Tag: wander

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How My Sister Died (A Lesson on Dying)

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.

*Recommended: Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing – Anita Moorjani

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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.”

  4. 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…

  5. 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.

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Patience

“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.

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Being a True Explorer

Even after dropping more specific labels such as runner or athlete, I still allowed myself to be somewhat identified by “adventurer” and “explorer”. Those our broad enough, right?

I also explained explorer (this is even in my bio in Light & Dark) as being a person willing to explore both their outer and inner landscape. This is pretty accurate. I just wasn’t doing it.

I was creating and forcing my own adventures. And yes, in terms of mountain adventures, you want to plan appropriately for safety reasons, yet the real grace is when you can let go of the plan and allow the Mother Nature and the day to bring what she will. Being a true adventurer is going with the flow. It’s accepting that when a door shuts on you, or it starts to rain, that you’re being redirected by something greater than yourself and toward something that is in your highest good. (You may have just avoided a huge accident by returning back to your car.) It’s realizing that an injury or illness isn’t punishment, nor is it something to push through. It’s the knowing that something greater is happening in the Yin (resting potential).

Being a true explorer means being curious. Honestly, 3 year olds are probably the best explorers our there. They’re just going where their parents take them and stopping to look at all the bugs and leaves along the way. Adults tend to plan and force, even when it doesn’t feel good or aligned with joy. We’re ruled by our minds and fear. Instead of looking to others for inspiration, we look at them through comparison…If this adventurer has a van, we need to have a van and YouTube channel too. If this athlete is running these races and that’s where the money is, I need to run those race too. If this wanderer is traveling to that state or country, then I need to wander over there too… Rarely are we actually willing to let go of plans and travel into the Unknown, allowing the path to be revealed to us.

Being a True Explorer is going into the Unknown with curiosity, trust, and joy. A True Explorer accepts the redirects of life and happily changes path. A True Explorer is guided by their heart rather than fear. A True Explorer lives from inspiration instead of motivation and comparison. A True Explorer is free. In actuality, a True Explorer doesn’t have to create or carve out a new path. Instead, she relaxes knowing that a unique path is already laid out for her. A True Explorer is willing to follow the breadcrumbs of Life, recognizing animal symbolism, dreams, and synchronicities as guidance.* A True Explorer trust that she will be guided to experiences for her highest good, that the challenges (often in the form of ego** slaying) are necessary for ascension, and that love not be searched for in far away places, but it is always there. A True Explorer is always on the Divine Path back to True Self.

*I just checked my phone and it was, of course, 11:11.

**When the Bible talks about “demons”, the metaphorical translation is ego.

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Pain: The Great Teacher

Pain had more to teach me.

A few weeks ago, I had decided to wait on getting a wisdom tooth pulled because of nice weather and already having a mountain day planned (I was supposed to “chill” for 4 days after the procedure). Even though I wasn’t in pain that day, I knew before even leaving the dentist’s office that I had made another decision with my ego.

9 days later (with the next scheduled appointment nearly 2 weeks away) the pain came back in full force, plus a little more—almost unbearable. You probably won’t understand the pain of a toothache (and infection) unless you’ve had it before, but it left me wandering somewhere in the liminal state between conscious and unconscious.

Pain, a Great Teacher, is also warning sign. It asks us to check in with our bodies and our hearts. Not listening results in…more pain, at increased levels.

I had again chosen a mind want out of fear rather than my heart want of a happy, healthy me. If I had gotten my tooth pulled the previous week, my last Autumn and dry mountain of the year would have been completely enjoyable.

Fear left me impatient.

Love does not fear time.

Pain lets me know when I am listening to my ego rather than my heart and soul. Whether physical or mental and emotional, the Great Teacher lets me know when I have chosen to separate from my true self.

I’ve ignored pain almost my whole life.

As a child, pain rarely brought me comfort from my parents, so I desensitized myself to it and learned to deny comfort for myself, too.

But, I don’t want to live in pain anymore. I don’t want to live in separation from who. I. am. I don’t want physical pain or heart pain for these elongated, semi-conscious periods.

I want to heed pain’s warning on the spot. To honor pain’s lessons and allow it to redirect me back to love.

My win on that last mountain?

Calling out my self-judgement and shame before it could grow. Even if I made an ego decision, I would not then let me ego again win in berating me for the choice and causing such pain.

…A final, free-writing journal question: Pain, is there anything else I am not seeing? Anything else you have to teach?

I am not an enemy.
I am love in disguise.

Keep coming back Home to yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just let that, Home, be your intention.

Thank you, pain.

(Much more on pain and it’s relationship to death coming soon.)

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The Journey

To what depths will you go in the search of
finding yourself?
Do you dare to stand in the lakes of your 
pain and uncover the roots of your anxiety?
To upend the rocks that surround your heart
and move them one by one?
While you may go to the mountains, the lakes, 
the valleys for solitude and refreshment of spirit,
you will not find yourself there.
Unless you have first met yourself,
you will simply see and grasp 
at what you cannot yet feel.
You must go within.
Only there can you find what you seek.
Then, you will find peace in your place
of connection with all beings.

Earlier in the year, I made a decision based on a thought I had. The thought seemingly came out of nowhere, so even though my body felt resistance to it immediately, I rationalized that it might be a sign from the Universe telling me what I should do.

But that could never be true.

I was again worshiping the false god of the ego-mind which I had been taught was the truth. The Universe, Spirit, God…that Voice speaks through the heart. For me, as an empathic female, the lost connection with my own True Voice may be the biggest tragedy of my life. I lost trust in myself and gave my power away to the false god that family, school, society, and religion taught me was reality. Doubt consumed me. Hence the on and off struggle with the symptoms we call anxiety and depression (undiagnosable, which is an arbitrary system anyway) that I’ve dealt with since my pre-teens, when the innocence of my Little Self was lost. 

In the fight for myself in the protective grips of my ego (fear) identity, the past few months have been some of the hardest of my life, although not as outwardly tragic as losing my oldest sister. I have brought light into the illusion of the ego and allowed myself to fully experience the pain (of separation) my body has held on to for 25 years. I didn’t just “deal” with my panic attacks…I experienced them, often using the simultaneous timing of my period (bringing up my pain and world pain) and the full moon (bringing up the unconscious) to rise within as I cried and breathed into my emotions, letting the energy to flow through my body. At times, I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to make it. (To go back to ego-rulership would be so easy.) I got so lost in the shadows that I lost myself at a level just short of psychosis (that I now believe many humans deal with). I am eternally grateful for the people and doG in my life that have been my Sunshines, as well as the little bit of Consciousness I was able to hold on to the last few rounds. “Ray, remember who you are”, became my prayer to myself.

As of this writing, I still haven’t fully reconnected to the Voice of My Heart. I am still remembering who I am at an embodied level. I am doing my best to lean into the trust of knowing that I am on the right path even as my ego-mind chimes in asking for power. I also write for You…to help You remember who You are. And, if you’re in a time in your life where you’re experiencing panic (ego) attacks, I want you to know that is your soul trying to escape the confines of the ego that have been placed around it. Freedom is found in the surrender, the letting go of thought, and moving in and through the emotions/energy the body has been holding on to for so long. I highly recommend seeking out support, a sun to your moon, someone to remind you who You are. Allowing someone else to be a light is a request of the heart, for only the ego values the false toughness and sense of separation of needing to do things on one’s own… Which may be your important first step of not feeding the ego-mind and instead reclaiming your heart and giving the power back to your True Self.

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Push-Pull (2)

ANXIETY EXISTS IN THE PUSH-PULL OF OUR HEARTS.

THE SIMULTANEOUS YEARNING FOR LOVE WHILE FEARING IT.

WE CALL IT IN & PUSH IT AWAY.

THIS IS THE TUG-OF-WAR GAME BETWEEN OUR MIND AND OUR HEARTS,

OUR EGO AND OUR SPIRIT.

IF WE COULD JUST REMEMBER WHO WE TRULY ARE…

WE‘D HEAR OUR SOULS TELL US TO “JUST LET GO.“

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Love What You Love

Recently, Obi-Wan* (my Reiki therapist) told me that even when I’m at my lowest of lows, I’m still at a higher vibrational frequency than most people. I gave him an incredulous look. He had seen me at some of my lowest points and even cried with me in his office (and that my friends, the masculine recognizing and being with the pain of the feminine, is the power that will heal the Earth)**. What was he talking about? How could that be true?

And then I realized he was right. Even when I was just feeling “okay” (sometimes joyful, sometimes still having ego/panic attacks), I had, without almost any effort, called in a 3 bedroom house on 5 acres on hidden piece of land that offers both privacy and easy access to trails (and, most importantly, is perfect for Pacer). I would have never even had thought to ask for such a large, beautiful space. I didn’t think such a space could be within my budget. In fact, I hadn’t even know the space existed in Salida.

The message for all of us: Maybe life doesn’t have to be so hard. Maybe, as Mary Oliver wrote, we just have to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” (Translation: To live beyond our ego (human) desires and allow our expansive, open, and vulnerable hearts (the voice of our soul) lead the way.) Maybe, when we relax our grip of control (fear) and allow life to unfold, we will be presented with more love and beauty than we ever new existed.

*I might have to change the nickname for my Reiki therapist as I recently met a man who’s last name is pronounced “Kenobe” and also holds the nickname Obi-Wan.

**Therapeutic cry: Obi-Wan wasn’t taking on my pain, he was simply bearing witness to it. As an empath, I would have tried to make him feel better if I saw him taking on my pain and then felt bad for having emotions. Instead, he simply allowed tears to form in his eyes while he energetically stayed both strong and calm so I could relax ( be messy) and release my pain.

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Who We Are (Walking the Wanderlust Path)

Why do we work so hard to resist who we really are? Why do we hide the gifts that come naturally to us?* Or rather, from the gifts that come from our spirits.

Blatantly put, I am a cancer** sign made of light. My purpose is to bring people back Home to themselves.

The manifestation of this comes easy to me as a therapist and writer. It just kind of flows. To those who know me, they may have unapologetically (okay, maybe a little…I’m still working on coming Home to myself) heard me say “I’m really good at my job”, which is something I rarely to never say.

Of course, I’m also very true to myself as a therapist, writer, and coach. Unique is a very accurate word…unique and a little eccentric, which is why I think my clients like me. Me being weird allows them to be themselves. While I’ve read almost every therapy and spirituality book I have time for, I tend to just blend it all together with a touch of intuition. Actually, I’ve really just re-defined my job as mental health therapist and switched to using “psycho-soul therapist” instead.

Yet I tried, at least for an extended break, to walk away from these “jobs”, or callings. I thought other professions were better and more exciting (ie. more travel, more free time- but free time isn’t the same thing as freedom). Or, at least, they get more validation from parents, extended family, and Instagram followers. My mind believed all of this, even as the rebel in me rejected the office job, nice house, marriage and kids ideals. Really, I simply just trapped myself in another world from the ideals of other rebels and adventurous types, rather than just listening to my heart and creating something new altogether (or, even if it was “old”, staying true to me).

This is what wanderlust is all about…not traveling, not going adventures, not exploring new places. It’s about walking the path that is unique to you and yours alone. It’s unknown, and that is the wilderness.

*Okay, okay. Of course I know the answer, at least partially, to this question. The mind takes over when the heart has been invalidated. Anytime a child has their emotions ignored, goes unseen, is told how they feel or should act, a child’s flame is being dimmed. This goes much deeper than someone telling a kid that their dreams are unobtainable, although that can certainly play a role. We can read all the parenting, teaching, therapist/coaching books we want, but our only job as adults who have kids in our lives is to keep their inner flame burning bright. It’s just really hard to do when our own lights have been dimmed. So we all must ask ourselves the questions “Who am I?” “What are my divine gifts?”, and do the work to get back Home to ourselves.

**Cancer zodiacs are water signs and some astrologists relate cancers to preferring being at or around their physical homes. My belief is that may or may not be true and that cancers are more accurately about connecting their inner and higher selves, which also connects them back to Spirit.

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Breaking Free: Returning to the Heart

The heart and body are in direct communication with each other. The heart is the voice of the soul. If you are not living in alignment with your soul, your body will let you know.

[In reflection of my own journey and others who share a birthday close to mine, my theory is that anyone who is a Cancer zodiac sign (especially for females), a natural born empath and sensitive (attuned to energy) soul, has in some way been directed towards this message this year, perhaps through an injury or illness, if she is not already living 100% heart centered. (I would love to know if this is true for you if your a Cancer sign!)]

The message the body is revealing may be slightly different for everyone. A good starting point is checking out Heal Your Body by Louise Hay, where she listed out the spiritual message of various injuries and illnesses based on body parts. Then, if you have an injury, you can further explore the message based on what side of your body is injured. The right right side gives voice to the ego (or masculine), while the left side speaks for the spirit (or female).

For some people, the most uncomfortable part will not be the pain of the injury or illness. It will be in the deconstruction phase of the ego as it is the ego-who we believe we are- that block us from listening to our heart. Many of us “think” we know what we want but the heart does not speak through thoughts. The heart speaks through feelings, emotions, and the body, especially when the soul is really trying to get our attention.

The deconstruction phase asks us: Are you willing to let go of all that you think you are? This may be attachments to past memories or labels that we or others have given to us, such as athlete, cashier, hard worker, or even “Type A” person.

The deconstruction phase may represent the “chrysalis phase” of the transformation process (where our insides turn to mush) or it may represent the “coming out of the cocoon phase”, as the ego represents the outer shell.

There is both a letting go and a fight. A surrendering of who we think we are, while also fighting not with but through the ego so as not to turn back, to return to the old version of ourselves that lives from the mind and not the heart.

How do we trust our hearts when most of us have been give the message we must fear love and trust a voice outside of ourselves to gain “salvation”? Yet trust is the essential piece. Every time doubt comes in, we must fight to come back home to ourselves, to trust, to allow the light to shine through. (We don’t fight the darkness, we fight for the light).

When we go through the deconstruction phase, you may literally feel like you want to crawl out of your skin. As others have reminded me, I will remind everyone here: this is a sign that you are on the right path. Growth is uncomfortable. Yet it is in breaking through her shell that the butterfly gains the strength to fly. It is in pushing through harsh conditions and rocky soil that wildflowers gain their vibrancy. This is the message that life gives us, the signs from the Universe that we are on the right path (sometimes the Universe puts up with me when I ask for a “signier sign”).

We must trust the signs, trust ourselves and step into the flow of life. Once we break through the ego, peace and ease will follow. Yet we have to push through the discomfort to allow the joy to come through. If you take my hand, we can make the leap of faith together…

Normally I hate a candid photo, but this ended up being a very authentic photo of me in my deconstruction phase.

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Thoughts That Kill

People don’t actually kill themselves. Nor do they kill other people. Thoughts kill people.

Now that I’ve got your attention, let me explain.

For many people, there is no separation between their thoughts and themselves. In fact, many people still believe the Rene Descartes quote “I think, therefore I am.” Just because something sounds good, doesn’t mean we should listen… (Descartes has a few other bad theories, such as “The Great Chain of Being.”)

We are not our thoughts. If we were our thoughts, we wouldn’t realize we were having them*. Many of our thoughts, mostly automatic, come from the ego (fear-based) mind. The ego mind was created in infancy and further developed in childhood, born out misattuned love: trauma, the times caregivers ignored our needs, abuse, and systems that measure success by achievement, etc. Because our caregivers couldn’t always protect us or be there to help us feel and soothe the emotions in our bodies, our minds kicked in. Our minds developed equations like: “If I do xyz, then dad will be proud of me.” If I never do that, then mom won’t yell at me.” “If things always go this way, nothing bad will ever happen.” “If I achieve this, then I’ll be enough.” These types of equations are bound to fail.

*Michael A. Singer writes in depth on this topic.

Yet without the separation between Self and thought, our ego-minds (and remember, the thoughts from our ego mind developed when we were kids) run the show, oftentimes getting stronger and stronger year after year. This is the same as saying that fear (of not being enough, being abandoned, or not feeling lovable) and negative thought cycles take the lead. With negative thoughts comes uncomfortable emotions, such as more fear, sadness, and anger. Again, because no one taught us how to feel our emotions, we suppress them…until we can’t anymore. Some people will internalize these emotions (at this point, we can really use the word “shame”), and some will externalize*. This is the difference between suicide and murder.

*Thank you to my Naropa professor Max Woodfin who first explained this occurrence to me, which allowed me to further extrapolate.

Let’s back up for a moment and take things back to childhood.

I know I gave a pretty brief explanation (but hopefully simple enough that its understandable) of how thoughts come into formation, yet I hope its obvious on why it should be of upmost importance that mindfulness and mental health is taught in schools. If we can teach kids that during hard times, when their thoughts start spiraling in negative circles and they’re beating themselves up about not being good enough, that they are not their thoughts, we could save hundreds of lives each year. All it takes is a few simple mental-emotional tools to let the thoughts and big emotions pass, especially because it is the urgency and intensity of negative thoughts and big emotions that lead to self-harm and suicide. Any type of delay that allows the energy to pass will help, be it a tool like meditation or a suicide prevention hotline. (Teenagers are especially susceptible because of brain development during this time period. Watch the teenage brain episode of the Netflix documentary: The Mind, Explained for more information.)

This is why willpower has nothing to do with suicide or addiction. When our minds are in control, we don’t realize that there is another option, another choice. Our internal vision is literally obscured by thoughts and the intensity of emotions they produce.

During one of my own anxious-depressive spirals, in the midst of all my chaotic thoughts, my training allowed for a new thought to come in,”My thoughts are going to kill me.” This awareness snapped me out of it. I realized then that this was how we lost Robin William, Anthony Bourdain, and a loved-by-all college professor at Naropa (my graduate school). Their minds took over, and the fight got too exhausting to continue. But its not a fight when we realize the voices in our minds are not us, just shadows that can be dissolved in the light of truth.

And here’s the tougher part for me to talk about (only because we’ve created so much division among ourselves on the topic)…

This is where I believe some type of middle ground can be found between the seemingly opposing parties on the gun control debate (although all everyone really wants is safety, especially for our kids). The truth is, people don’t kill people. And as much as the part of me that identifies as liberal doesn’t want to say this, guns don’t kill people either. Thoughts kill people. Or, more specifically, unconscious, fear (and shame) – based thoughts of the ego mind, which, for the added reminder, is working off a toddler’s “logical” intelligence.

The reason gun control laws should be in place that require the buyer/owner of a certain age and for there to be a time period between the buying and acquiring of the gun is because of the intensity and immediacy of suicidal and murderous thoughts. While of course there are exceptions to this (I highly dislike outlier debates), the time period between thought and action gives space for the energy to pass and new thoughts to form. Pause and intervention can save lives.
(Automatic/unconcious thoughts and automatic weapons are an obvious lethal combination that I won’t dive into full detail on here.)

The other piece I want to humanize is that those humans who own guns for safety purposes…which other humans who label* themselves as “liberal” also want to villainize… experience the pain of being human too. Many who also thought to use the weapon they own for their own demise. While maybe this accentuates the lethality of guns, I say this to actually highlight our shared connection. We are all human. And to be human is to experience suffering. The suffering only ends when we can transcend the differences that keep us separate (and birth fear/shame-based thoughts) and realize that we are all more alike than different.

To summarize: We are not are thoughts. We are all connected.

If there is ever a part of you that wants to die, please realize that it is just a part (refer to Internal Family Systems). Its a part formed by the ego-mind and created a false identity of you. What is most likely happening is that part is no longer serving you, and your Higher Self might be want to come back to the forefront. In short, what is happening is called a request for an “ego death”…it can be uncomfortable or outright painful. I highly, highly recommend working with some type of therapist at this point, and there are many books and podcasts that cover this topic as well. Remember that you are always, always loved.

My book: Light & Dark: Reflections on the Human Experience

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