turned out to be a big insight. It opened the door for me to forgive myself for a myriad of other poor (so I had deemed) decisions as well as times I had stepped away from opportunities and my own light for fear of being unworthy.

From this perspective, I could see my adult self giving a hug to the little me wearing a sunflower outfit (hat included) for her elementary school picture, who felt confused by the actions of adults in her life (as well a Catholic school that gave her the message that she was less than for being female). Then, to the high school me, who had learned to push so many people away because she thought her pain made her an outcast. I accepted these younger parts of me, showed them love, and brought them back home in my body.

In other words, I fought for them, and I fought for me. I fought for the part of myself that knew life was magical, a gift to be lived and expressed through my being. While pain, yes, may be a part of living, it doesn’t have to be carried with me on my journey. I was not my pain. I was meant to overcome my pain. To shine my light through it and to realize that my light was the only truth.

As I close, I can’t say the fight is over, the battle is just easier. The darkness is less powerful. I can see it for the fear that it is. I have more say in what I choose to believe and what I give my energy to. I can realize that my light, that I, Ray A. Nypaver, am worth fighting for.

May you always realize that your light, that You, are worthing fighting for.

*******


“I’ve come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call “The Physics of The Quest” — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: “If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself… then truth will not be withheld from you.” Or so I’ve come to believe.”― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

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Death by Switchbacks

In the midwest, we like to name the “fun” sections of our routes, like “The Stairway to Heaven” or “The Piano Keys”. If you’re not familiar with Cuyahoga Valley National Park, then you probably at least heard of the infamous “Heartbreak Hill” on the Boston Marathon course.

I like to call this section of the Colorado Trail/Collegiate West/Continental Divide Trail “Death by Switchbacks.”  Now truly, this section of the trail is nothing short of majestic, but in these few specific miles, you drop down from alpine via what feels like 100 switchbacks, cross a short marshy section (pictured here- it looks much different in the summer!), only to return to alpine via another 100 switchbacks.  If you’re already feeling tired, it’s nothing short of a struggle.  The good news, however, is that once you make the death march (hike, run, or cycle) up, you meet heaven.  (If headed southwest, towards the Alpine Tunnel and Cottonwood Pass to the northeast.)

The ego (how we feel about ourselves, our self-esteem) death uses a similar model as this section of the trail, although I’m going to offer a reframe that it is not necessarily about a part of us that needs to die, but actually about the part of us that doesn’t want to truly live, or “be here”, as I’ve written in previous post.  It’s that part of us that says life is too hard, too painful.  It’s the part of ourselves we try to numb and call it depression.  The ego death is actually about bringing that part into Light and reigniting your own inner fire.  It’s accepting that there is pain in the world but realizing it is not our own.  It’s acknowledging that there is suffering, but it is not our truth.  It’s reclaiming our authentic expression of self and believing in our divine right to live freely, peacefully, and joyously.  This is “fighting for the Light”.


Again, the question is, will you choose yourself (Love) over fear?

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Ghost of Christmas Past: A Meditation Practice to End Unwanted Patterns

Yes, I do realize it is February, almost March, and most people are way over Christmas. But I, the 7 year old in a 34 year old body, believes the spirit of Christmas lives on (after all, according to pagan belief, winter solstice is about the coming of the light). Plus, as I was doing this meditation for myself, which originally just started with a question, the name “Ghosts of Christmas Past Meditation” just popped in, so I think my higher self wants me to go with this name too. 

First, a little more background.

Early one wintery and windy February morning, three questions popped into my head: 1) What am I resisting/not clearly seeing? 2)What lesson do I need to learn? 3) Where is my intuition wanting to lead me?

These 3 questions came to me after an already long journey of moving through pain and deep inner work. By then, I knew myself well enough that something was stuck and needed to move. The first question led me to both realizing I was carrying something (energetically) that was not mine and releasing a block, while the third question pointed an arrow to the direction my life was moving. The second question, however, was the key to unlocking an old pattern that was keeping me stuck, that I couldn’t fully recognize while being in the tiny perspective of my human self.

The funny thing is that I’m really good at doing this for my clients. One of my roles as a therapist is connecting the dots for a client, and then reflecting them back for a client so they can see it too. In my mind, I literally imagine a connect the dots coloring page, and we see the full picture coming together. 

Yet when I started meditating later that evening on the question and wanting to see my past patterns, I quickly got stuck in my analytical mind. I wanted to go straight to my “trigger-> reaction ->past experience-> core wound” map, which is a handy journaling tool. Yet for me it was still too sticky for this moment, especially because I couldn’t see how several, quite different relationships all connected. I realized I needed to step out of myself. I needed to connect with my higher self, or what Lee Harris (and the Z’s) call the “Eye of Awareness” or what others call the inner observer or inner therapist. 

In choosing to access my higher self, I shifted my energy (this can be just using your imagination) to just above my head. Some people call this the 8th chakra, but again, just do what works for you. Then, I imagined myself in a few scenes of the relationships I wanted to examine, but this time I pictured it as if I was looking at the memory as an outsider. Or rather, it was like I myself was the ghost of (Christmas) past and watching myself and the other person in the scene. (In EMDR, for particularly traumatic memories, we/trauma therapists will often ask the client to picture the memory as if it were on a TV screen, perhaps even making it a black and white movie.) From this perspective, I could see it. The people were all different, some with very good intentions and some with negative vibes, but I could see how I abandoned myself, playing out the negative belief of not being enough, with each person. Perhaps it was not speaking up for myself for fear of ruining a date with someone I really liked, or just accepting things as “not that bad“. 

In doing this, in seeing things from a higher perspective, I gave myself the opportunity to stop myself from having to repeat the cycle and learn the same lesson again the hard way. Spiritually speaking, once we have actualized a lesson we came to earth to work through, we can move on and transform at a more enlightened level. From my core, I now know that I need to act on the inner knowledge (it was a lot of work just to start believing that deep truth!) that I am enough and speak my truth in relationships, even if I fear the outcome (whether it be a partner getting mad or a relationship, romantic or friend, ending.)

Okay, so here’s the short “how to”:

Ghost of Christmas Past Meditation (Aka Accessing your Higher Self to End Unwanted Patterns) 

  1. Find a time and space of at least 10 minutes where you will be uninterrupted. If it feels good, light a candle or put on some high vibrational music.
  2. In your journal, write down your question. It might be something like “What is the pattern I am not seeing?” “What lesson do I have to learn here?”
  3. Close your eyes and begin to focus inward. First, notice what sensations are in your body and if there are emotions that need to be released. You can do this by simply breathing into the spot where you are noticing the sensation. It’s totally normal if you need to cry for a bit.
  4. Call on your higher self for guidance. You may intentionally shift your attention and energy upward, above your head, anywhere from a few inches to a few feet. (Again, if you can’t feel it but simply use your imagination, that is 100% okay.)
  5. From this “distance”, lightly touch on and observe memories related to the pattern you want to see more clearly, end, and learn from. What are you noticing? If you catch yourself getting too analytical, just use this as a nudge to gently pull back and return to the higher perspective.
  6. Write down any insights. It might be helpful to read them again the next day.
  7. Offer gratitude to your higher self. 
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Releasing the Past

The past, it clings to us.

Like heat rising off the blacktop.

The past sticks to our bodies, 

a smoke we can’t shake off.

It cycles through our minds, 

obscuring our lens.

We see the word through our past. 

Traumas, beliefs, emotions. 

It live in our brains and our bodies,

hunched shoulders, locked jaws, tight hips.

We stretch.  We try not to think about it. We try to shake it off.

Yet it still clings, threatening our souls from ever being free.  

The pain is the way.  

The only way out is through.  

Stepping into the fog, the confusion, is entering the darkness of my mind. 

I scream in agony.  

I see the pain start to float past.

The groans and cries continue for a while longer.

Actually, what feels like an eternity,

but really, only a moment in time.  

My past is not yet behind me, 

though I feel it loosening its grip.

I breathe in.

A full, deep, belly breath.

I exhale.

Freer than I was before.

I nod to the past, no longer dragging its weight behind me,

but see beside me, like an old friend,

who’s history no longer matches the desires of my future.

But I thank that friend, all the same.

“Great suffering comes from great confusion.” -Robert McKee (on the Rich Roll podcast, episode 736).

So what happens when we let go of the confusion of our minds and let our hearts lead the way? …

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