So often, when we are in periods of transition or trying to create something new and are uncertain yet of how and what it might look like, we go into fear or into expectation of how we think things will occur based upon past experiences. And when we do this, we reclaim the old: what we imagine, or what we think will happen based upon the past, is what we create, is what we end up inviting into our lives vibrationally. Though we don't intend to, we re-claim the old, and then we think we 'prove' to ourselves nothing really changes, that we don't deserve something, or something new never works out or doesn't come. Or, that it's not out there waiting for us, if we could only somehow reach it.
When I stepped down from my prior career, I didn't know what lay ahead. I didn't understand even what I was going to go through–how could I? I hadn't been through it before. As the Mindful Heart frequently says, "The changes you undergo are unlike those you have been through before, for you are moving into the new. You confuse safety with familiarity, but familiarity only brings you what you already know, what you have experienced before... And you want to plan the new in the same way you planned the past–but this, dear ones, is fear, clinging to the old. It is fear of the unknown, fear of losing something you do not yet even believe you have or know you already are."
When I was in conversation with Ethan Fox from Flower of Life, he would say, "You can't plan what's ahead the way you've planned in the past." And of course, I would nod my head, after all, I was a greater planner, administrator. I know how to envision a project, a program. So, I heard it, but I heard it with my head. I heard the words, I heard what I'd heard a hundred times before through those words. But little did I really understand what it meant. When we allow our Soul, our intelligent heart to lead us, we don't necessarily get to see what's five steps ahead as we move through the transition from our lives lived from prior expectations to our lives lived consciously. But as we begin to listen to and follow the innate wisdom of our bodies, the intelligent knowing of our hearts in a deeper way, the next step, the choice-less choice is presented to us when we are least expecting it. There it is...'You are going to Oregon...you are driving across the country..'. and then all things begin to conspire to make this happen...
I wanted to move from my prior career as a professor, administrator, director to being a channel, offering workshops, doing private sessions, and staying in my home as if though I, on some level, were merely changing careers and my life would go on de facto–and I would sail into the next thing because I've known myself as capable, successful. After all, I did decide to do Depth Psychology, even though I realized I didn't want a Phd., didn't in the end want to be confined to teaching in the way I knew. Jung has always meant to me and once I understood more of his own journey–I suddenly understood being in graduate school again wasn't what I wanted, wasn't what was right for me. I wanted the interior wildness of his journey, the fierce courage to travel the interior depths with real discernment and intelligence, the courage to finally let the interior symbolic language of the heart and soul lead me. I understood finally too that through his intense studies of science, energy, philosophy, myth and archetypes he came to understand what we are only now beginning to embody–the deep relational nature between our energetic nature, our souls or spirit, and our physical expression.
And while we share energetic nature, collective beliefs both conscious and unconscious, how we manifest the truth of who and what we are is an individual journey connected to the whole. He knew this... He wanted to share the how....not only the what....but the 'what' was totally interior and as we travel it, he knew we'd encounter the old and ancient symbols and archetypes of our collective history–both known and unknown...and most importantly, he understood that these archetypes were energetic complexes in nature–they are not static images, but fiercely alive vortexes of meaning and experience. The 'how' in the end could be offered through general guide-posts, through archetypes, but the journey itself was as unique as each individual walking the planet, a constantly evolving constellation of deep images that if seen in total became a personal mandala. Jung gave us a catalog of a lot of the beautiful interior objects we'd encounter...but the 'how' of psychotherapy was and is an artful skill...one come by through deep interior work and mentoring–not necessarily classes, degrees, and programs. Some of the best guides I've met are not therapist, counselors, etc.. They are empaths, intuitives, healers and others operating directly from the intelligent heart.
That was Jung's deeply human side–wanting to make a science and method of something sacred...
So, we don't get a map in the way we generally want one–the way we plan a career, the way we plan to grow up and have a 'life'. We have to build our own with the pieces strewn out around us–the young warrior chief standing in the middle of all those sacred daily objects lifting each one to the sky to know its value, to know if it is true to us in its nature or true for us in our nature.
When I started to commit more deeply to this journey, I wanted a map. I wanted a plan which clearly defined each step–like the days mapped driving across the country. In short, I wanted a proven theory, a plan someone else had already taken. I wanted to be a channel like.... I wanted to offer sessions and workshops like.... I wanted to make a living like.... And I didn't want to be afraid. But none of it works like that–we can encounter way showers, guides, mentors who have embarked upon the journey, who can offer to us glimpses of what we might experience, encounter, and feel, and who can offer us rest, succor, and at times, some much needed borders and structures to keep our emotional self in tack, but mainly, what they truly offer us is an energetic connection to our own authentic soul being so we can learn to sustain that connection on our own, so we can learn to ground ourselves in those energies on our own.
Guides, way showers, mentors, intuitives offer us too ways to see where we are encountering and hiding behind our fears, where we are being held up by limiting beliefs we've inherited from family, culture, education. They offer us the opportunity over and over again to see where we are not connecting with our own energetic nature but turning outward, looking outside of ourselves for direction, for the next signpost, when it lies within us, has always lain within us: in the energetic nature of our own being, our own Soul being expressed through our human form. And when we connect with that, we connect with every living thing in form....with every living thing in vibration.... And as we begin to experience this, it knocks us off our feet...it expands us with love and begins to show us a world of being that is so much more expansive, loving and connected....
There is no map...only connection...only love and returning to love again and again....love is the vibration of connection....the energetic vibration of the universe... the vibration of creativity, authenticity, and of true power.
Love.
It sounds so simple.... it sounds idealistic... but isn't it always the 'simple' that is most difficult to truly grasp because simplicity requires a kind of tender attention and presence that our minds seldom like to surrender to. The present moment. And it is not 'romantic love'...but a love that sees no separation... a love that has no object but simply IS... It is an expression of Being. In this way, it touches all... it achieves things without the muscular effort of 'trying...' It connects where before there was difference and adversity... But it is not the love we have been taught, the love that comes with a quid pro quo... This love simply is...
We can claim the new: we can choose love and excitement rather than fear. We can choose compassion rather than anger or fear. Joy rather than disappointment or resentment. And when we connect with our soul nature, the energetic vibration of who we are, we can easily choose to express as a channel, a workshop leader, a healer, a teacher, an artist, an engineer, a designer, a caretaker, whatever it is we are meant to embrace to learn and give through, for we embody it first at the Soul level, the energetic level. We invite things in, embrace things first in the energetic field before they are able to be manifested in form, in expression. And in this way, understand, each moment, each decision we make in a moment, each thought we have is an energetic vibration, an act of co-creation, a moment in which we're inviting our experiences in vibrationally through feeling them energetically, a moment in which we are co-creating our reality.
And yes, at times, we do need to rest, we need to just let our bodies move.
But our bodies are intelligent when we begin to truly understand how they are an expression of Being, of the Divine. Our being in them changes--they are no longer objects. We move beyond the mechanical universe in which objects are handled and fixed into the understanding that expression is Being and our physical form is a manifestation of this. We move into the energetic universe, the multidimensional personality who sees the constellations of connection beneath the visible. The oneness of the web. The 'I Am' of living creation. And when we connect to that energy, it is like putting our finger on the pulse of the living universe–and our hearts flow, our intelligent heart discerns, our mind-heart coherency comes online, and our bodies intelligently lead us. Seeing this way is so entirely different, invites in the life we need, are meant to live and experience... It invites in Joy even in the midst of our sadness.
So, I am sitting here in a coffee shop in Little Rock, Arkansas. And having written this, I suddenly look up after a long while and I realize I'm in Little Rock, Arkansas and have days ahead to drive, and still unsure totally of the why, and a moment of panic, fear, comes over me....the 'now what?' and then I think, "Ok. I 'grasp' this, but can I live it..." How can I truly grow fluent in this fluency of being? Grow fluent with trust, presence, love... so that the path lights up, is illuminated without having to force it...
And then I am reminded of what the Mindful Heart Collective has invited us to do again and again in their messages....
In moments of fear, be compassionate with yourself–don't push the fear, worry, or anger away or down... Instead, take a deep breath in and invite yourself in with open arms, invite yourself in with love...Say, "I invite you in...[your name] with open arms. I invite you in with love..." And imagine inviting yourself into your heart. When we actually pronounce our own names and envision ourselves welcoming ourselves into our hearts, we are activating our heart energies. We are able to be compassionate with ourselves, kind to ourselves... We can say, "It's Ok... You're Ok. I've got this. I'm here with you. We can do this..." And you can ask then, what the fear is, where you learned it, or the resistance, the anger, or the frustration. You can ask "What are you trying to show me about me? What can I heal here? How can I choose differently?" And it's not about someone else–it's not about blame, or some external situation–it's about you. This is your Soul self, your higher self speaking to your personality self, your human self that goes into fear out of habit, out of patterns embedded in the unconscious, in the subconscious. It is your higher self saying to you, "We can do this differently–we don't have to go into fear..."
I invite you in...[your name] with open arms. I invite you in with love...
When we offer ourselves compassion, we are able to learn from and release the old instead of claiming it back into being, instead of acting on the emotion. When we move from fear to compassion for ourselves, we can then look up and see the world differently, see our circumstances or choices differently because we are not looking through the lens of fear or limitation, or the energetics of old vibrational patterns. Instead of limiting ourselves out of fear, or insisting upon the old–"I'm the one who was hurt..or, I'm the one who was wronged and so therefore I expect to be wronged again..."–we can actually offer these old fears, stories, ideas or judgments of ourselves up to Source. We can say, "I offer you up with love, ease and grace... I offer you up with gratitude for what you have shown me." We can release the old and welcome the new without fear or judgement. And we are able then to retain the wisdom of our experiences. Our wisdom–what we learned from the experience–does not go away. We do not have to fear losing it by letting the old story go.
I offer you up with love, ease and grace...
I offer you up with gratitude for what you have shown me.
When we move from fear to compassion for ourselves, and release the old, we move into the act of creation–with joy, love, wonder, and play. We allow ourselves the freedom to choose and create the new. We can choose love and co-creation instead of fear. This is what real courage looks like–it is not simply mustering up a greater force than the fear. It is taking a deep breath in, inviting ourselves in and transmuting the fear into love, into joy and gratitude... This is what courage can look like, can be–full of the power of creativity, full of compassion and love for ourselves.
And so I realized, I wasn't 'wrong' by not knowing why I was traveling so far. I wasn't somehow in lack or stupidity–I was simply trusting. Sometimes, we don't have to always understand something before we do it. Sometimes the doing itself guides us.
So Ruby and I moved ahead. We got her stick out of the car–her stick she's been carrying from Woodstock, NY across the country. We got it out once more and played catch in the park before we entered the miles again. We breathed deep in the grey light, in the not knowing, and found joy and gladness. And the miles of light grew...and then suddenly there it was, Tecumseh, Oklahoma. Who knew...but more on that later....
For now, here are a few of Ruby's Woodstock stick moments:
Ruby and Woodstock stick in Lexington, VA.
Ruby and Woodstock stick in three Tennessee moments.
There's always a good stick, and a world to throw it in.
Thank you for being here and bearing with me as I learn to navigate and manage the technical aspects of this page.
In gratitude,
Allannah