"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
…The unconditional, divine, free type of love we were all born with but thought we lost when our own emotions, essence, and unique gifts went unseen or uncared for. Yet it was never lost. Love can only ever be blocked from entering, but is always there, waiting for you to open yourself back up to it.
What blocks it? Often the lower mind. Our beliefs about our unworthiness and badness. The part of us that made up stories to explain why others didn’t always show us love, when we were shunned for being emotional, or simply told we were born with original sin (crazy, I know). If anything is unreal, it is those stories. Out of fear, we used our miraculous imaginations to make up nightmares rather than create dreams of Love.
Dogs (cats, cows, and all animals) can be our guides back home to Love. Their own lack of ego, their innocence, and fluffiness have the ability to break down our own barriers to Love. And the crack they put in our armor can be the gateway to allowing even more Love in, be it from other humans, our angels, our Higher Selves, and/or goD.
So the question never is “why does no one love me?” and the statement never is “I don’t like myself.” but instead “how am I blocking Love?” when that is what you are.
If we were enough, the subconscious belief is that we would always be loved (our parents wouldn’t have denied OR GIVEN love for a REASON, but simply because we are lovable. The “too much” wound often comes from not being allowed, or even being shunned, for being emotional as children. What a child makes up from this is that they are not liked/or loved when they are emotional, which is synonymous with being human, and so they learn to close off this essential part of themselves to be accepted.
Personally, I didn’t quite see this until a painful situation and feeling safe enough to be a little emotional. And emotions, especially emotions that seem out of place, often lead to our subconscious wounding. The other key for me was having my subconscious reflected back to me (Which is part of the reason why our emotions are not meant to be felt in isolation. When we can share our emotional selves with a therapist and/or someone who cares about us, the stories our mind creates lose their power.). After telling ~3 trust people with “clean mirrors” (they weren’t going to mirror their own wounds back to me), kindly saying something like “It sounds like you really believe that your emotions/pain/”darkness” is too much for someone else to love you?” or gentle negations. Which was enough for me to finally see “Oh, maybe that is just a belief that I have kept thinking since childhood. Maybe it’s not true.”
While I can’t say this instantly broke the armor around my heart, it did put a crack in it. And ironically, the break in the armor has led to more bravery in sharing my emotions and myself with others, giving Love a chance.
(If you’re wanting to work through your subconscious wounds (re:deep healing), I highly recommend working with a therapist, or at least a good friend, because it’s hard to see ourselves “from the inside”. Or, if that is not your path, reflective journaling is an amazing tool, too.)
I woke up from a dream, or perhaps nightmare is the more accurate word, slightly after 12 am on May 4th.
I was in a war zone. The building we were in was no longer a building, the grey bricks only a few feet high. Sparks, debris, and shrapnel flew freely in.
My mother tried to protect me. She laid her body over mine, a small and slender child. I knew we weren’t safe. That her body, hugging mine, would simply get hit first. It was likely that we would both die. Now or later, I wasn’t sure. At the same time, I felt her love inside the shelter of her body over mine. I felt her desperation, trying to protect her daughter, me. I could tell she knew it was probably hopeless too, but she held onto that sliver of hope. And somehow in that, in her love, I felt safe.
Soldiers walked in over the bricks and through the smoke. And, while I know this is simply how my brain put this together and most likely not how it actually works, they shot at cannons to make them fire off into the distance. They didn’t look at us. Their faces remained ambivalent and frozen. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to protect us, kill us, or just didn’t care. I didn’t know whose side they were on. But that’s kind of how protecter parts work…
*While I’ll use Internal Family Systems language, archetype, identities, etc. can often be interchanged.
It’s kind of hard to see what they’re protecting. Another protector, another defense mechanism, the cynic protecting the anger, the ego, or the exile, the inner child within? I think some, at least the soldiers in my head, just forget. They forget what side they’re on and they just do the job they’ve been programmed to do.
In therapy, we say there are no bad parts. They’ve all learned how to do their job to protect an innocent part when there was no caregiver to protect them or help them feel and experience their emotions, to help the child feel loved even though they were sad, angry, or simply in pain. Even the addictions, even the suicidal thoughts… they’re just trying to protect us from more pain, trying to. make us feel better when we don’t know any other way. Every shadow side has a light side. The inner critic, a cheerleader. The judge, a compassionate leader. On the spiritual side, some teachers and texts simply teach to notice but not attach to the (unhealthy) ego and all its voices of fear. We might not be able to stop the thoughts, but we don’t have to give them our energy (power). When we practice this long enough, the voices of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and hate get quieter, giving us a chance to notice the subtle but ever-present voice of Love.
And so, to further our dream interpretation, I’ll provide a framework. I was taught dream interpretation as a graduate student at Naropa University by Katie Asmus, one of the leaders in the field of wilderness therapy and owner of the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute. She taught me and my cohort that in dreams, a part of us is represented in each person, animal, or even object that stands out. In this view, dreams are symbolic, offering us views into parts of ourselves that are often subconscious in everyday life. I also believe that in dreams, especially nightmares, our psyches are actually helping us play out and process fears so we don’t have to in waking hours. I will add that, even though it’s often hard for me to see, I’ve heard from multiple people that I am often guarded and protective. I rarely see how my fears play out (the voice of it can sound very rational) until after everything (ie, a relationship) has been destroyed.
During the dream, I felt most of my presence in the little girl. My innocence, my unbridled love and joy for the world and other people, was being threatened. And yet…
Stepping into the role of mother, I feel (moving into first person here) a deep, fierce love for the child curled under me. Yet I am also human, so I try to regulate my nervous system, hoping my child doesn’t feel my fear. I know she is a sensitive child, so even if she feels my fear, let her know that she is loved… A sacrificial love, willing to do anything to keep the innocent child alive. But even if we both die, she must know that she is loved. And that will be all that matters.
The soldiers I have, in part, already examined. Yet stepping into their shoes, I feel lifeless. I’m just doing what I’m told, having forgotten what I’m fighting for. I gently sense the presence of the mother and little girl, but I try not to see them. It might make me crack. So I fire bombs. Bombs at other men, who are most likely just like me. I am hopeless. I don’t care if I get hit anymore or die in this war. I’m tired. I just want the war to end.
The cannons and bombs, perhaps, represent my anger. The anger that I actually rarely feel, besides the shame and self-loathing I feel for myself. Maybe I should let it out a little more. Maybe I should defend the little girl. She doesn’t deserve to live in a gray world full of shadows. Blowing things up might not be the answer, but fighting for Love? I’m not sure exactly what that means. How do you fight for Love with Love? Without killing and without dying? But maybe, maybe there is a way…
Ah, I won’t let the darkness of the mind kill the light within.I will protect her from the voices of fear and attack thoughts in her head.This is the Mother’s role.
The almost non-existent building… God, I hope this is my mind. My ego. The structure I’ve created around myself is crumbling. It’s never really protected me anyway. It’s never kept the fear or sadness out. It’s really only made me hate myself and be scared of the world I walk in, the world I’ve made. The walls were always a false sense of protection anyway.
Now that I look back…
The mother and daughter…the fierce loving protector and the innocent child. They are covered in dust and ash. Yet they are otherwise left untouched. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because that little girl knew she was loved. And love is the ultimate protection. She rises.
“When you have a mind that is disciplined, your soul can finally be free.“, a note scratched in my copy of A Course in Miracles.
I have had to detach from the word “discipline”, clear from it my past understanding of it, and reclaim it with new and proper meaning.
Before doing the above exercise for myself, I attached “discipline” with past memories and connotations. It was the strict rule of Catholic school, plaid skirts or weirdly pleated khakis, control, rulers, and a form of punishment. It meant staying inside the lines, not being too weird or too different, and staying boxed in a set of beliefs. It was me trying harder and harder to be better, to improve more, yet staying stuck. I came to associate “discipline” with the energy of “toxic masculinity. Yet every shadow side has a like side, and the word kept coming up that seemed helpful or positive. It seems contradictory to my beliefs to tear down the videos or memes where I saw the word, so it was of my choosing to explore it more.
I finally got it when I was listening to Marianne Williamson give a talk on A Course in Miracles (a book that I’ve been reading for several months). All I remember her saying was “a disciplined mind”, and I understood. My mind is often out of control. It can’t decide what part of me to listen to, often chooses darkness, and believes the voices that tell me how I screwed things up or I’m not enough. My mind is quite undisciplined. And really, that’s part of our culture. We’re taught to be distracted and told there’s nothing that can be done save for a pill if one’s case is severe enough.
We’re also taught that choosing to think positively is “Pollyanna” or dismissive of a mental health diagnosis. Actually, to be blatantly controversial: Joy is a choice. Freedom is a choice. Peace is a choice.
I say this because anything else take away a person’s agency, the control they do have of their life. Lack of agency leads to greater depression and anxiety. I want my clients, I want myself, to reclaim our power. (While it’s absurd to me, we still do this to heart patients too…doctors forget to tell their patients that they can change their diet, exercise habits, and stress levels to improve heart health, and instead prescribe drugs with hefty side effects). Now that choice may be, “I want to feel better”, “I’ll try again tomorrow”, or “I’ll go for a walk”, but it is still a choice over darkness.
With that, I will acknowledge, “easier said than done.” For some of us, the grip of our fears, protector parts, egos, anxiety, depression, thoughts, beliefs, etc (whatever you want to call it) seem intertwined with our very being. This is not true, but the feeling sure feels true. That is why, with both myself and clients, I first just get curious about parts/identities and work with them to see if I can loosen the grip of fear. Why is it there? What is the part protecting? What safety needs to occur for suppressed emotions to be seen and felt?
To circle back, this all comes to getting to choose what you want to believe. What wolf to feed? Love or fear?
While true free will is in this choice, what we do know is this: A mind disciplined in Love will set the soul free.
(This is a very short blog on what I could be a very big topic. Actually, I’ve had a copy of an essay “Mind Control: Becoming a Jedi” sitting in my drafts for months. Perhaps I’ll finish it in the coming months.)
These men, I am just like them. They blame, I shame. I internalize my hate, They externalize their pain. Me and these men, we are all the same.
Each of these men, lives inside my head.
Trump, he doesn’t really bother me anymore. His bigotry is so outrageous, I can easily call out his show.
Putin scares me a little more. So charming and so smart. He makes me doubt myself, his lies so carefully contrived. Yet void of love, equals void of truth.
Hitler… I dare not tell my parents how many times… how many times he has tried to annihilate my life. Just as he slayed his own innocence, his own artist, he dangerously threatens mine.
Hope. The darkness consumes. So close… Then another part beckons… a dog… a friend… some distant light within.
Keep going. You are meant to be here. Love is on your side. The darkness cannot win. You will shine.
****
(This is part of a much longer poem that I’ve been thinking about but procrastinating on since December.)
Sometimes, my own shame response astounds me in its inappropriateness, even when it consumes me. I spent days feeling shame around a favorite picture of me that a wonderful photographer had taken because I did not wear my favorite bracelet, which was in my pocket. I felt shame after having an amazing outing with Pacer, after realizing I double hit “record” and did not get the video of me skiing with her running free behind me. Sometimes I even get this feeling when I know I’ve made the right decision, it’s just not the one that boosts my ego. And I KNOW it’s ridiculous. Well part of me does. The rest of the voices in my head berate me in various ways: that was so dumb, go back and do it again, be better, try harder, you’re obviously not enough. While I am exhausted by my healing journey and the work I’ve put into it, I can feel my closeness to it. I know there’s a few more feelings to feel, a few more parts to witness, a few more thoughts to observe and walk past. If there ever was a lie, it’s shame, the ultimate but not un-permeable block to love and truth.
Life is a paradox. Relationships are no exception to this rule. In fact, relationships are probably the “exception that proves the rule.” Which means, for me, the more I have accepted that I am the problem in relationships, the more clarity I have gained in realizing I wasn’t the problem. I was attracting the wrong people. That I was, actually, in relationships with partners who couldn’t meet my wants or treat me in the ways I deserved to be treated.
If you haven’t read my first relationship post yet, Relationships: The Problem is Me, I highly recommend starting there, because both these things, that I both was and wasn’t the problem, are absolutely true. I had to admit how I protected myself from love, admit to my own fear-based behaviors, examine my belief systems around relationships, and how I related to myself, before being ready to receive love..
The catch is, if you are coming from a place of emotional immaturity* (from a therapeutic view) or low vibration (spiritual perspective), it’s almost impossible to attract the love and the relationship you want. It’s more likely that you will be provided with a mirror, or someone who reflects back to you all your wounds…especially if you are someone who came to this planet to self-actualize (or rather, heal all wounds to become the truest version of one’s self). Personally, I wasn’t attracting (with a few exceptions) men who could mirror love back to me but instead men who mirrored back my fears, doubts, and demons in my head.
*Just like I don’t use ignorance with a negative connotation, neither do I use the word “immature”. Actually, the more we admit these things, sometimes the smarter we are. Emotional immaturity really just means someone is still learning how to interpret and metabolize their emotions in order to gain a greater sense of peace. What really matters with ignorance and immaturity is that one is willing to grow.
Another way to say this is that intimate* (in-to-me-you-see) relationships will reflect back to you exactly how you see yourself, which may be completely unconscious.
*A friend recently pointed out to me that other relationships, be it friendships or mentorships, reveal back to us how amazing and lovable we truly are.
To be completely apparent with you, the lovely reader, it’s pretty sad how many guys have apologized to me for treating me poorly, including one that maybe didn’t need to and 2 or 3 others that should have. It’s probably obvious from your kind, outside perspective that I shouldn’t have been treated poorly, but it does reveal my inner world. No one has ever been more critical, judgmental, punishing, abusive, conditional, or dismissing of me than me. At least in my recent past.
Another paradox worth noting here: Not all attraction means you should be with someone.
Obi-Wan and his wife helped me with this one, so I won’t take credit, but I wanted to share it because this is something we should have all learned in high school. We can be attracted to various and many people throughout our lives. Some will probably become friends. We may find others appealing to look at. Others we may come into contact with for creative collaborations or support in healing. (This one may obviously have been one of my challenges: as a psychosoul therapist and healer, I can be attracted to the wounded people). Sometimes it’s because there is some type of soul contract we have with a person in this lifetime. (Ooops. I’ve often gotten stuck here too. I have often overextended the timeline on those energy attractions.). Most forms of attraction do not mean that you’ve met someone you should have sex with or would even want to build a relationship with. In short, when you feel attraction towards someone, it is worth exploring what that attraction means. If there is potential for a relationship, it is then worth exploring shared values and dreams in life.
Half the time it was unconscious of what I was attracting, I swear. There was little to no separation between ME and the voices of the protector parts* in my head. Hence why I dated not an overt narcissist, but a covert narcissist. He didn’t treat me well, but he showed me myself. Or rather, my ego self, my fear-based sense of worth. He showed me how easily I could settle for less than what I deserved because this is what I believed that I deserved. “This part of my life is good, so I can take this part not being good.” My excuses were that I didn’t have anywhere else to go and because I really was “content enough.” It’s not that I ignored my inner world. This information just hadn’t been consciously available to me at the time. I needed life to show it to me, plus a few more years of deep underworld journeying and a complete unravelling of my ego-self to see it clearly.
*A reference to IFS therapy.
Perhaps the more challenging “situationship” for me was with the guy I really loved. Or, I thought I was in love with, but more likely was an “infatuation” to use Elizabeth Gilbert’s words in “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage” ( a great resource for talking any young person out of marriage). To be honest, I had known much earlier that he was my “David”. I always knew he was emotionally, mentally, and physically unavailable. He showed this to me time and time again. But I wanted him to love me so I could feel like I was worth loving.
My attraction was actually desperation.
This allowed my mind to create quite a story in my head that would haunt me for months following.*
*See below for a podcast on how we create untrue stories in our head.
It really wasn’t until a few months ago, until the end of the December’s Mercury Retrograde that beautifully closed out the year and the end of an era, that I could see how poorly he treated me. But again, it hadn’t been clear to me early on. I honestly don’t think he saw it (he was both good of heart and completely aloof). More honestly, I talked myself out of seeing it over and over and over. Because I didn’t love or trust myself enough to walk fully away and close the door.
So when he messaged, in the early hours of the new year “I’m glad I could be a beacon.”, I didn’t even bother to reply and correct him that he was mistaken, that the role he had actually played was that of the angel of death.
Perhaps they are the same, anyway.
In those final conversations, I was able to stay aware of my anxious reactions, even though I was still very much in the emotion.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to stay in that energy field anymore. So I quit it. I finally disliked my behavior so much, I quit, just like most quitting happens. Still, quitting is so, so hard for me. It feels like failure. No one told me it would also be freeing. Free to move out of a cycle and accept, at least the possibility, that I was worth more. Freeing to admit that, no, I don’t think it’s okay to openly flirt with someone and then not pursue further contact with them. Freeing to agree with myself that it’s okay to ask for my personal love languages to be given once in a while and not just accept how another person wants to show me theirs. (thank you, Queer Eye, Season 8, episode 1, for highlighting this). Ah, and there it is…
It’s okay for me to have wants.
It’s okay for me to want clear and loving communication. It’s okay for me to respectfully communicate my emotions without the fear of triggering another person and then needing to care for them. It’s okay that sometimes, when I’m hurting, I want to be held. It’s okay for me to want to spend time with someone, to have some safety in plans. It’s okay for me to want someone to want to adventure with me. It’s okay for me to ask to be seen. It’s okay to want a definitive relationship status, not for control, but for a comfortable container of expression. It’s okay, as my sister told me years ago, to want someone who chooses me, too.
For some of you, this might seem simple. For others, you’re probably with me, horrified at the thought of asking anything of anyone. All of these things, growing up, just weren’t okay. I would either be burdening someone with my emotions if I dared share them, told to toughen up, and was given countless examples on how to suppress feelings. It’s also not very Catholic to ask for more.
To be thought of as needy by anyone, would mean I was too much, the paradoxical partner of not enough, yet equally as fearsome. It’s a thin tight rope to walk.* I was bound to fall off. And thank goodness I did.
*This theme was perhaps best represented in The Barbie Movie.
When you’re alone in the dark, the only option is to choose yourself. To take your own hand and say “I love you.” You deserve to have your needs and wants met. And because I’ve always got you, we have the freedom to walk away from anyone and anything that is less than what we deserve.”
This is what heals the abandonment wound. You, Higher Self, showing up for your Inner Child the way your caregivers just couldn’t. This is the safety that confounded me for so long in my continuing education as a therapist. It’s not the promise that life will be smooth and we will never get hurt. It’s that we can always feel free to be our true, authentic selves and even if others don’t like us for it, we’ll always have our own back.
It is in healing this wound that moves empaths out of the shadows and into the light. Instead of getting stuck in seeing others’ potential and staying with them until they get there (which may never happen), we let go trying to change what is and simply step into our own potential. We walk in the energy and love we believe in.
Choosing oneself, myself, means knowing that while I need to validate and accept myself first and foremost, I can, at the same time absolutely know I deserve to be treated well. Confidence, then, is being able to walk away from things and people who devalue my worth and move toward the love attracted by self-love.
The more we love ourselves, the more room we have to love another, and the more we can allow love in. Love attracts love, yet when you are in love yourself, the less you need love from the outside. Which is why true partnership becomes a co-creative act of higher expression.
*****
Other notes and helpful resources:
-In 2023, while I was not given a committed relationship (for good reason, I was gifted with another reflection), I was blessed with “3 wise men ”, all married, all a little bit older and wiser than me. While only my interactions with Obi-Wan were frequent, all of them accepted me freely not for who I appeared to be but who I was. They presented me with the gold, frankincense, and myrrh* of time, curiosity, and positive-regard, the gifts of healing.
-Being a therapist has actually shown me how expansive love is. I truly love all of my clients. They are all special to me and hold space in my heart. There is never less room for a new client. My heart just seems to grow with each new person.
*No, I am not comparing myself to Jesus. I am, however, relating us all to Light and the gifts we all deserve that can help us return back home to it.
-Highly Recommended Book: Calling in “The One”, by Katherine Woodward Thomas. (This book contains one of the most in-depth personal workbooks that I’ve found whether you want a partner or simply want to heal your old wounds.)
I considered not sharing this one, as it is quite personal not only to me but my family. However, I wanted to give everyone reading this the opportunity to believe in signs, synchronicities, and magic. Mom and Sandi… I hope you are okay with me writing this openly, and if not, I hope that you can forgive me.
Not long ago, I finally went back. I went back to the spot off of Hwy 24 in Leadville where I got the news from my older sister that her time here on earth was limited, finite. I parked at the space where mine and Sandi’s bodies remembered they were much more water than skin and bones. Yet, when I parked at the Mineral Belt Trailhead, I didn’t have much time to process. The parking lot was busy, which I soon realized was because a local college or high school track was working out there, some of the team XC skiing while others ran loops on the groomed ski trail. Because Pacer and I are both quite sensitive and highly attuned to the energy around us, my main priority was to put my own skis on and get into the quiet of the woods as quickly as possible.
After a mile or so, we got into our groove and my mind started to quiet. Around two miles in, the pine trees started to close in around us and I thought, “This would be a great place to see Sasquatch.” Minutes later, Sasquatch appeared (maybe just a large black cut out, but let’s use our imaginations) and Pacer made a new friend. I laughed at my mind’s conjuration, and we skied on. While Sasquatch was cool, he (or maybe, she?) wasn’t our sign. Actually, I wasn’t expecting one, which is perhaps one of the best parts about magic… it’s always there, and it reveals itself more easily when your mind isn’t holding on to any particular expectation or trying to predict future events. At the same time, you should always expect magic. It was when we crossed the road, splitting the trail, that I saw it on the back of a sign (this is not the first sign I’ve gotten on a sign…I think it’s the Universe’s way of ironically chuckling and saying “here’s your signier sign!”)…a sticker of a crown.
But not just any crown. This one is gold, with three plain and slightly crooked points. This crown is the signature logo of the band “Train”, my older sister’s favorite band, perhaps a hair over Matchbox 20*. Think “Calling all Angels”, “Drops of Jupiter”, and “Hey, Soul Sister.” While the band Train is still well known, I can’t say its a super popular band in the mountains of Colorado, nor have I ever seen the sticker before (and at least in my area, people put stickers everywhere…the back of cars, on stop signs, bathroom stalls, on the signs naming ski slopes, etc.). It was almost as if my older sister was saying, with her own signature eye roll, “I’m right here! I’m literally always with you.” This was obviously not just for me, but my family as well.
*As you’ll see throughout this post, my older sister often speaks to me through music and her favorite bands/artists: Train, Matchbox 20, Goo Goo Dolls- while born in the ’84 and ’88, we were 90s kids-, and Justin Timberlake (specifically, “Can’t Stop the feeling”, the song my mom played at her post funeral lunch), and Avril Lavigne (my mom played “Head Above Water” at the cemetery, which is when I sobbed and Ieft mascara stains on my dad’s shirt.)
My signy sign.Me wearing my Amanda’s hoody.
As I was saying before, the funny thing about magic is that magic is all around us and in us. We’ve just been trained to not see it. Even me, just last year, thought I didn’t have enough of it and went out in search for more. Yet when my mind starts to quiet it’s like my awareness opens up and I can “see” more, as in I can see how foolish it is to believe magic is sparse or needs any action on my part to come into fruition. (As Michael Singer likes to say, we’re on a planet spinning around the sun at just the perfect distance that life can grow and we can breathe without burning or freezing, and we think we need to control things?)This all led me to seeing…
Yep.
A white rabbit.
My Alice in Wonderland signs started happening a few weeks earlier. The white bunny came while skiing down another trail outside the town of Buena Vista. I caught only a glimpse, but I saw the magical creature. My mind instantly went two to things: 1) perhaps this was the reincarnation of the bunny I killed the previous year while mindlessly driving up the road below (this of course, led to intense feelings of guilt and many tears), and 2) the rabbit that led Alice down the hole into Wonderland, or Underland. (In Tim Burton’s rendition of the classic book and later Disney film, Alice referred to Underland as Wonderland when she first visited as a child.) Always the one looking for animal symbolism, I drove home with the intention of looking up the rabbit’s message, while, of course, Matchbox 20’s newest song came on the radio with the lyrics “I know you think I’m gone, but I’m all in. Don’t get me wrong.” (I believe when I looked at the time, it was 2:22, just to triple my signs for the day.)
My first Google search led me right to this site (the blogger’s name, of course, was Amanda- my older sister’s name): https://www.amandalinettemeder.com/blog/white-rabbit-spirit-animal-medicine-symbolism. Her post not only talked about Alice in Wonderland, but a white rabbit symbolizing the release of fears, play, and awakening intuition, or, the inner mystic. Exactly my journey of the past 7 or so months, and, what I believe, what I’m waking up to.
In the next few weeks, I received more signs: A scene from Alice in Wonderland paired with a Carl Jung quote in a random Instagram post, photos of white bunnies, and a client mentioning “not going down the rabbit hole”. Normally, I would have agreed with him…when we’re spinning in a rumination cycle, we’ve got to breathe and recenter. This time, though, I had the insight that maybe, instead of going just halfway down the rabbit hole, I needed to go ALL THE WAY DOWN, and follow my beliefs back to their root, and decide for myself what was real and what wasn’t.
I watched movie one, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, a day before my mind and old belief systems once again tried to take rule. As you may know, the book is full of good quotes, such as “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Yet, the line that Tim Burton added that struck my heart and raised emotion came from the Mad Hatter:
Mad Hatter (to Alice): I don’t like it in here. It’s terribly crowded.Have I gone mad?
As to which Alice replied: “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
The following week, as my mind tried to tell me more stories of how I screwed up and wasn’t enough, I pondered and pondered on what Alice meant. Eventually, I gave in to asking for guidance after Obi-Wan sent me a cryptic quote:
“To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of meanings.” – Susan Sontag
I replied back, “I feel like you’re trying to tell me something :,)”) before replying back with the Alice in Wonderland quote, speaking to my frustration. Obi-Wan’s reply was very Obi-Wan-ish, and perfect:
“Whoever has the ability to be aware of large amounts of stuff, if they can learn to use the awareness, will be on the cutting edge of changing others awareness’s.
This is how the dark becomes the light and light creates new darkness.”
My mind doesn’t have to bring me down if I can rise above it. And, if by simply reading my words, I can perhaps allow you to start questioning all the voices in your head (or parts, to be more therapeutically correct, in reference to Internal Family Systems), then we all have the opportunity to see things in a new way. Which, psychedelics, or not*, is the point of the movie. To question reality as we perceive it and then choose the world (the heaven or hell of our minds) we want to live in. Then, the unconscious becomes potential.
*As a psychosoul therapist, I am supportive of using psychedelics as a tool for healing. And, while I’ve had many people infer or tell me I should try psychedelics because of what I write about, I have not yet tried them. There are several reasons for this, but the one I’ll name now is that I’m interested in seeing how far I can get into the magical realms of energy by simply quieting my mind and believing what I know, for I often don’t believe what I know to be true.
It was shortly after this when my “rabbit hole” signs started shifting. To be precise, I pulled an Oracle card that read: “Slip down into the rabbit hole of enchantment and wonder.”
To be honest, I’m not sure what “enchantment and wonder” actually looks like for me anymore. I do know I had it as a kid. I loved to build forts, both inside and outside, and get carried away in games of imagination, be it “dress up”, playing with barbies and stuffed animals, or playing “cops and robbers” with my best friend across the street (Terry, I believe, actually did end up becoming a policeman). I remember the last lingering wafts of imagination clinging to my youth after I watched Bridge to Terabithia and then wandered around the trail-less woods under a cloudy Ohio sky. Somewhere soon after, it must have left me, although my love for wandering (and often getting lost) in the woods blessedly stayed.
My curiosity never completely went away either, and its only grown stronger the more I’ve let go of judgement and comparison. And so, it was my curiosity that led me to the second movie, Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass*.
*Again, I watched the Tim Burton edition, although I have fond but distant memory of watching a much older version with my older sister.
I won’t rehash the full movie for you (beside the fact that the Mad Hatter also endured the “not enough wound” for being a little different, as witnessed in scenes with his father) and instead tell you what thoughts the movie led me to, or maybe, reminded me:
1. What I cannot see, because I have forgotten how to look, is all the times in my past where I have been guided and protected. And, the times where I have chosen my own ego way, when I tried to control rather than (co)create, how my guides worked overtime to make sure I remained safe. I may have ignored the signs, rejected my emotions, and gone astray, but I was and never have been alone. Especially in the times I felt the most lost.
2. The one fundamental truth that I have come to fully believe in is that life is far more magical than we have been trained to see.
Which is kind of weird, but exactly the point. In order to see, we have to unsee. To make our own choice, we have to acknowledge all the choices that have been made for us. To see reality clearly, we have to see what we’ve been trained to believe and interpret. To get to know who we really are, we have to make friends with all the voices in our head, whom may or may not be real. Is the world good or bad? Or does it lie in the gray? Are you or I to be trusted? Or is it all the same? Does heaven or hell exist anymore than Wonderland or Underland exist?
Perhaps we have all gone mad. After all, all the best people have. For it is we who know the secret, that it all depends on how you choose to perceive it.
And, when we let go of judgement and what we think we want, life will bring us exactly what it is that our soul desires..the deepest, unimaginable, fairytales of the heart.
*There were actually way more signs and synchronicities than I could comprehensively include in this blog post without making it longer than you or I are willing to read off of a computer.
**A friend sent me this almost as soon as I finished the full draft of this post.
In all the best movies about light and dark, be it Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Harry Potter, the protagonist always asks themselves the question: What if I am just like them?
What if I am just like Darth Vader? What if Im just like Lord Voldemort? What if Im just like Sauron?
The wise teacher usually replies with something like: Well, it’s your choice.
Do you want to believe in fear? Or do you want to believe in love? Which is the same thing as saying, do you want to give your energy to the darkness? Or do you want to give your energy to love?
Most of us, at some level, have already made that choice. We’ve chosen to, to the best of our conscious ability, to be good friends, good neighbors, good partners, and good community members. Some of us have taken another step and chosen to be good to the earth and all the animals that inhabit earth. Yet most of us have forgotten to look at how we treat ourselves.
In order to look at that piece, I believe the better question is: What if they, the villains, are just like me?
What if Darth Vader is actually just like me? What if he simply just chose to believe in fear, and in doing so, shut down to love? What if he killed his own innocence before trying kill everyone else’s? Because…he got so scared that he thought he had to dominate the planet in order to feel powerful, because he had actually lost his own true power when he left his innocence and creativity spirit behind?
In the end, we don’t have to fight the darkness. We just have to make a choice. Darkness is just forgetfulness, which invites in fear and we create these crazy stories in our head of not being enough and unworthy of love. When we shine the light of love and truth on darkness, when we choose to love ourselves even when we’ve made a mistake- a choice that wasn’t in alignment with love, darkness can’t survive. Darkness was never real in the first place, just made up. Instead, we can put our own light energy into the belief, the deep knowing, that we are all enough and all deserving of the highest form of love.
The choice is yours: Will you believe in your own light?
The truth is, to become unshakeable, you have to be broken. Layer by layer. Part by part. Cracked. All the way down to your core. All your wounds, exposed.
Then, you must choose. To armor more, to let the cracks turn to scars, the skin thicker than before. Or, To let go. To open up. To shed your skin. Each layer disintegrating into nothingness.
To become unshakeable, you invite death in. Forgetting who you were, to remember who you are.
It is in the stillness of winter, the hush of the snowflakes, the whisper of the trees, where peace is found.
And in the quiet, standing naked, you become free.
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At the beginning of the year, when I told a therapist “I want to become unshakeable, but not in the narcissistic kind of way”, I wanted it to mean that I just had to believe in myself, to be confident, and then I could achieve the things I wanted to. But really, becoming unshakeable meant: achieve nothing, fail at everything. It meant losing labels, money, physical ability, and almost all of my hope. It meant praying on my knees (or in the fetal position), picking myself off the floor, and facing the long standing belief of never being enough, in the midst of my woes. It was fighting for myself, the child within, who had been conditioned with the belief she was unworthy, to repent, but regardless, that she could never be enough, who was controlled by the stories of the shadowed priests in her mind. It was holding onto the thread, the chosen thought gifted to me my Obi-wan “that isn’t me.” I am not my thoughts, my fears, my pain. I am the love that lies underneath. Becoming unshakeable meant throwing all of my love at my wounds, all of my love to the little girl who had learned not to trust herself. Demanding that I was enough, money or not, trophies or not, boyfriend or not. It was me coming back to my truth…that I was, always, inherently enough. The rest just lies and fear. Even when the anxiety came back again, choosing to see through the illusions, my protections, and leaning into both love and my enough-ness. It was becoming nothing to remember I was everything.
While I have previously written on the literal aspects of “how” my older sister died from cancer (with many of the roots of the disease such as mental health and diet left untouched by doctors), I’ve never really delved into the way in which she transitioned from human back to spirit…or the lesson she left for me in the process. Here is that story.
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“Call me when you are both together.”
When we got the text from our older sister, Sandi and I were both out camping and adventuring in the mountains. Blessedly, we weren’t that far apart. I was in the Holy Cross Wilderness area and didn’t receive the text until I was back to my car and had cell reception. I believe I somehow managed to suppress the thoughts and much of the anxiety I felt around the elusiveness but also known meaning around the text. Sandi wasn’t so lucky. She and her partner, Sage, were well above tree line, exploring part of the off-trail Nolan’s 14 line on Oxford and Belford, when Sandi received the text. Already crumbling with emotion, she navigated the technical line back to the trailhead as best as she could.
We met in the middle. Leadville. Right off of Hwy 24 at the Mineral Belt trailhead. Sage took Pacer’s leash from me and walked with her as Sandi and I called our older sister. Amanda, just 4 years older than us, calmly, peacefully, told us, her younger sisters, that the doctors had told her they could do no more for her cancer ridden body and that she had a limited time to live. Sandi and I simultaneously and instantaneously collapsed into a unintelligible pile of emotion and tears. Our mom, always the tough one, stoically stood by Amanda and listened to her eldest daughter tell her younger daughters that she had accepted her fate and trusted God was with her.
And there we were, all of us together, both broken and at peace.
Over the next few weeks, after Sandi, Pacer, and I drove back to Ohio to help our older sister transition, we got an up close glance and what dying looks like. In hindsight, what a strange thing…to be guides to our sister in the death process. (Amanda would later guide me on my own.)
Sometimes, Amanda was tearfully happy, especially when her closest friends or our younger cousins came to visit. Sometimes she laughed at our dinner mishaps or the mess she was leaving for us to clean up. Sometimes, she was frustrated at the bills she had left to organize and the limits of her body, while other times, she offered us grace by allowing us to help. Sometimes, Amanda was in pain. Sometimes, she cried anxious, panicky tears, like when we went over her will. Oftentimes, she asked us to hold her hand.
Sometimes, she was grouchy.
This, I want to highlight. Not all, but a lot of family members of dying loved ones have the extremely painful experience of their loved one going through a temporarily grouchy or even mean period before their death. This most acutely affected Sandi. I can’t quite remember the situation, it might just simply have been Sandi giving Amanda her medication to help with the physical pain, and Amanda uttered something like “you’re killing me”, which caused Sandi to retreat to the kitchen in tears. I can imagine that this sliced like a knife, especially when I had the same (but inaccurate) worry that I was killing my older sister with the prescribed pills from her doctor. What was really happening here to my older sister, who, just a week earlier had declared our indoor picnic lunch with our mom, stepdad, and 2 little cousins “the best day ever”?
My belief now is that this was one of the final fights from her ego, her fear-based human identity, that now faced imminent death.* (This will be the key point of the second half of this essay.) Amanda was never truly mean, grumpy, or in a bad mood throughout her life…it had only been her wounded self and the ego trying to protect her from the beauty pain of life. In these last days, Amanda’s ego knew it couldn’t survive the end of the physical body and the spiritual transformation happening within. It spoke its last words, then dissolved like the wicked witch of the West(Amanda loved the play Wicked), before Amanda surrendered and her ego disappeared forever.
*From my understanding, the brain can also start to malfunction near the end of life due to low oxygen, deterioration, etc. Again, this is an example of the outer reflecting the inner. Additionally, Gabor Mate explains in When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, how childhood trauma can lead to Alzheimer’s (among many other diseases), using the case study of Ronald Reagan.
After that, I believe Amanda was already living more in the spirit world than she was here on earth. From what I have read on near death experiences (NDEs)*, her spiritual guide team was already with her and re-orienting her back to true self and Somewhere Else. On September 1st, my dad’s birthday, she mustered enough consciousness to sing him happy birthday and tell him he was the best dad ever. (This, I know, meant the world and back to my dad. He and Amanda were more alike than she would have admitted, and as so often happens with parents and children that are similar, they often butted heads.) If my memory is accurate, it was later that night, she said her last word, “yay!“, a parting gift to all of us.
In the wee hours of September 3rd, she quietly made her full transition from human to spirit and back to Somewhere Else. Her family and friends would no longer know her in human form.
Since then, Amanda has turned up in my and my family’s life in various ways. Roses (her middle name was “Rose”), butterflies, felt senses (a heightened gift Sandi often experiences), her favorite songs on the radio at times that could never be just coincidental, by doors creaking open (to the slight fear of my one of my younger cousins), and most recently, in a dream.
I wish I would have written it down as soon as it happened, in the still hours of darkness. I could only partially recall it back in the daylight hours. Amanda had come to me, looking young (probably around 30) and joyful, saying something like “This would have been an easier way to say goodbye”. Yet that felt odd to me at first… I already knew goodbye is only real in the earthly realm and in fact, we were now closer than we had ever been in our human armor. Now, as I write this, I think I know what she meant…she was leaving a message for all of us, for this essay, on how to die.
While I have limited experience with dream interpretation, what I believe my sister was telling me and encouraging me to write, is that it’s easier to say goodbye to our loved ones and human body when we have already dropped our ego identity and reunited with our true essence. We don’t have to put up a fight, we just surrender and allow the transformation to occur, because really, it’s an “awesome” (Amanda’s word) experience. However, I realize that sounds a little a little out of reach in just a few sentences. So instead, let me outline the stages of her death from the above description.
Acceptance: When Amanda told Sandi and I the news, she was calm in the acceptance of her fate.
Half & Half: I have often been told by my Reiki therapist that I am often half in, half out, or rather, half in the material (ego) world and half in the spiritual (energy) world. For Amanda, her spirit was at peace but her ego was terrified.
Pain: Anxiety, grief, and anger, suffering, and physical pain with long periods of rest/sleep. The ego fears its own demise and often doesn’t want to go without a fight. Pain exists in the separation of our minds and true self and diminishes in unification. This step can be quite intense if the separation hasn’t yet been addressed. Grace allowed Amanda to fall asleep after these intense energetic periods.
Surrendering: The ego simply can’t survive death or the call of a spirit back Home. Amanda’s human identity ceased to exist, although her body allowed for one more step…
Joy: “YAY!” (The soul celebrating freedom.)
Physical Death &Return to Spirit.
Peace.
If I’m being completely honest, the ego death I’ve been experiencing over the past several years has been just as messy (if not much more) and emotionally painful. Without really realizing it, I fought my ego death, hard. My ego is especially tricky and manipulative (hence why I was able to date a covert narcissist for 3 years) and my fear was subtle, at least from my conditioned human perspective. In time, I allowed myself to be unravelled and stripped from identity, a process that was extremely uncomfortable (to say the least). Really, it was my only choice. It was either that, physical death, or returning to live by my ego, which would have killed me anyway. Slowly, I began to see how my mind and fear (often around not being enough) were in control of my decision making and how I went about creating my life. Yet that is a story for another day. For now, let me tell you how to die (while still alive), starting with some clarification of the ego and the “dark night of the ego”.
What is The Ego?
The ego is our human identity, often created from a foundation of fear. When explaining the ego to others, I usually just call it our “fear-based mind”. The tricky thing about the ego is we often don’t realize we have one, saving it only for those we call “egotistical”. Yet the ego lies on the spectrum of believing one is not enough, from martyr to narcissist, and can present in various ways. In actuality, when one is identifying with their human self and all of its fallibilities and success, they are believing in a false self. For this reason, I have even called our human self our shadow self, for it hides our true identity. That being said, neither our ego or our human self are bad. A healthy ego is the realization that we are human and keeps us safe from physical harm (Ex. Fire is warm, but bad to touch). It is also of upmost importance that we love our human selves and the life we’ve been given… in playing out various identities, we are healing past wounds so our soul can evolve. It is also in physical form that we can create in the material world and allow for all kinds of magical experiences.
How is the Ego Formed?
The ego begins forming sometime in childhood, once the brain has had some time to develop and the mind can start creating meaning and stories. Yet at birth, we are all simply sensory beings. Some babies cry a lot, I think because they are feeling the stark contrast of being in the realms of heaven, in the cocoon of a mother’s womb, and then squeezed out into a world of various energies being swirled around. All babies, however, are generally curious. It’s like they were just plopped down here in this weird place and have no conditioning telling them what to think, expect, or who they should be. They’ve got joy still in them too, laughing at sweet nothings. These are all general statements and other factors play in, such as the well-being of the mother and father during pregnancy, past life imprints, and overall sensitivities. What really matters, however, is the story a child tells themself about the sensations in their body after core needs (yes, food and shelter, but mainly, connection and love) have gone unmet, or rather, the heart has be invalidated. It is these stories that the ego is formed from, and it usually begins with feelings of unworthiness. Sadly, our society has been built off of conditional love which creates the world’s deadliest weapon: fear. So instead of minds growing from the fertile of soil unconditional love, most minds grow in the barren desert of the subtle and not so subtle tyrannical rulership of fear.
The ego can also carry unhealed wounds from past lives. This is what I call “karma”. Yet regardless if the wounds are from this life or a previous life, we have the opportunity to heal all wounds once we start to un-identify from the ego. How I see it is that we live a chunk of our lives forming and perhaps strengthening the ego (historically, this has been until death or midlife), and the next chunk of our lives unravelling ourselves from it. If we can do this before physical death, well… I’m excited to see what happens.
The Dark Night of the Ego(Ego Death)
I want to start out by saying (writing) that the dark night of the ego and hitting rock bottom are two different things. Hitting rock bottom is relatively quick. It is the night on the bathroom floor after drinking too much, the life-altering diagnosis, the end of a romantic relationship, or that first time you make a decision with the heart rather than the head (ego). It is what I call “the crack” that leads to the dark night of the ego (others refer to this as the dark night of the soul, but I see the soul rejoicing when this happens). The dark night of the ego, on the other hand, is usually a several month to several year long process (there are, of course, exceptions), where, layer by layer, the ego-identity is unravelled until we get closer or even back home to our true selves. For many who have undergone this kind of spiritual awakening, the process has been painful. Yet I think this is going to be less so in the coming years, for many light workers have walked the “path of darkness” to leave a light for others to follow. (I first read and appreciated this phrasing in a Mary Magdalen book, describing Jesus’s death.)
How to Die (While Still Alive)
When the ego becomes our identity and is based off of fear, it limits the beauty of life and the potential of our souls to heal, create, and love. When we allow our ego to die, at least the fear-based part, we actually get to experience what it means to be free while in human form. True freedom, I have learned (the hard way), is of and from the mind rather than something gained by material wealth or by experiences manifested from a place of lack. Transcending the ego means moving from a place of pain (hell) to a place of joy (heaven). It allows our hearts to lead over the ego-mind, giving the steering wheel back to our soul’s and the ability to live from a place of peace, despite life’s circumstances.
But how do we do it? And is it possible to do it now without experiencing tremendous amounts of pain?
Yes…and/but, if you’ve numbed from the emotions in your body throughout your life in any way (and this is especially true for empaths), there is probably going to be a lot of energy moving through that may or may not come in the form of emotional, mental, or even physical pain (backache, throwing up, injury, etc). Fortunately, I believe that the need to experience pain is going to be less and less true for future generations as more parents, and the world, becomes more emotionally and spiritually intelligent. Plus, if you haven’t yet noticed, a large chunk of the current generation of kids are already coming in way more conscious (and energetically sensitive) than previous generations…they’ve got great bullshit-o-meters and have little tolerance for conventional norms.
Ok, with that caveat, the steps on how let go of the ego:
Be disobedient to the (lower/ego) mind*. All those thoughts in your head, you don’t have to listen to them, and you certainly don’t have to follow them. Call out the fear-based stories and the conditions that have been given to you. Choose to see through the illusion of the mind. Choose to see things from another perspective. Choose to see through the lens of love. *I added lower mind because this line is paraphrased from The Gospel of Mary. When “mind” is used in that text, it is not talking about the ego mind but the “higher mind”, which I believe refers to true, unified consciousness (what some might call “God”).
Extra: Starve the ego You may or may not experience “the crack”, either because you don’t have to on your journey or you choose to intentionally “starve the ego”, simply meaning, you don’t give it what it wants. This is in part not listening to it, but is a slightly more intentional experience of rewiring your brain’s reward system, meaning denying the brain the normal ways it seeks out dopamine hits, be it seeking out validation through big accomplishments or simply checking how many likes you received on your latest social media post. In the past, many spiritual teachers have done this by both living as a hermit and starving themselves (which could be a reward system for those with eating disorders). Very few have actually received enlightenment that way, and I believe the work now (especially for those of us who would prefer to be hermits) is to stay in relationship with the others.
Be prepared for the ego to “flip the fuck out”(the profession phrase I often use with my clients doing ego work). And for those who have dated narcissists, double check for your own inner narcissist trying to manipulate your process. Remember, the ego fears its own death and will kick and scream its way out. Love that, too.
Breathe: quiet the mind. Some options include: meditation, play, dancing, creating art, walking in nature. Anything that turns down the volume of the mind or allows you to turn it off altogether. Pay attention to your breath…it is, after all, what makes you alive and able to live beyond the shadows.
Love fiercely. The ego is made up of fear, and the only thing fear cannot survive is love. My suggestion here is to consciously throw all the love you have at the fear-based stories in your mind, all your wounds, all your pain. When these things start to surface, see them, feel them, and love them. Call on the Divine Feminine for help. Love yourself through what you would call mistakes or sins and the times you were invalidated as a child, when your parents weren’t or didn’t know how to be there for you. Love yourself through the stories of “not enoughness”. Remind yourself that any story other than one of love and inherent worth is untrue. This is in part what therapists would call “re-parenting work”, but with even more clear (higher) seeing and love.
During my own journey, there were times when I “woke up fighting”, meaning my anxiety and fear-based thoughts would start as soon as I opened my eyes I’d have to immediately chose not to believe the fear, and, after praying for help to see with clarity and through the lens of love, I’d end up repeating “I love you. You are enough.”
Listen to the heart and body. This often feels like a foreign concept, even….especially for people in the athletic world who have learned to overrule the body’s signals. It’s even more foreign for empaths who learned that feeling was unsafe and built up layers of armor. However, listening to the heart and body is completely innate. Many of us may just have to deconstruct to get there.
If you have any aches or pains, you can start by feeling and breathing into them and asking the area “what message do you have for me?”. You can also practice breathing into the heart, taking 3-5 deep breaths and focusing on your heart center. Practice feeling your emotions. If they don’t move (think of a passing cloud) in a minute or two, get curious if you have a block that is not allowing the emotion to pass, or if there’s just a lot more in there from suppressing emotions for so long. (Note that thoughts can keep emotions stuck.) If you have a block, feel into why its there and/or how it is protecting you. Underneath emotions are sensations, the gut feelings. The contraction and expansion. Notice when your heart energy feels like it is getting bigger or growing smaller. Your heart will be one of your greatest guides. Be patient…if you have a lot of blocks or emotions that need to be experienced in the body, you may not be able to access these sensations for awhile. Keeping going. This leads us to our last step…
Trust the timing of the Universe (ask for guidance and reassurance when you need it)
You may experience situations during this time that you want to deem as unfavorable, but really, these experiences are just showing you how the ego is still in charge and what needs healing. From a “higher” perspective, it’s truly “all good”. Along your death journey, ask for guidance and support from your spirit guide team, be it angels, deceased loved ones, ascended souls, animals, etc. Notice who or what shows up in your life. Maybe you find a teacher, therapist, or friend, or maybe the right book or podcast appears holding just the information you were seeking. You may ask for signs that you’re on the right path, and look for synchronicities (like angel numbers). Most importantly, and once again, be patient. In a human body, it’s usually impossible to see the intricacies of life and how we affect one another, or one situation (no matter how small) is the catalyst for something else. Remember that saying “love is patient”? That’s true. That is trust. Only fear is ever in a rush. The peace and healing you are seeking will come as long as you hold the intention in your heart. Even though the path may be unclear, all you have to do is follow the breadcrumbs and keep putting one foot in front of the other. As Rumi said, “As you start to walk the way, the way appears.”
Extra exercises to support you on your journey to the underworld:
1. Sit with The Trees Trees know how to die. Each Autumn, they die externally as their leaves and needles fall to earth. They just. let. go. Softly and gracefully. This is because trees don’t carry the weight or anxiety of the human ego. And, while our surrendering may not be so graceful, what we can do is notice each thought as it comes up, realize it is not us, exhale and relax the body, and imagine allowing the thought to fall away. This is, in fact, meditation. Tree energy can help support us in this process, especially during the fall and winter, so this is a great practice to take outside.
2. Newborn When you wake up in the morning, pretend you were just plopped down here. You have no prior conditioning. No expectations. Just be curious about the strange, beautiful world you are in.
3. Free-write Free-writing has literally been a god-send to me, as it connects me to my higher self and guide team. In your journal, head the page by writing something like “Spirit, what messages do you have for me today?” and then just let your pen flow, doing your best to avoid conscious thought. Some people find it helpful to write with their opposite hand. The messages may be super simple (and very needed) at first. As you get more familiar with the process, you’ll find it easier to ask specific questions as well.
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Don’t like who you think you are?
You are not who you think you are.
Don’t like your body?
You won’t have it for long, so love it for the ride it’s taking you on.
Want to crawl out of your skin?
Break open. Feel. it. all.
Are you on a path you despise?
Turn towards the unknown.
The totality of who you are cannot be stated by thought. Your soul cannot be confined by the constraints of the ego. In order to know yourself, you must die unto yourself. Only in death can you experience the entirety of yourself. You are infinite. You are Love.
“My Love, Patience. Trust the timing of the Universe. Trust the timing of your soul.”
Patience is hard for most humans (and for my dog when she’s waiting for a treat.) We fear if we don’t move, if we don’t work hard, if we ever just stop and rest, that nothing will ever get done and we’ll never get anything we want.
But how much of what we want have we really gotten by working hard? Rarely is it the ease, peace, and joy that I hear at the depths of people’s wishes. We must always be cautious of what we create when fear is leading the way.
It hard to be patient when we are healing. We want to get it over with, forgetting the medicine is in the pain. The more we understand the causes of our pain, the swifter our healing. (Scientifically speaking, the pain center for both physical and emotional pain lives in the brain.)
Patience can also be hard when we feel lost. Patience asks us to trust, yet most of us lack trust in ourselves, others, and the Universe. Yet it is only when we are lost, when we have forgotten who we are, that we can be found. It is in the the liminal stages of lost and found and with a torch made out of patience and trust that we can discover who we truly are.
A Dog and Her Girl 