I have not withdrawn into despair, I did not go mad in gathering honey, I did not go mad, I did not go mad, I did not go mad. – Hoda Al-Namai
Thinking a lot about how our society views getting older lately.
I’ve never had a huge concept of “age”, but I experience the unhealthy concept we have of getting olderin our culture of age-obsessed thinking.
It’s everywhere we look.
It’s in Hollywood, in politics, in social media.
We think we should look 18 when we’re 80. Or at least, 25 when we are 50 and “youth culture” tells us that we are no longer valid.
Topically, in my experience, (and quantum theory backs this up) the degree that we age is very much based upon the degree that we accept what society tells us is true about age.
I’ve been told that I look significantly younger than I am my entire adult life. Part of this is because I believe my body is my temple, and I care for it well, but beyond that, I just don’t think about what I am. “supposed to” look, feel, or be like at any given age.
I haven’t quite cracked the code on not aging at all; skin cells still break down, and the rate at which they replicate may not be the same at 50 as it is at 15, but our mindset can hugely influence just how rapidly our aging markers shorten.
From every other perspective beyond what we are told about our held value, getting older is an incredible experience.
Because I have lived many years here on earth,I’ve had ample time and opportunity to learn, to grow, and to
examine the doctrines and dogma that I was brought up with.
I’ve had years to recognize, acknowledge, and fall in love with those previously lost parts of myself that I had disconnected from out of shame, or guilt, or fear.
I have had decades to sift through and discard any previous belief systems that do not serve my best, my most true, and highest self.
Because of my years of experience; the joys and the losses, the challenges and the triumphs, the grief, and the bliss, I am so much more settled into the gorgeous, full and authentic human, be-ing than I ever have before.
I can feel the strength of my foundation; something I certainly did not have in my teens, 20s, or even my 30s.
I feel completely safe in exploring alternate ideas and ideologies from what I have learned to date.
In fact, I have come to realize that this is the best way to keep growing – and having the stable foundation of what feels true to me keeps my value system intact while I approach new things with curiosity.
I have learned that my value is not in the constant need to be validated by others.
I don’t have to “Do” to prove my worth. I love who I am, exactly as I am.
For that matter, I don’t have to prove my worth to anyone, and I don’t have to stay in a room where my care and value is not recognized or appreciated.
I am not in any way saying I am close to whatever “perfect” is supposed to be, and being a little more aware doesn’t mean that I don’t make mistakes.
But rather than judging or shaming myself, I have learned to take a step back, acknowledge the “mistake“ or misaligned behavior, and then look for the root of that sabotaging behavior.
When I was actively teaching martial arts, one of my favorite things was those moments when one of my advanced students would get a good strike in on me in the sparring ring.
It didn’t happen often, but when it did, I would always get a little thrill, because that little “zing” would show me an area of weakness that I may not have recognized otherwise.
I’ve taken that lesson into every aspect of my life.
We humans are such beautifully complex creatures, and our past can influence our presence, but one of the most powerful lessons that I have learned is that it doesn’t have to be our identity.
Like that kick to the gut, or punch to the jaw, (geared up, ofc) I may have an area in my psyche that I’m not paying attention to, or have a link to a past identity or egoic construct that I didn’t previously recognize.
I can acknowledge the trauma, the challenges, the losses, and the accompanying patterns that grew as a result of those past experiences – but I get to decide the meaning – and how I frame – the emotions and residual vibration of those life experiences.
I can allow the energy that lies behind me to be anchors that keep me tied to the past, or I can embrace them as lessons that provide ammunition for future growth and evolution.
Perhaps the only real “truth” that I know for certain is that when I’m in the present moment, the past is no longer real.
With each turn around the sun this physical and spiritual embodiment of my Self takes, I have become more deeply attuned to the world and other souls around me; able to “see” what keeps people stuck, but I have also lost any sense of judgment over where people are at in their personal journey.
I love it when my experience and ability to heal or empower can be a catalyst for healing or growth in others, but my years of living this life have taught me that I don’t need to be a “savior” to those around me.
I may be able to guide another soul who is ready along the path a bit; the reason I got trained in and and started my healing “business“, but I have learned that it has never been my place to try to change any other soul who doesn’t want to change, no matter how “good” I may have thought my intentions to be.
I have also learned that the law of equal exchange is both real and valid. I used to give my services away for free, or ask very little in exchange for my lifetime of experience in empowering, healing, and coaching others – then be hurt when the teaching or training I had given away was neither valued or implemented.
I have come to realize that if someone truly wants the help that I can provide, the equal exchange of energetic currency is incredibly important, and devaluing myself also devaluates their experience.
When I was very young, I had a bit of a “Cinderella” complex.
Because of the lens that we are taught through fantasy and fairytale, I associated my childhood trauma with the idea of some prints or Savior who would sweep in to save the day, making all of my dreams come true, and fulfilling my every heart’s desire.
In gaining both years and experience on this earth, I have realized that there is no fairytale hero who will save me. I have to be the hero of my own life, as we all do.
I believe this is the primary lesson of this existence, here on earth.
If we learn to love and heal ourselves, and in doing so, experience firsthand our incredible power and ability to shape our individual reality, the magnetic resonance of that love, healing and self-creation is projected into the Field, and may provide the spark for someone else to find wholeness, too.✨
This is how we save the world. This is how we heal our planet; one beautiful soul awakening to their incredible value, beauty, and power, becoming a ripple that spreads into the ocean of this reality.
We are the new Christs, creating heaven on earth.
This is the importance, and immeasurable value of each additional year we spend on this planet, in this time space reality.
So darling, the next time you look in the mirror and see the physical evidence of your time here, celebrate that shit.
Own your age, in your completely unique perspective.
Trash whatever opinions someone else tries to force down your throat in what you or your life is supposed to look like at any given age.
Wear the flowers, or the stripes, the sparkles or the tie-dye, or whatever suits you, Boo.
Keep your hair long, or rock a mohawk.
Follow your bliss. Follow your heart. Listen to the whispers of your soul.
Love yourself, and recognize your incredible contribution and value on this planet.
Be gorgeously, gratefully, fully what you are.
But please, beloved, for the love of All That Is, stop thinking that your value ends at whatever perceived age your culture or society may tell you is valid. Let go of old and outdated identities that no longer serve your highest self.
Cast them off like an old coat that is three sizes too small and horribly outdated.
Step into the glorious version of yourself, as you are, right now.
In Paige, Arizona, just beneath the earth’s surface, there lay long, serpentine crevasses – “Slot Canyons”. The unearthly experience of being in one of these canyons is like being on another planet; warm reds, browns, golds and even shades of purple coloring narrow stone corridors, sculpted over eons by wind and water to create a spectacular, otherworldly landscape like nothing else. The journey we walk in this life is much like that canyon: sometimes long and winding, at times so narrow we have to hold our breath to squeeze through, but also at times opening to vast vistas so breathtaking, we could weep for gratitude.
The Swahili word for Journey is “Safari”. To find your authentic self requires a true Safari; a journey to the self through the self. This is a journey of spirit, on a spiritual path. Along the way, you are likely to encounter fierce hunters and predators, wild thick jungles so dense you will need a sharp sword to get through. You will have periods of darkness where you will wander, hands outstretched and ears wide open, unable to see the path in front of you but moving forward on faith that it is there and you are guided by unseen hands: you are.
In this Safari of Self, be prepared for upheaval. There will be moments of hunger as you begin to recognize dysfunctional and unhealthy patterns, as well as those things that your soul longs for. There will be moments of thirst as understanding begins to tickle the edges of your mind and you want more. There will be moments of loneliness as unhealthy patterns and associations drop away.
But when you have emerged from that jungle to arrive at the destination of Self; stronger, connected to those who resonate with who you truly are, feeling evolved and luminous – you will wonder that you ever hesitated to take the journey in the first place.
Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, observes that “The spiritual path wrecks the body and afterward restores it to health. It destroys the house to unearth the treasure and with that treasure builds it better than before.” Bon Voyage, loved one.
“Know Thyself” – Maxim inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo, Delphi – Plato interpreted this philosophic maxim to mean “Know your soul.”
Do you feel that you know your Self with a captital S – your soul? Do you feel solid and whole in who you are, at your core?
We are meant to be complex, multi-dimensional beings. When we are whole, we are our most authentic Self; in touch with our highest Self, we are in touch with our child-like nature – our curiosity, sense of fun, possibility, and adventure. We are able to enjoy pleasure like an embodied, divine being, but also to take radical responsibility for the creation of our lives; to sit down and get sh#t done when it is necessary, like a grown-ass man or woman. But being integrated isn’t always natural or easy.
Recently, I enjoyed an evening out with one of my oldest friends. You know those friends that you love on first sight, and know that regardless of time or distance, you just know that you will be friends for life? She’s one of those. 🥰 We were discussing who we were as kids compared to now. Once upon a time, she was a badass gangsta with a gorgeous, wicked temper and a propensity to put the hurt on anyone who so much as looked at her beautiful self the wrong way, but now, as an adult working mom she felt she had to become “tame” and as a result, boring. She said she occasionally felt a stirring of that girl inside her, but suppressed that aspect of her Self because she felt that part of her personality would have a negative impact on her personal and professional life.
She had made her career and children her priority, and had stopped living fully or authentically. She had a wonderful relationship with her kids, but felt limited socially. She lost her ability to have fun. She became anxious and disempowered, and badly wanted to reclaim those parts of herself that allowed her to feel a deep sense of joy and satisfaction of life.
I have many friends who feel this way; as though growing up means growing one dimensional. They have lost their concept of being in touch with their “inner child”, their vulnerability, or their sensuality, because growing up means you have to be a responsible, reliable adult, right?
As women, we especially need to hold a piece of ourselves as that badass gangsta warrior woman.
Not an imbalance – she needs to be tempered with compassion, empathy, love and nurturing, but this part of ourselves is where we gain our strength, our power, and when necessary, that momma bear that could tear someone apart with a flick of a wrist if her cubs or loved ones were threatened. This part of ourselves is also often associated with our sensuality, another piece of our Self that is often either suppressed or overindulged.
We are meant to be sensual, sexual creatures – it is an aspect of our biology, after all, but that does not mean we have to overly sexualize ourselves to gain value from men, just as repressing the beauty and sexuality of who we are to be “taken seriously” is an imbalance of our authenticity. This imbalance can result in creating a life of loneliness or feeling less-than.
“I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water. – Amy Tan
Most of us are taught to suppress our “fullness” from a young age. We begin to rub parts ourselves away because we want to feel accepted or loved. We want to “fit in”. This is perfectly natural, of course. It is a vital aspect of our DNA to seek connection, companionship and even acceptance of those around us. We are at our best when we have meaningful connection with others. When we have loving, supportive partners, family, friends and community.
The problem is, like my friend, in seeking that approval and acceptance, it can be too easy to go to one extreme of the spectrum of our personalities, closing the door to our complexity, to our ability to express ourselves, or even feel deeply. We become disempowered when we allow others to dictate who we are, though this often happens by degrees, without really even knowing that it is happening. Has happened.
We are all glorious, multidimensional beings.✨
We become one-dimensional when we are meant to be multi-dimensional beings. When we suppress parts of who we are, those parts are like children who are lacking love and attention. They want to be acknowledged and integrated, and will do whatever it takes to receive the acknowledgment they need, but often in ways that impact us negatively. Those subconscious parts of ourselves will act out in the form of regression, depression, isolation, dysregulation/overly emotional or angry responses, self-sabotage, or even unexpected violence. We end up feeling overwhelmed or imbalanced.
Seek not outside of yourself; Heaven is within. – Mary Lou Cook
You are a gorgeous, multi-faceted individual who deserves to love every piece of who you are; mind, body and soul. One of the most important aspects of feeling whole; of good mental health and happiness is acknowledging, embracing, and integrating every aspect of our Self. We should have access to a sense of our inner child at various stages, our moody or mouthy teen, even the bright-eyed and curious college-age “kid” who we may have thought we grew out of decades ago.
The following exercises can help you to access lost parts of yourself. Many, if not all will likely feel strange, uncomfortable, or emotional for a bit. Stay with it. I promise you will experience a shift that can be profound, if you do. Most of us do not feel truly worthy of love, and part of this is because we spend so much of our lives rejecting those lost parts of ourselves.
Inner Child Exercise: Find a photo of you as a child. Hold that photo in your left hand and place your right hand on your heart. Gaze at the photo, feel the connection between who you are now and who you were then. Tell that child that you love her. Do this daily, preferably when you wake and right before bed, when your mind is in a relaxed state. (Theta brain wave)
Physical touch Exercise: Give yourself a hug. Say “Thank you, I love you.” Stay in this position until you feel a sense of love and appreciation. Alternatively, place one hand on your heart, one on your navel just below your belly button. Close your eyes and repeat “Thank you, I love you.’
Mirror Exercise: Look at yourself in the mirror. Really look. Find three things that you like and admire about your face. Say it aloud, then follow with – “I love you.”
Visual Affirmation Exercise: Write love notes to yourself such as “I love you.” “You are beautiful/intelligent/worthy/capable, etc.” “I love the way we play.” Or I appreciate our curiosity/sensuality/childlike nature, etc.”
Deep Inner Work Exercise: Find a place to get quiet. Come into your breath, spend some time just observing the slow inflow and outflow of breath from your lungs and nose. When you feel quiet, ask yourself the question – what aspects of You have you repressed? Who wants to be heard and have a conversation?
When you have a sense of what part(s) of your Self need to have some attention, whether it is your inner child, your powerful warrior, your sensual being, or any other aspect of personality that you may have ignored or suppressed, it is time to have a conversation. Don’t be surprised if you feel some negative energy. You may feel a little queasy, frightened, frustrated, angry – or a host of other emotions that we tend to keep under wraps, afraid to show who we really are. Observe and allow whatever you are feeling to be, but hold that part of you as the calm in the storm.
What you may need to say or experience to those lost parts of yourself is entirely personal, but once you begin to feel centered, a conversation might look something like this: “Hello, my Love. It has been too long.” I have missed you.” “I am so very sorry that I ignored you for so long.” “I love you.” “I will never neglect you again.” “Can we find a way to be fully integrated/together?” Stay with that part of yourself until you do feel a sense of integration. Be prepared to come back to this aspect of self regularly for a while – it takes time to heal a rift that may have been years in the making. Plus, loving and accepting ourselves should be daily practice. When you have come to the place where you feel those previously suppressed and forgotten parts of who you were once again as who you are, you will not only feel a deeper sense of wholeness and empowerment, but you will fall in love with yourself in a way that you may not have even known was possible. And that is a beautiful thing.
We must learn to accept and love each aspect of our history – and ourself.✨
Today, I hope that you will find time to pull the lid off of those parts of yourself that you have suppressed and repressed for too long. Give them some love and attention, and gratitude for being vital aspects of yourself; of what has gotten you to where you are today, and begin working towards full integration. Feel that beautiful complexity from your toes to your fingertips, and into the fullest expression of who you truly are. You deserve it.
Grief can be such a hard thing to get past. I understand this implicitly, from the loss of close family members and friends, beloved pets, divorce, and the heartbreak of losing someone I was deeply in love with.
It is vitally important that we honor our feelings when life brings us these painful experiences, but it is equally important that we learn to heal from that heartbreak rather than allowing it to consume our lives.
It has been shown that an estimated 40% of people who experience the emotional event of heartbreak also suffer clinical heartbreak. The physical organ of the heart is damaged as a result of the psychological trauma.
As if that is not enough, grief temporarily lowers our IQ levels; lessening our ability to navigate the challenges of life. When we are in a state of grief, our innate programming tends to shift our neurological processes to focus upon the person, event, or circumstance that caused the trauma to begin with; the experience of grief acts on the same neurological network as the motivation network. This means we feel an incentive to “fix” the “problem” of the loss of our loved one.
This is compounded by the fact that when it comes to relationships, the withdrawal of or from love catalyzes the same chemical processes as addicts withdrawing from Heroin. The hanging on, or inability to let go of the grief we are experiencing, is the methadone in the addictive process. If we are going to completely break the addictive cycle, we have to realize that we can not trust our hearts if we are hanging on to an idea of reconciliation. Our minds will feed on that hope and create stories to perpetuate the idea that the fairy tale will have a happy ending, idealizing and romaticizing our partner’s wonderful traits. We will spin all sorts of scenarios and stories that create a positive outcome. This is called “Limerence”.
But in order to heal and move on, we have to accept our loss. Let go of those stories, fantasies, hopes, and also, the pain that we guard so closely to our hearts. When we let go, we can move forward to a happier future.
Easier said than done, right?
As you may gather from the below poem, I experienced this at one time, too. I fell deeply in love with someone; harder than I had ever fallen. I had not experienced the level of emotional connection and vulnerability with another human as I had with him. I didn’t even have a framework to understand that intense of a connection.
When the relationship ended, I wasn’t just heartbroken, I was eviscerated. I had been through heartbreak before, but not like this; probably compounded by several years of really terrible loss in other areas of my life. The grief I experienced became a feedback loop, trying to convince me that he was in love with me, that he wanted to be in a relationship with me – in spite of every piece of contrary evidence. Being a logic-minded person, even this “loop” f#cked me up in a major way. I would have arguments with myself that looked something like this:
“You have to stop this. He is not in love with you. He has no desire to be with you. He isn’t going to write. Or Text. Or call. He’s not thinking about you. There is absolutely no physical evidence of anything else being true. The “connection” you think you still feel is created; likely a result of unresolved childhood trauma pertaining to your father and stepfather. Can we please just let this go now?
(Limerence). “ I don’t believe that. How could two people have shared what we did and it not be love? It doesn’t make sense that I would still feel this level of connection to him if he wasn’t also missing me. It’s quantum entanglement! I have faith that everything is working out. We just have to be patient and wait for the right timing.”
Cue the eye rolling from my logical mind. You can see the Limerence in action, right? The separation of the two parts of my mind was absolutely terrible. Honestly, there are still moments when that voice pops up to say “what if?”, but I’ve gotten better at using some of the tools that can help us to heal from any type of grief or heartbreak. Here are a few that may help with your own process:
Don’t deny the heartbreak. Spend some time honoring your grief. It’s important to say “I see you” to those parts of yourself that are hurting.
Self-care for the win. When it feels especially difficult, give yourself extra love and care in the way that feels best for you.
After you have moved through the natural states of grieving and are ready to move on, practice “This, not That”. In hypnotherapy, we use it as a form of re-coding neurological circuits that may not be serving us well. If you lost someone close such as a dear friend or family member, each time you feel sad, thinking about what you have lost, replace that thought with a happy memory of time you spent together. Feel the joy of that moment. If it is a lost love, substitute the thought of something or someone else that brings you pleasure.
Identify the voids in your life that the grief or heartbreak left, and fill those voids with other things. For example, if you lost someone you loved and were close to, spend time with others you are close with to fill that empty space of loneliness or disconnection you may be experiencing.
If you are experiencing Limmerance pertaining to heartbreak or the loss of a relationship, write a list of all of the reasons it was not healthy to begin with. Write the outcome that you may be hoping for and the evidence that it is not real. Keep this list somewhere close as a visual reminder and way of re-coding the loop that creates those expectations.
Create a more compelling future. Another Hypnotherapy technique is called “Future Pacing”. When you are in a relaxed state, envision in your mind a future a year out that feels amazing. A future that you would like to see for yourself – that does not include the person you are grieving. When you can clearly see where you are, and what you are doing, and feel yourself in that place, “see” yourself three months back, then six months, then nine months, then back to your “present” self. What are the steps you needed to take to get to that place in a year? Write it down and try to follow that timeline in real time. Practicing this visualization before bed and when you first wake (Your mind is in a theta/highly suggestible state) can help train your brain to create this reality, too.
Take time for awe and wonder. Whatever this may look like to you, taking time to tap into these states of appreciation and gratitude for beauty can powerfully heal the mind and body.
Spend time with good people. It can be too easy to isolate. Build a support system. Find community that feels good.
Once upon a time, there were two sisters. Their names were Joy and Sorrow. Together they lived in a beautiful heart-shaped home, full of color and magic. Joy was the entertainer, loving to host lavish parties, spending time with family and friends, going on grand adventures around the world. For many years, Sorrow was more of a solitary sort; content to be the homebody, preferring to be working quietly in the garden or curled up on a comfy couch with a good book. Naturally, tragedies were her favorite.
Joy was outgoing and ebullient, curious, childlike, and a hopeless romantic and flirt. She loved to learn, to teach, to play, and to sing. She loved to meet new people and spend time with her friends and family. Romantic relationships were easy for her, but though she found a few long-term partnerships, she rarely held anything too tightly. When something was ready to end, she accepted it, and the lessons she learned from these relationships, gracefully.
They lived most of their lives in this way, Joy almost always at the forefront to welcome anyone who cared to visit, keeping the home a place of magic and happiness. But in their early adulthood, there came a time when their grandmothers died. Their grandmothers and an aunt were the only truly nurturing family the sisters had, and Joy did not know how to accept this devastating loss. For nearly a year, Joy all but disappeared into Sorrows’ comforting arms.
Over the years, the sisters would encounter other losses and occasionally, cousins such as grief, anger and resentment would show up on their doorstep, wishing to be entertained. Joy learned that the key to happiness when these visitors came was to allow Sorrow to handle these encounters; she was far more adept at managing difficult relatives. When these relatives went back to their homes, having been honored as was necessary, Joy was able to come back into the fullness of herself and her home, having grand adventures, learning voraciously, flirting outrageously, and entertaining with ease, even through difficult times.
All the while, Life watched from a distance, sending these unwanted relatives and experiences to the sisters to help them to grow. One day, he decided that he wanted to truly challenge the sisters. So he began to take people from their life that they loved deeply. He first took their aunt, who had been the sister’s surrogate mother for much of their lives. Next was the youngest of their two brothers, then their beloved pet, and finally, one of joy’s best friends. Through all of these trials, Joy held her space, allowing Sorrow to fill the home with her presence, even inviting Grief to stay for brief periods, but always found herself again with relative ease. Life saw this, frowning, as he thought it impossible for her to continue to shine so brightly, even as tragedy after tragedy struck. So he caused floods that destroyed parts of her property, took her favorite pets, some of her best friends, and even her career. She and sorrow walked hand in hand through it all, yet somehow she continued to live up to her name.
Life had nearly given up on his quest to challenge the sisters. He turned his back, intending to find other, more interesting experiences he could bring to people; but a realization struck him. There was only one thing the sisters had not experienced. True love. Romantic love. A soulmate.
You see, Sorrow had never been especially interested in relationships, and Joy held everything so lightly that, though she loved many people deeply, she didn’t really know that there was a deeper love that could happen between two unrelated people. She didn’t know that it was possible not just to love someone, but fall deeply in love with that person. Joy loved science. She loved to understand the mind, and knowing the structure and chemistry of the brain, the notion of a Soulmate did not fit into her understanding of the world.
And so he sent her perfect match; Love. The first time that they met, there was a clear chemistry and connection between them, inspiring her curiosity. They began to spend time together, developing a friendship as they learned about each other during long walks, longer cups of coffee and glasses of wine, having meaningful conversations about myriad subjects that sparked Joy’s mind and filled her heart. These encounters with Love evolved from a natural and easy friendship into something much deeper. Joy experienced a connection with him that was so profound that it shocked her. When they were together, her heart felt that it was Home. It was natural in a way that she had never experienced before. In a way that she did not know was possible. The way it felt to kiss him, to dance with him, to sing with him, and just to be fully together, hearts connected, caused her to fall so deeply in love that parts of her soul peeled away just to be closer to him; to stay connected to him even when they were apart. She knew that she wanted to share her heart-shaped home with Love. That she wanted to share a life with him.
But there were myriad complications to the relationship, and Love, as it turned out, had many other interests – and so they parted. Joy’s mind accepted this as the best course of action, but soon, her heart caught up to the break, and the shock of the loss was so great that she lost herself. She forgot her identity as Joy. Sorrow held her, hoping to provide comfort as Joy took to her bed, burying herself deep beneath her down comforters. Soon after, Grief came to stay, taking turns with Sorrow next to the mound of Joy-shaped blankets that refused to move, to eat, to sing, or even to breathe.
When it became apparent that Joy was no longer inhabiting her own body, Sorrow was forced to create a Joy-shaped mask, stepping into the role of her light-hearted sister, as well. It was Sorrow who pulled Joy, quiet and limp, along on parties, adventures, and even dates, hoping that some incredible experience would wake her sister up, but without Joy’s curiosity, interest and effervescence, the experiences felt empty.
It was Sorrow who spent time with friends and family, masquerading as Joy when her sister could not be found in her nest of comforters; And Grief felt that much heavier for her sister being so deeply buried. For over a year, Joy refused to inhabit more than the smallest space in the heart-shaped home. Eventually, Sorrow realized that she could not manage their life with just Grief to hold vigil, and their second cousin, Despair, came for a visit.
Despair was intense; a small, dark creature who never spoke above a whisper. Sorrow soon learned that she would need to lean in to hear whatever it was that Despair whispered, and it was then that Despair caught her, tied her to the bed next to Joy, and one by one, shuttered the windows that let the bright sunshine into their heart-shaped home. Next, she began to blow out the candles that had been keeping the last of the shadows at bay, and the sisters were plunged into Darkness.
For what felt like a lifetime, Sorrow lay in that darkness, hoping that Joy was still next to her, somewhere. She missed her sister, missed her life and vitality. She missed the sunshine that had filled their heart-shaped home, and in spite of everything, she missed Love. She thought that perhaps this was to be their life – a life of Despair, a life without Love.
But one day, a bright light shone beneath the door. The light moved around the home, casting shadows on the floor as it peeked between shutters, knocking softly, at first, but soon began shaking the doors and windows, light playing wildly over the crystal chandeliers, dusty furniture and floorboards. Despair shrank from the light, hiding in a far corner as the front door bursts open and Anger stood, backlit by the sun, frowning around the dark home. One by one, the shutters on the windows flew open and the energy from Anger’s rage and frustration caused the dust and other small objects to whirl around the space.
Despair fled the home in terror, and Anger burnt Sorrow’s bindings with one wrathful glance before striding over to where Joy still lay, deeply buried under thick feather ticks and woolen blankets. One by one, he began to pull the covers from her shrunken body until she lay exposed and shivering on the bed.
“Joy. How dare you abandon your home; your sacred temple. Sorrow was never meant to be your caregiver; only your companion. Just look at what your absence has wrought.” Joy slowly sat upright, gazing around the dirty, dusty, dark home, and then over at Sorrow, still sitting on the bed next to her, wrists and ankles red and burned. She pressed her lips tightly together, energy beginning to spark in her stomach before bringing her focus up to Anger.
“Anger. I do feel unhappy about the state of my home and my sister, but how could I possibly care for anything when the choices I have made have left me empty, in despair and guilt, and all for naught – I am still bereft of one of the most beautiful experiences of my life? Love, in spite of all that I thought was between us, did not choose me. “. She looked down at her lap, wishing to crawl back into the safety of her nest, but she sniffed and glanced at her sister from the corner of her eyes. “Sorrow is better suited to this reality.” Anger glared and folded his arms over his chest, clearly frustrated.
“Do not confuse one bad experience for reality. Love did not truly care for you. He did not value you. He did not give you his Heart, his communication, or even more than a tiny portion of his time. Love was fickle with his feelings. How could anyone who loves Joy reject her? I have a few choice words I’d like to share with him, if you would allow it.” Sorrow scooted closer to Joy, wrapping her arms around her.
“Do not listen to Anger. Love was a product of his environment, just like everyone. He cared for you, but his choices had to be his own. We both know that. Being angry with him is natural, just as is being sad, because we lost something that felt so valuable.” She turned to Anger. “Anger, thank you. Your rage over the pain this caused was what saved us from Despair, but you cannot stay here, and you certainly may not share your opinions with Love. I’ll have a word with Temperance about future conversations, but for now, you should probably leave us to find our equilibrium.” Anger rolled his eyes but bowed deeply and stepped out of the room. Sorrow sat back, taking Joy’s hands in hers and looked deeply into her sister’s eyes.
“Joy, we have to live this life together. I don’t like wearing a Joy-shaped mask. As you know, I don’t care for parties, and adventure just isn’t fun by myself. I can’t shoulder the burden of this life without you, so we have to figure out a way to share our heart-shaped home. I’ll still handle the difficult experiences and relatives, if you can deal with all of the other stuff that you are way better at than I. Please?” Joy gave Sorrow a small, sad smile.
“I can try, but Sorrow, my heart feels so much more empty than it did before I knew Love. I had always been happy but with him, somehow I felt even more. I felt complete. The epitome of my name. How can I be Joy if I feel this emptiness? If I feel that I might never experience that again?” Her eyes welled with tears, and Sorrow’s heart felt so very heavy that her beautiful sister had to feel such pain. She pulled her hands gently from Joy, hoping that the lack of contact might ease her sadness a little. Joy did seem to lighten, a little, and Sorrow felt a little lighter, herself.
“Well, remember neuroscience 101 – “Mood follows action.”…why don’t we start with finding things to fill that emptiness? Things that you love, like cooking good food, going on adventures, taking long walks with the dogs, spending time in nature and with people that we love?” Maybe we could even start writing and painting, again?” Joy gave her sister a genuine smile; the first in a long, long time.
“Why don’t we start with a walk?” And so the sisters took a walk in the rain, hand in hand. Life watched all of this, feeling pleased with himself and the sisters for learning from the painful experience, but also a little guilty for sending such a difficult lesson to the sisters. As they walked, he willed the skies to begin to clear and sent a rainbow so vibrant that Joy and Sorrow both stopped and stared in awe.
Joy’s healing was not an overnight process. There were still days when she refused to get out of bed, and Sorrow would find herself weeping over a sink of dishes, or on an outcropping overlooking the ocean when Joy suddenly took her absence, though she had been there only a moment before. But each day, Joy would spend some time with her sister, listening to music, though she still could not sing, being in the moment, usually barefoot in nature, hugging a tree, or watching the wildlife that always seemed to be comfortable in their presence. Even when she was fully present, Sorrow observed that her sister was softer. The Joy that she had known was a little quieter. Less balls-to-the-walls and more observant. Sorrow wasn’t sure if this was a permanent aspect of her sister’s new personality or just part of the process, but she accepted it as it was.
One evening, after returning from a long walk with their canine companions, they were discussing how they would spend the rest of their night; reading a good book (not a tragedy) or re-watching “Bridgerton”. Joy seemed undecided, looking towards their studio space before finally suggesting that they take out their paints again. Sorrow gave her sister a hug, grabbed some pots of water and sat down to watch. Joy raised one eyebrow.
“Don’t you want to join me? I thought the last painting we created together using a palette knife was pretty interesting.” Sorrow shook her head, remembering the painting they had been working on months ago; a representation of dead hope that she had put more of herself into than Joy.
“No, I’m not really feeling it tonight. I might step in occasionally, but I’ll let you take this one. What are you thinking about creating?” Joy smiled widely, picking up the phone and selecting “St. Finnikin” from their playlists. As the music began, she stepped to the canvas and raised her charcoal, beginning to form shapes in wide, looping arcs.
“I’ve got a vision of a Rockstar Angel in my head that needs to come to life.” Sorrow sipped her tea, inhaling the aroma of rose and mint deeply, enjoying the feel of the moment. She knew that finally, Joy was going to be ok. Maybe even better than okay, judging by the content of the painting that was rapidly taking shape, bright pinks and deep, jeweled greens splashing across the canvas. She stood up, stretching her tight back a bit.
“I think I might crawl into bed with a book, if you’re all good? There’s a Poe or Shakespeare that I think I’d like to dive into, but just give me a shout if you need me.” Joy glanced back at her sister with a brilliant smile before turning back to the canvas, focus intent.
“All good here! Enjoy your tragedy, sister. “
Sorrow turned and walked back to her bedroom, crawling into bed with a deep sigh of relief. She hoped that she and Joy would never go through an experience like that, ever again. If Love ever decided to come back into their life, she was going to meet him at the door and have a serious heart-to-heart about caring for and protecting her precious sister. If he could not agree to valuing them both, she would slam the door on his face, but not before giving him a black eye or two for good measure. It would seem, she mused as she opened the book on her lap, that perhaps a little bit of anger had rubbed off on her…but the thought was gone as quickly as it had come as she allowed herself to become absorbed into the story before her; “King Lear”. She did love a good tragedy…
Did you know…that Grief and motivation run on the same neural circuitry pathways? When we lose someone, something, or an idea that is deeply important to us, our mind wants to solve the “problem” of regaining what it is that is lost. In the allegory, Joy loses her « soulmate », but the pain of grief can be from so many different types of losses.
The inability to regain the person, thing, or idea is what causes our feelings of loss and sadness. Dr. Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist extraordinaire, describes this phenomena aptly – “It’s like standing outside of a stone castle. The thing you want is inside the castle, but you can not get past the gate, no matter how badly you want it.” Eventually, you wander off to find another castle, but as you stand outside, you go through the stages of grief –
Denial: I can get into the castle
Anger: Let me into the castle!!
I hate trite phrases like “This too shall pass”, though eventually, our hearts and minds really do heal, at least largely. I believe that grief, like most experiences in life, are like packages that we carry with us. When a major heartbreak or tragedy happens, that package may feel unbearable in its weight. But time passes, and it gets lighter and lighter until eventually, we forget it is even there, until something happens to remind us. We may feel sad again, for a spell, but even then, that pain is lighter. Easier, and we get back to enjoying the beauty of life much more quickly. I hope this happens for you, sooner rather than later. You deserve to be happy, my friend. Believe it. ✨
Bargaining: Please let me in. I have cookies!
Depression: I’m never going to get in. I might as well just lay here in misery.
Acceptance: This person/thing/idea is gone. I will likely always feel sadness about this, but I can find a way to live my life and maybe even be happy again.
These stages don’t necessarily happen in exact order, all of the time. We are unique individuals and the way we see and experience is also unique. But the gist is there. In order to come to a place of healing and acceptance, we have to allow ourselves to experience each stage with love and grace, even when it feels hard. We can mitigate some of this pain by doing things that we enjoy, spending time with good people, listening to feel-good music, talking out our feelings, and spending time in nature. Mood really does follow action, when it comes to training our brain to feel good more often than not, and doing things that help us to feel better increases our vibrational resonance, creating an uplifting cycle.
If you are still in one of the stages of your own grief, I feel you. Truly. My heart feels your pain, and I am so very sorry that you are in the experience right now.
It is estimated that just over half the world believes in reincarnation. Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Jainists all believe that our souls are eternal and keep incarnating in new bodies after we shed the previous skin of a lifetime. In fact, up to 25% of Christians believe it, as well. I found it interesting to learn that many philosophers, such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Socrates, also believed in the continued rebirth of the soul.
From a quantum physics standpoint, energy cannot “die”, but must be transferred or transformed. A tree becomes a log that is put into a fire to become a flame, to become ash, to become earth, to once again become a tree…
In spite of my own very traditional Christian upbringing, I’ve had a few experiences that have led me to believe that I’ve been around the proverbial block a few times now, too. I like to think of each lifetime as a school. When we’re a young soul, we get to go to kindergarten and life is pretty easy. We don’t think terribly deeply, and we’re mostly here for a good time, even though we are still learning simple lessons.
As we progress through lifetimes/grade levels, things get a little harder, but I think that’s by choice. That maybe before we are born, we choose the classes that we are going to take to best help us grow; to evolve and become Creators in our own right. By the time we’re in “university”, many of us are choosing some really f#cking hard life lessons so that we can achieve exponential growth.
I don’t know that we all pass every class that we take. Sometimes, we get stuck in victim mentality, or we get drawn into materialism, or those hard lessons cause us to become embittered rather than more compassionate. Sometimes when we are given the opportunity for growth we allow fear to rule us and we stay stuck rather than advancing.
Eventually, we shed our mortal coil and we get to go again, perhaps with some encoded memory that we’ve been here before, and hopefully do it a little better next time.
But over the past couple of years, I’ve started to think that maybe I should be a little more global in my belief system when it comes to reincarnation. I’m not so sure that it always has to mean that we literally die, go to some other place for reassignment and then come back as another person.
I think maybe we also reincarnate many times, in one lifetime. The death may be more metaphoric than literal, but we’ve all been through many experiences where we felt like some part of us died, as with the death of or separation from someone or something (such as a career) we love, or perhaps it is the “death” of some aspect of our identity or ego that we have carried from childhood. In fact, it is said that when someone consider suicide, it is not the whole self that wants to die, but rather some aspect of the ego that long ago stopped serving us.
When we go through these “little deaths”, we may feel that we are in purgatory for a time, and it can be months, or even years before we begin to crawl out of the protective cocoon we have built for ourselves, to learn to fly again. To be reborn, each time a little – or a lot – of a different person.
I’ve had a number of such experiences throughout my life; usually following some really frickin’ hard lessons. I have been through some of these over the past three years or so, but recently found myself in a situation that caused acute emotional pain; asking the question – “WTAF Universe (Unified Field/Source/God/Jah/whatever works for you); this totally sucks. Why am I getting this lesson AGAIN?
To be immediately followed with “oh.”
Because I didn’t learn the first time. If we fail a test in a particular class in school, if we are lucky and our instructor/teacher/professor takes mercy on us, we can re-take that test. I believe the Universe is infinitely merciful and so we get to take the test over. And sometimes, over, and over…and hopefully, eventually we figure it out. We have our “oh” or “aha” moment.
So the question, when we find ourselves in the same lesson, must be: “What did I need to learn here?” Sometimes, with those BIG lessons, it takes a bit of deep work to figure it out. We have to look at and work through the source of the thought processes that are creating or drawing to us these challenging experiences. But as soon as we realize what the lesson was all along, there is this amazing feeling of “aha”, and a knowledge that we just moved up a level. We shed the heaviness that was connected to what we were holding, and remember that we have wings again. We re-incarnate, lighter, happier, and excited for the future.
Of course, there will always be many other lessons to learn, but that particular class is passed, and past.
What’s especially exciting about the idea of multiple reincarnations within each lifetime; whether they are related to relationships, lack/poverty thinking, victim mentality, low self-value/self love or any other issue or program that has been carried from a flawed or traumatic childhood, is that just like being born into a new body with a new family, many of the old, unhealthy habits and people that were an aspect of that life and vibrational resonance drop away and healthier, happier habits and communities are formed.
We learn to set healthy boundaries and care for ourselves better. New opportunities show up. We become more deliberate in the creation of our personal reality. As an additional bonus, being a little further along the path enables us to guide and help others create a happier reality for themselves, too. We are ripples on a pond, contributing in our own way to the evolution of humanity.
How cool is that?😎
Have you had this experience? Have you felt like you have lived many lives in this lifetime? I’d love to see your stories!
Let’s start this conversation. Growth is f#cking hard. Painful, in ways.
It can be depressing and overwhelming, initially.
It may lead to rainbows and unicorns, but know this to be true – we often have to leave the familiar, the Known, and even those people and places that we still love in order to find our path towards peace and freedom.
That path isn’t easy, either. I read recently that it is estimated that only 2% of the population choose growth. This is largely because our primitive brain has not evolved to understand the positive aspects of growth.
The primitive, or downstairs brain (limbic region and amygdala) has not really evolved in thousands of years, and keeps us “safe” from anything that could potentially be harmful. To the amydala, the unfamiliar is unsafe. The primitive brain tells us to stick to the familiar. The safe. It tells us that we should stay in the cave, and tries to override change by creating neurochemicals that make us feel deeply uncomfortable and even fearful of anything that seems unfamiliar.
It is understandable to want to stay in a place of perceived safety, even if that safety makes us deeply unhappy.
Because sometimes, the path to peace downright sucks. Before we can find joy, the path winds through dark forests and up steep mountains. There will be times when we feel lost. There will be times that we feel we are in darkness, and all that we can see is the step directly in front of us.
We will have to confront those dark parts of ourselves – the skeletons in our closets and monsters under the bed – past trauma, dysfunctional patterns and programs – that we may have avoided our entire lives before. We may endure times of aloneness and even loneliness as we make our way on our very individual path.
We will lose people along the way; those that can not accept the new version of ourselves; or just can’t make the journey.
It’s hard, and sad, even heartbreaking, sometimes.
But we also gain new friends and family that more accurately reflect the reality that we consciously choose to live, rather than one that was chosen for us. Our vibe finds our tribe.🥰
Most importantly, we gain peace in knowing that we have chosen our own path.
Time to fly, babe…
Eventually, that decision will become the best decision we have ever made for ourselves. Our journey through those dark paths leads to bright sunshine and warm seashores. The dense woods become charming paths leading through bright glades and mirror-still pools as our mind’s new programs learn to create new realities.
Even in this upgraded reality, there will still be days that clouds move across the path and feel hard or sad. We may mourn for that which we left behind.
But it is 💯 worth it. I can not overstate that enough.
It is worth every drop of discomfort, every leap into loneliness, every disconcerting, uncomfortable or downright scary experience with those lost parts of ourselves and the hard process of stripping away of old, outdated was of thinking and being.
It is worth the pain. The “fertilizer”, to live a life of freedom as a conscious creator rather than as a slave to the programs and patterns instilled upon us by our parents, caregivers, peers and societal expectations.
If you need evidence of this, look to any human who has begun to live by this new shift in paradigm. I challenge you to find one person who would go back to the Matrix of our own implanted b.s.
But it’s still f#king hard. 😖
Did you know that when a caterpillar creates its cocoon, it doesn’t just sprout wings and fly away – it completely dissolves into a black miasma within that cocoon before Re-forming as the beautiful symbol of transformation we all recognize and most of us love? Growth and evolution is much like this.🥶🦋
It may feel like we go through our own period of hibernation and re-forming as we spend more time in “being” and self-examination and less time in “doing”.
This is also a necessary part of the process. Just as the caterpillar must quietly dissolve in its cocoon to become something more, we also have to become still and go inside of ourselves in order to dismantle all those faulty and outgrown belief systems. It may feel like winter.
There was a study done in which scientists injected Redwood trees with a chemical similar to adrenaline in order to prevent the trees from hibernating over winter. Every single one of these normally long-living trees died within the year.
Humans have times when we must metaphorically hibernate, as well, if we are to grow into a new season of flowers and warmth.
Even having that big-picture understanding that the short term, hard changes will eventually lead to long-term happiness, the process is still hard. So it is important to acknowledge and honor the discomfort and sometimes even pain that happens when we start this journey towards peace.
If you are on this journey, I honor you. I acknowledge the pain you may be going through as those old egoic patterns begin to fall away. As you deconstruct.
If you need support or a shoulder on your journey, know that you are surrounded by love and there are others that will find you on the path.❤️. I am one of them, and am sending huge hugs, care and encouragement along the way.
The human brain is an organic computer; a recognition machine that every moment is creating stories and constructs to fill in the blanks of the world around us, largely based upon our individual sets of life experiences and preset patterns.
Put into scientific terms, the reticular activating system; the brain’s “reality filter” sorts through the roughly 6,000,000,000 bits of information we take in per second through our primary senses and magnetic field, and translates that information into 4000 or so usable bits of information that we then view the world through. This filter is essentially created through our unique early childhood programming.
This is why confirmation bias happens. Why we so often end up exactly like our parents or caregivers; for better or worse. This is also why learning and incorporating new experiences into our adult lives is so vitally important if we are to continue evolving as individuals and as a species.
But that is a big and multi-faceted subject. For now, let’s look at how it applies to our self-perception and the way that we create relationships with others.
Our relationship with others can only be a reflection of some aspect of the relationship we have with ourselves.
“The world is looking glass and gives back to every man their reflection of his own face.” – William Make-Peace Thackeray
Because of this, It is nearly impossible for any individual to fully understand who another human is. But we can learn to know ourselves better through how we respond and relate to others and the world around us, and in turn broaden our ability to have a greater scope of understanding of who someone is.
When we meet another person, we create an image of them based upon what our own previous life experiences have been. We build assumptions based on our own identity; an identity that is often an egoic construct based on those childhood patterns of survival and “safety”, or lack thereof that we have continued living well into adulthood.
It is estimated that 98% of our thoughts and actions are habitual (and largely based upon this early programming) before we turn 40, unless we are actively working on neuroplasticity – altering that circuitry and growing a better brain.
What we see in the person we are interacting with at any given moment is an amalgamation of recognized aspects of these preset programs and patterns; often having very little to do with who they truly are as an individual.
Unfortunately, in the same way that we often cannot smell our own bad breath, we are usually unaware of the background programs that are controlling our real-time thoughts, words, and behaviors. It is difficult to see our own dysfunctional patterns until something happens that forces us to confront those damaging subconscious belief systems. We can not know that we are in a dark room until someone opens a window and sunlight pours in.
We can only understand another based upon our own identity patterns.
I have seen this pattern in myself plenty of times. I meet someone and I have this “Wow!” moment in which I see their gorgeous inner child or something especially fabulous in their manner; in their incredible potential, and the beauty of their soul, and I fall a little bit in love. Or sometimes a lotta bit.
When I say that we can not truly know another soul for who they are, I am not negating what I see in that person – I know that when I see that beauty and potential, it is absolutely there. But my own preset patterns of recognition don’t always allow me to see all the other aspects of their nature that might not be as compatible with my own. (Reticular Activating System…). What I also don’t always see is how my own dys-functional pre-sets from childhood might be playing into accepting partners or friendships who do not treat me with value.
Often, the recognition of those things I might not see, whether it is in those relationships or in myself, comes months or even years down the road when I have an “aha” moment or realization that I have been accepting sub-par treatment or that the vastly different, difficult, challenging, or impossible aspects of who they are will not change. I have to either accept the whole person rather than the “potential” that I see, or I need to reframe the relationship that I have with that person.
I very recently had one such epiphany; realizing that an unhealthy situation I had gotten myself thoroughly entrenched in was connected to unresolved (unbeknownst to me at the time) patterns that traced back to my very first relationship. This realization hit me like a ton of “holy sh#t” bricks and made my shadow side do a happy dance, feeling significantly lighter for the understanding and letting go of that heaviness.
Haven’t we all experienced this at one time or another?
I really appreciate the Pollyanna aspect of my nature and her ability to want to be besties with the wise, beautiful, Divinely -connected Starseed inner children she sees in others. I like to think that that sparkly, Rainbow-Brite aspect of my nature is my essential nature. The one I was born with, rather than the one that I learned through a complicated childhood.
But that other, darker side; based upon learned behaviors and belief systems from that oftentimes difficult childhood is not nearly as sweet, and has negatively influenced my personal relationships and the way I have viewed the world.
I grew up in a home where there was a tremendous amount of volatility and instability. I could not trust the adults in my life to care for me, protect me, or keep their word to me. Because of this, I learned to be fiercely independent and would not allow myself to trust or be truly vulnerable in my closest relationships. Or if I did, at the first sign of any kind of “betrayal”, I shut down and shut them out. I created self-fulfilling prophecies of being treated with less-than love and value in my closest relationships, based on faulty belief systems. I couldn’t even recognize that they were there or how much they were hurting me until I began to observe myself from the outside.
For me, learning to recognize the patterns of both my inner “Pollyanna” and my darker, less-than-trusting side, and look deeply into my own reactions and behavioral patterns with others has allowed me to cultivate healthier relationships. As an added bonus, it has also helped me to recognize that humans are complex, and sometimes we fuck up. I can be okay with those that I love (myself included) being less than perfect, and loving them through their own bullsh#t while maintaining some healthy boundaries for myself, when necessary.
This is not to say that I am willing to be treated as less than the beautiful soul and gorgeously complex creation that I am, (nor should you) but it does give me a greater ability to have grace for the patterns and presets of those that I choose to surround myself with.
God knows, I am still working on all of this every single day, (#growthmindset) but awareness of my own presets and choosing to see the light in myself, others, and the world around me, rather than the mistrust I was taught, has been huge in altering every single aspect of my life from personal relationships to how I allow myself to see and create reality.
So if we find ourselves feeling cynical, critical, and judgemental of others, we can learn to recognize that it is our own self-identity that is cynical, critical, and judgemental. We just project onto others what we feel critical of in ourselves.
If we are convinced that humanity is destined for destruction, hell, or just a life half-lived; a life of “settling”; if our view of the world is cynical or fear-based; this is all based upon our own internal belief systems and dialogue.
But the opposite is also true. If we can learn to see ourselves as essentially good; of being capable of beauty, growth and evolution, we will see that reflected in the people and the world around us. The mind is always listening in on our self-talk, and if we begin to shift the way we speak to and about ourselves, those neurological patterns can begin to reshape themselves, too. I get bonafide nerded out just thinking about how amazing the human brain (and body) is…😉
If we can see the possibility and potential, the magic and miraculously Divine nature of our own beautiful Self, we will believe others to also be miraculous, magical, Divine beings of infinite potential.
If this resonates, maybe it’s time to step out of the shadow of a faulty and untrue belief system that was instilled by people who didn’t know a better way, and step into the bright, shiny, fabulously Divine being that you are. Maybe it’s time to unravel from the collective cocoon and way of being taught to us by our parents, society, religion, educational system, and political figures, and start embracing your own unique beauty, capability, and intelligence.
Because that is where your power is, babe. That is where your joy is. Where your magic and freedom and fun are – In the fullness of who you are, and the wisdom of what is right for you.
Through your own awareness, growth, and evolution, your relationships will improve. You will attract others of a similar mindset who wish the same for themselves. Through choosing to create your best possible life, and fully loving the Who that you are, you give those around you the permission to do the same.
“The pinnacle of self-love is not ecstasy, it is the heartbreaking process of undoing the life that our unloved self built when we didn’t know better. “
Becoming who we really are begins with learning to love every aspect of our lives – but most importantly, it is learning to love ourselves. It is an unbecoming of who we were when we didn’t know how to love ourselves.
It is chaos before order; a difficult and messy unspooling of the heavily bound threads of dysfunction and neglect that we have wound around ourselves, all too often in a cocoon several sizes too small to contain our vast spirit. But unwind we must before we can step into the fullness of our purpose and truest self; before we can learn to spread our wings and soar.
Before self-love becomes freedom, it must first be a burden that we carry with minds and hearts just beginning to open to new possibilities.
We must carry the weight of the anger that we feel towards others for not being treated with the care, love, and respect that we should have asked for all along. We must carry the weight of anger towards ourselves for what we allowed, often not realizing that there was ever a choice.
There is the anger for not asking; for not insisting that we were worthy of care and respect.
For those of us who experienced childhood trauma, this unraveling of emotions is an especially perilous journey, for dragons often lurk in those murky places of our subconscious minds that we fear to tread. But the journey is a worthy one and the reward of integration with those lost parts of ourselves can not be understated.
When we have processed the anger, then comes the heavy grief of time lost – sometimes many years’ worth.
Eventually, we feel lighter. We learn to set boundaries and say “No” to those things that are not right for us. We become deepy accountable to our own self-care and growth; a process that is not an easy one.
At some point, we begin to recognize the truth of the saying that we become the amalgamation of those that we spend the most time with. And so we learn the painful necessity of cutting away or holding at at careful distance those people and things that have hurt us in the past, or don’t currently serve our highest good. Sometimes those closest to us decide to grow with us, even if their pace does not match our own. Sometimes they don’t, and we must make the difficult decision to allow them to continue their journey on their own, in their own way.
In the beginning, this can create isolation. Loneliness. But as we remove those things in our lives that were creating darkness, light can begin to enter those empty spaces. Our tribe begins to find us. We begin to fall in love with not only ourselves, our lives and those souls around us, but we draw in and create close friendships and partnerships that are fulfilling rather than stagnant. That lift us and allow us to better lift others, in turn.
We begin to create, or rather, I believe that we learn to consciously collaborate with Source to become the architect of our lives, shaping the fabric of our reality with intention. We learn to see the infinite possibilities within and before us. We find our wings, and begin to soar.
Today and all days, beloved, I want to see you soar. I wish for you the feeling of freedom as you create a life of abundance and beauty. A life of light, and of love.
We hold within our minds, bodies, and the magnetic field that surrounds us billions of bits of information in the form of frequency.
These frequencies are shared with those around us, and will draw to us that which we are most familiar with based upon the hardwired programming that began in early childhood. The RAS/Reticular Activating System or “Reality Filter”, found in the brain stem, plays into this, too. We take in billions of bits of information each second. The RAS filters and translates this information into just a few thousand bits of information that we can use and work from – but this translation is largely based upon our past experiences.
Where focus goes, reality follows, so if our subconscious programming says that narcissistic relationships are our comfort zone because of our childhood caregivers, well guess what? That is exactly what we will find. Ouch, right?
But what is really, really cool about this is that our personalities (personal realities) are never set. I’ve heard people say “it’s just who I am” – and I call bullshit. We are growing creatures and can change drastically any dysfunctional or outdated paradigm that we may have been living to create something truly beautiful. Which brings us back to awareness, the magnetic field, and why the heck we are here in the first place.
My personal belief is that we are born onto this planet by choice. That our souls know exactly what lessons we need to learn, and how we can distill the most pleasure from this experience here on earth.
Sometimes, life brings contrast and it sucks until we figure out the issue, learn the lesson, or move beyond the hardship.
But conversely, we all know that the vast majority of the time, life is a beautiful thing. We are so fortunate to be here, enjoying the experience of being human with other humans.
If we did not have this human experience, how could we ever understand the way dark chocolate melts on the tongue, the aroma filling our mouth as we get a “sweet” little hit of pleasure-invoking dopamine?
How could we know how it feels to really hug a loved one or hold a new baby in our arms?
How could we understand the pleasure of co-creation with another human – or the pleasure of the act of procreation, for that matter?
We would not appreciate the vibrancy of a bouquet of flowers, the awe-inspiring views from a mountaintop, made even better by a rigorous climb to arrive.
“Sweeter after difficulties”
There are thousands more amazing experiences that come with the “Human Condition”. But it is important to understand that in order to create a truly happy and fulfilling life in which we feel like a deliberate creator, we must address and move past those things that act as an anchor to our freedom.
We draw to us the people and experiences that match our current vibrational state. We attract that will support and promote our growth at exactly the time that we are ready for the lesson.
Sometimes, this is a wonderful thing. A new career, relationship, home, life change.
Just as often, we attract those people, circumstances and experiences that feel the opposite. Frustrating. Angst-causing. Triggering.
These “growth gifts” from the Universe” should be our best lessons. Our greatest opportunity for growth and evolution. It is the thing that makes us feel the most uncomfortable that can create the greatest learning and inspiration.
In the moment, being consistently triggered or dysregulated by a condition or someone else’s behavior – often completely without their awareness of the way you are affected – sucks major 🏀⚾️🥎.
Most of us react and withdraw because we don’t want to feel the deeper, buried pain that is associated with whatever is causing our distress. Our subconscious mind likes to keep the painful things repressed. Or we turn to addictive behavior or substances to suppress those negative feelings.
I know from personal experience. I struggled with an eating disorder for most of my life. As a child, I wasn’t allowed to “feel” my emotions if they were in any way negative. As a result, I looked for ways to repress my anger, my grief, my anxiety.
I wanted to feel numb, and the disorder did that for me – Until the numbness and trauma resulting from the disordered thinking and behavior became more painful than confronting those memories, and I began the process of reprogramming long-held belief systems that had been set by someone else’s faulty wiring. We really are organic computers.
Uncovering those hidden parts of our younger selves is a difficult and complex process, largely because the brain’s main function is to help us survive. The brain does not understand that the trauma we experienced as children keeps us in unhealthy patterning throughout adulthood- to the “computer” part of our mind, we survived so whatever programs were established should continue our survival. Easy peasy, right?🙄
But when we do the work to let go of those limiting belief systems, the rest of life can begin to unfold in a more beautiful way. In a more natural way. In a way that feels less survival and struggle and more deliberate creation.
Sometimes, we think we’ve worked through it all and that we are fairly “enlightened”. And that is exactly when the Universe sends just the right person or experience to throw you completely off your game and remind me – uh – us 👀 – that growth is a process and a journey and we never completely reach the Enlightened destination.
But. Back to that amazingly cool aspect of the human brain: When we go into those dark places, (anyone else have a brain that loves to do this at 2 am or so?🙄) and do the work – have those hard conversations with our skeletons and monsters – unacknowledged parts of ourselves to discover the deeper source of that dysregulation, Babe. Miracles and magic happen.
Once we get past the “oh sh#t” of “seeing” the connections between our dysregulated behavior and childhood experiences and patterning, it is frickin’ eureka. It’s aha, and the light of a thousand lanterns flaring at once to cast out the darkness where things were once hidden. It’s dopamine times a hundred. It feels like taking one more step towards flight; towards heaven, and we are able to shake off the fear that has held us to move forward in Love. In Freedom.
And that’s what it’s all about, ultimately.
“In every relationship, we have the opportunity to set the level of joy you expect and the level of pain you will accept.” – Jay Shetty; Think Like a Monk
From our place of center and love, we are able to approach the circumstance, partners or others who had been “causing” our unhappiness to be deeply vulnerable and hopefully, that person will be able to honor our experience and move forward with their own increased awareness. But not always.
Sometimes, that other person is not ready to release their own wounds and they may struggle to recognize when they are treating others with less than value. Or they are not ready to learn to communicate. Or they become defensive, or hostile. depending on their own “core wounds”; your non healing may trigger and be threatening to their own sense of worth and value.
We may realize that the person who was in our life at that time was meant to be a catalyst for us to let go of those outdated and unhealthy patterns but we no longer mesh vibrationally and have to let them go with love and grace.
This is so, so hard when it is a long-term relationship or friendship. If you know, you know… but they are hopefully on their own healing journey and staying in a situation where you do not match ultimately will only bring pain to both parties.😣.
We need to let go of the outdated mindset of previous generations where we remained in a marriage until we died, often early as a result of the constant flood of adrenaline and cortisol in our systems from being in an unhappy relationship. It just makes no sense.
And speaking of healing…🙄
I have had more than a few such friendships and experiences that I let go of in the last decade or so, and that process has been expedited in the past few years as I continue to remain relentless about my personal growth and evolution. Most, I have released, though I still hold so much love for them.
But sometimes, we reconnect down the road when they have begun their own healing journey, and it is a beautiful thing.
If you are in a situation where you find yourself consistently reacting to someone else’s actions or behavior, it is probable that those strong emotions are tied to some form or childhood (or young adulthood) trauma. If it’s in any way histrionic, it’s based in history. (Amygdala reaction Vs. Prefrontal cortex response)
Here’s a tool that could help you to discover the “roots” of your dysregulated state:
Get comfortable in a quiet place, seated or reclined, whichever is better for you. Some find a scented sleeping mask helpful. Scents such as lavender or geranium are particularly soothing to the autonomic nervous system and the slight sensory deprivation the mask provides can assist in connecting to those deeper parts of yourself.
Put one hand over your heart and one on your navel.
Take several deep, slow breaths through the nose, expanding the diaphragm with the inhale, allowing the belly to become soft on the exhale, also through the nose.
If you are feeling distracted, a progressive relaxation beginning with the crown of the head and ending with the soles of the feet can be a helpful tool to take your mind a little deeper into the body.
Once you are feeling calm and centered, just ask yourself what you are feeling. How you are feeling. Notice any sensations that come up in the body, or pictures that arise in the mind. Compassionately observe without actively participating in whatever your mind or body experiences.
Keep breathing.
Ask your body what it feels in connection to the person or circumstance that you have been reacting to.
Watch what comes up, if anything. If your trauma is particularly deep or is likely it will take several sessions to begin to access whatever it is that you need to acknowledge and feel into. It is also possible that once you begin unearthing, you may have unexpected moments of realization as you go about your day.
If you gain direct access to a memory or process/program that you know is the subconscious core of the emotional manifestation you are experiencing, just sit with whatever feelings come up. Allow yourself to fully feel into whatever you need to experience. Then give that beautiful aspect of yourself some love. Can you feel the sense of sending love from your heart center to another part of your body?
This is also a powerful healing technique when your body is out of alignment with your good health.
When you are ready, slowly come back to your deep nasal breathing. Feel your whole body, and the space around your body. Do you feel a little lighter? A little more space in your body or field?
It is equally possible that you may feel a deep sense of grief and heaviness. If that is the case, my love, I am sorry for this. I also know it’s hard. But eventually, it will be worth this temporary pain.❤️🩹
Allow yourself to process in whatever way feels best for you. Be gentle with yourself, and keep sending love – and forgiveness/self forgiveness and gratitude – to those parts of yourself. You deserve it.
If you need more information, tools/techniques for healing or just a little extra love, I am here for you, beautiful.
You might want to grab a cuppa and a comfy chair for this one because I’m going to go a little deep.
Full disclaimer – if you have been in the abuse cycle in your own life and relationships, this post could be a little triggering. But understanding our cycles and recognizing familiar patterns in others is power and allows us to move into a healthier space both in our relationships and in our own minds and bodies.
To quote Aristotle, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
For anyone who has read my work or knows me as a human, you know that a huge part of my purpose here on this planet is to uplift, educate and enlighten, especially when it comes to understanding the science (and spirit) of how we each create our realities – and that it all starts with our thoughts. I hate the term “Coach” and I am no one’s guru, but I have had a fundamental understanding of the mind’s ability to alter our lives since I was a child and have been studying it for most of my adult life.
I am full-on geeked out, slightly-obsessed, so-excited – can’t-keep-still-have-to-share passionate about it. I literally read about, listen to a podcast or take a class in some aspect of the subject nearly every single day. For years. It really is so freaking cool and lights me up like nothing else. Well, not much else. 😏
The human mind is an incredibly complex system of organic programs that are largely formed in our early childhood. This can be wonderful if we had a healthy, loving childhood but can really f#ck us up into adulthood and sometimes for the rest of our lives if our parents did not have the tools to give us a healthy beginning to life.
We can overlay this circuitry even as adults (neuroplasticity) which is also super cool, but only if we are aware of those programs running our lives in the first place. These subsets run every aspect of our lives from what information we take in (Reticular Activating System) to our happiness baseline and the amount of Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin and Endorphins (happy brain chemicals) available to us – and conversely, the degree of adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormones) that are chronically cycling through our system, causing not only higher degrees of perceived stress but also inflammation and ultimately, disease. (dis-ease)
The problem is, most of us aren’t aware of these programs controlling our subconscious mind and affecting our everyday lives. The way we perceive and navigate the world is just our “personality” (personal-reality) and we rarely go beyond that unless we have some sort of a come-to-God, radical wake-up call such as the passing of a close loved one or a NDE, ourselves.
This largely-ignored circuitry also creates our attachment styles and the way that we approach relationships. This is where my confession comes in.
In spite of years of study of neurobiology, the mind-body connection, quantum physics and how it applies to our ability to create our personal reality – and a healthy dose of psychology, because I believe healing past trauma is the doorway to everything else – I have had a major blindspot or achilles heel in my personal life as a result of the relational patterning of a deeply abusive childhood – my personal relationships. If you can relate, you probably understand this perfectly. We tend to repeat the emotional patterns we learned as children.
For me, since I was a “pleaser/enabler” with abandonment issues and a healthy dose of “Fixer” syndrome, I was both avoidant and anxious in most of my closest relationships.
As a result, I’ve experienced what you might call a smorgasbord of abusive personality types from my very first “real” intimate relationship; a physically beautiful, wealthy specimen of man that I met when I was barely 19 years old and living on the East Coast. The chemistry was instant and I thought I was in love. I was certainly starstruck. He swept me off my feet in every way possible. Including, after I had moved in with him, knocking me to the floor when he punched me in the face. I had grown up in a family of martial artists. I had begun “playing” karte with my dad, who is my Shihan (master) when I was quite young and studied under other teachers as a teen. Yet I could never fight back – because my circuitry says that I don’t hurt those that I love. I just allow it. I had been physically abused as a child, so there was a degree of “acceptance”as a result.
I eventually left him, fleeing (for my life) back to the Pacific Northwest where I avoided relationships for many years. I was not going to repeat that experience, ever. (Incidentally, I went on to earn six black belts, become a “Shihan”, myself, and have owned and operated a number of dojos since. I’ve also taught battered women’s groups and held many women’s self-defense classes; partially because I love it and it’s a family thing and partially as an aspect of my healing process from that experience).
I think it’s important to pause here to say that just as I was drawn to different forms of abusive relationships because of my lack of awareness of my own unhealed and dysfunctional relational patterns, I believe that those we become involved with are in exactly the same space, but usually from the opposite end of the spectrum.
The man I was involved with on the East Coast committed suicide a couple of years after I left him. I believe he hated himself for the damage he caused, but did not understand his neurological patterning to change the circuitry that created cycles of abuse.
When we think about suicide, it is not the Self that we want to see die. It is those parts of our personality/egoic constructs that are no longer serving our growth that need to go. Recognizing this can be the difference between living a long and nappy life – or not.
Which is exactly why I write this now. It is not easy to be deeply open and vulnerable to an audience, but how else will we ever change as a society to create better if we don’t start a dialogue about acknowledging and altering our own patterns?
This goes for our parents or caregivers, as well. I think most of the time, people are doing the best that they can to parent with the knowledge they have inherited, themselves. We can not hold ourselves as a victim and our parents or caregivers as the perpetrator into adulthood because that just keeps us stuck. We have to forgive, move forward and take accountability for changing our patterns.
That said, le’ts go back to my own “blind spots”.
I kept my word to myself, because we humans are learning creatures. I never allowed myself to be physically abused again. But because I had not healed all of my trauma and was still “stuck” in old programs, I found other ways to repeat the unhealthy relational patterning from childhood. Both my biological mother and the stepmother my father married when I was young were narcissistic personalities. I only received affection when I was “doing” or being good – behaving in whatever manner they needed on any given day, which was an ever-changing and complex thing. So I repeated that cycle with my next relationship. And the next.
I learned from these experiences and each relationship I tried was “better” (which is to say the unhealthy or toxic patterns became less obvious). But even now, though I seek only partners who are able to show affection and love deeply, I find myself drawn to “conflict avoidant” personality types who tend to mirror still-unresolved issues from my early life. We draw to us those people and experiences that best help us to learn and grow, even if those people and experiences don’t always feel great until we learn to recognize the pattern or growth opportunity.
But those “aha” moments where we see ourselves and gain self knowledge are powerful catalysts, so though it is not always easy and sometimes downright hard, I continue to go into those dark closets of my subconscious mind to face my demons, unlock and alter those programs and circuits that keep me from living the fullest and most whole expression of who I am.
I keep seeking wisdom and understanding of myself and the world to continue to grow.
Beautiful friend, whoever you are and wherever you are, I hope you will, too. Because through awareness, self-knowledge, compassion and most of all, love, we will not only become more personally and relationally happy, but will build a healthier, stronger and longer-lasting brain and body, and gain an amazing sense of freedom and self-mastery.
And while we are at it, we just might change the world, too. 🥰
I’d say that is well worth the discomfort of acknowledging and vanquishing – or perhaps just coming to an agreement with – the skeletons in our closet and the monsters under the bed that we may have ignored out of survival or fear.
What patterns have you been ignoring that you would like to see changed?
This Blessed Sacred Life 