Tag Archives: true self

Baby, You’re a Firework

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Today on my morning jog the song “Firework” by Katy Perry played when I used “shuffle” mode to ask the Universe to give me a sign about love (try it, it’s uncanny). Katy sang and my heavy kvetching jog suddenly picked up into a buoyant gallop. I am always amazed at how emotions effect energy levels so quickly. Emotions are energy. My energy shifted from being an anxious anvil to being brightly inspired and my jog morphed from slog to spree. The lyrics and melody got to my true self and woke her up. Music is magic. Music, art, and any creative expression speaks directly to the true self, the heart, the essence.

“Firework” by Katy Perry

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind
Wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper-thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?

Do you ever feel already buried deep
Six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there’s still a chance for you
‘Cause there’s a spark in you?

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July

‘Cause, baby, you’re a firework
Come on, show ’em what you’re worth
Make ’em go, “Ah, ah, ah”
As you shoot across the sky

Baby, you’re a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make ’em go, “Ah, ah, ah”
You’re gonna leave ’em all in awe, awe, awe

You don’t have to feel like a wasted space
You’re original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow

Maybe a reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt your heart will glow
And when it’s time you’ll know

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July

‘Cause, baby, you’re a firework
Come on, show ’em what you’re worth
Make ’em go, “Ah, ah, ah”
As you shoot across the sky

Baby, you’re a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make ’em go, “Ah, ah, ah”
You’re gonna leave ’em all in awe, awe, awe

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It’s always been inside of you, you, you
And now it’s time to let it through, -ough, -ough

I love these simple lyrics. Let’s scrap the teeny bop aspect of the song but also, we all have an inner teen still wondering inside… am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Am I sexy enough? Am I smart enough? Do I belong? The feeling statements underneath these questions are; I feel rejected, I feel lonely, I feel insecure, I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel confused and I feel lost, among others.

When feelings don’t leave the body (through feeling them) they get trapped and turned into negative narratives that play on repeat in your head. Neurosis ensues. The complex grows. Your insecurities become a storyline that sticks.

You might be aware or unaware of these negative narratives. Conscious or subconscious, they are poisonous because they turn passing temporary feelings into lasting negative self fixations that can further turn into what I call dark narcissism which is when an aggrandized story of how horrible you are takes over the sense of self and self worth hides completely in the shadow.

The ego often intellectualizes difficult feelings, saying they are immature. The ego loves to moralize feelings, saying they are wrong to feel due to the worse suffering of others. Many egos squash difficult feelings with a false story that feelings are weak. This story is deeply embedded by the multigenerational toxic patriarchal narrative that this blog is not about but it effects everything psychological.

The psyche is constantly being programmed and reprogrammed by cultural narratives. What you value and how you narrate your sense of self is largely due to what culture has inadvertently programmed you to value and narrate.

The ego is the conscious aspect of the mind. Ego is the you that you are aware of, the you talking, thinking, expressing and doing. The personal shadow, unconscious, subconscious is where all personal parts of you live that you are unaware of, be it wounds, gifts, feelings, and often times, the true self. True self can be called the authentic self, the soul, the essence. Call it what you will, it is the you that you feel is the real you in contrast the you formed by your upbringing. Nature versus nurture as they say.

True self is timeless and like your fingerprint, unique. One of a kind. Your soul lives on after the body and incarnates again and again. True self is the merging of soul with body. (If you don’t believe in the soul, toss this part out and view true self as authentic self).

True self is usually shadowed because the ego’s main motivation is to be wanted, valued, and liked by the pack. Therefor, most of us become what we think will bring us validation by others. Unless your true self matched what your family and culture wanted you to be as a kid, true self hid in the shadow of the psyche and may still be hidden. It’s a spectrum of course, parts that are not valued hide while parts that are valued shine.

Due to ego needing to belong and be valued by others, we tend to get all of our self worth from other’s perception of us. This is very natural. No judgement. It’s ego’s function. But when you add in the abuse, neglect and trauma so many of us endure as a child the ego fragments and self worth shatters very early on before the ego is developed. I always see the neural pathway metaphor as wet cement drying. Around age seven, eight, nine, the neural pathway. which is the material form of ego, has fully dried. Self worth is cemented by this age.

To learn to experience an internal sense of self worth requires creating a new neural pathway and awakening the true self. This is the quest for the holy grail and the treasure at the bottom of the sea. Recovering your true self is deep shadow work. When you can bring soul out of the shadow, it will shine. Your true self is your firework. Making new neural pathway is like building a new highway, it takes a long time and daily work to build it. Soul work and neural pathway work are two distinct practices and paths that will let your colors burst, as Katy sings.

Katy Perry makes it seem easy because that’s what pop songs do and it’s also easier for people who match the toxic patriarchy’s image of beauty. Famous stars are the very pinnacle of the cultural narrative’s image of special which is why we get so obsessed with them. We project our desire to be special onto them. No offense against Katy Perry, who probably has major insecurity issues as most famous stars do because to match the toxic cultural narratives image of being the best does not provide an internal and secure sense of self worth.

Being thin, wealthy, pretty, successful or brilliant will not provide you with a secure internal sense of self worth. It will provide a momentary good feeling that leads to needing another momentary good feeling. You know how hard you have to work to keep getting that validation hit. It’s very conditional. Gain five pounds and self worth is gone. Lose your position and it’s gone. Don’t get enough social media likes and it plummets. Self worth can flush down the toilet real fast.

Every one us is measuring ourselves up to others to keep getting hits of validation. Those who don’t get cultural, familial or relational validation feel like crap. Depression is a result. Isolation is a result. Escape is a result. Mental illness can grow from external conditions as much as stem from a chemical imbalance and the two are usually always connected. Shame becomes chronic.

Shame. The scariest feeling of all.

The way to move through shame so it does not bully you is to stop identifying with it. You are not the shame coursing through you. In fact, you are not any of the feelings coursing through you but that’s another blog. You are not the shame. Shame is a natural human feeling built into the body that fires off when the pack does not accept you. The cultural narrative knows this and many people make bank off of all of us by getting us to buy the products and experiences needed to get the validation hits.

We all want to be special and we all want to avoid shame. The cultural narrative is like a mirror of what is in our collective shadow. Shame. And where did shame come from? We made this reality. It isn’t a devil making it. It’s us. Collectively. Learning. How to love. Ourselves and each other.

Could it be that shame originates in the fundamental fact that as a human being, you are wired to be conscious of the self? You can watch self consciousness develop in an infant as the brain becomes aware of self being separate. Pride in all nuances is the good feeling that results while embarrassment, humiliation, and shame are the bad feelings.

Self consciousness is intense for just about everybody and if you don’t experience the intense embarrassment of being human from time to time (or often) then you are working really hard to match the cultural narrative’s version of good and you are hardly ever being vulnerable. To match the cultural narrative’s version of good (attractive, in control, successful, smart, wealthy, white, male etc etc) you must already have a certain amount of privilege to begin with at birth. To stuff your vulnerability into the shadow you must keep getting those hits of validation because the hits substitute real intimacy and connection with others, self, and life. Real intimacy only happens when you allow yourself to be vulnerable.

No wonder so many famous stars are tormented. They are getting abundant hits of validation but many probably suffer from lack of real connection and intimacy. Self worth is probably completely addicted to external hits of validation to such a large degree that a constant chronic anxious fear flares within that takes up a ton of psychic space. This is my theory anyhow, Where is the self worth of Katy Perry, I wonder? Can she feel a secure internal sense of self worth separate from her looks, talent, and privilege? Has she awakened her true self and connected authentically with others? Is she creating a new neural pathway? Does she feel shame or run from it?

I often see life like a video game (though I don’t ever play them). Shame is like one of those ghosts in Pac-man (can you tell how old I am now with my reference?) that Pac-man needs to eat in order to not get killed. If you don’t identity with shame and you see it more like a ghost in Pac-man, you can “eat the shame” and keep moving. To eat the shame is to feel the shame course through your body without taking it personally and perpetuating a story that you are not good enough. You gotta starve out the low self worth neural pathway by not identifying with shame when it pops into your field of vision. See shame as storm coursing through your body (changing the metaphor here). The shame storm will pass through you and leave you unharmed if you do not identify with it. Over time, this starves and dissolves the old pathway.

Shame is not to be feared. Shame is to be tolerated. It’s a chemical storm that comes with being a pack oriented human animal. That’s all. Guilt operates the same way. It’s built into the operating system of the human body to fire off when ego feels it has let the pack down in some way. Or a member of the pack. These ancient firewalls were originally meant to stop the ego from doing harmful things to others. In its original form, shame and guilt are meant to keep the ego in check.

Yet through thousands of years of toxic patriarchy, guilt and shame have morphed into toxic versions that act as firewalls in your brain that stop you from being authentic and feeling an internal sense of secure self worth. If you can turn the volume down when guilt starts playing and if you can ride out the shame storm without identifying with either guilt or shame, you level up. You build the new neural pathway that is feeling a secure internal sense of self worth independent of what the pack, your partner, family or culture thinks of you. You can keep diving deeper into the shadow to retrieve your true self. You can become the firework realistically which is incrementally through effort with skill. Katy’s song brings the inspiration as music does.

I want to end this blog with sharing that I too have struggled which is why I am therapist. The best therapists are the ones who suffer and heal as much or more than you do, not some “expert” in a lab coat. I come from childhood sexual abuse, attachment wounds, being the pariah at school, disordered eating, body shame and struggling through mental illness as a teen and young woman, adult sexual assault and feeling incredibly low self worth. I too am one of Persephone’s children.

I have healed myself and know results are possible first hand. I recognize the privileges I have had that helped me tremendously. I also honor that it was my effort that healed me along with my strong connection the spirit world/collective unconscious, Universe, Goddess. This work is my labor of love. I am here for you because I was here for me.

Here I am today, a forty eight year old woman in menopause (cultural narrative negative witch), with a big belly (the opposite of cultural narrative desirability), and an ugly autoimmune disease (talk about shame storms) that I have in remission through diet which forced me to heal my food addiction and finally connect with my body in love (new neural pathway at last). I have yet to find a life mate, another cultural narrative no-no (spinster). Oh and I am very spiritual in a supernatural metaphysical way being psychic and talking to beings in other dimensions which is very poo-pooed by the cultural narrative (I really do not like being referred to as woo woo but whatever). I experience the privilege of being caucasian and financially secure and want to name that because it’s two less aspects I have to fight against in this toxic cultural narrative world.

I have healed myself yet I still suffer because suffering is part of being human. Healing myself did not bring me the soul longings in life. It only brought me the internal treasures: self love, self worth, moderate inner peace, unconditional love and true self out of the shadow.

I feel beautiful because I am me. Sure, I have my days where I hate parts of myself. I slip and fall. I struggle. Don’t care. I am far from any need for perfection. I can speak from experience that the effort of healing brings results. I can speak from experience that self love and self worth feels better than being thin, rich, successful, or desired by others. It feels better because it cannot be taken. It’s like feeling an internal glow that never goes away. I can be going through the worst life has to offer and still feel that glow. That glow is love.

Baby, your’e a firework too. Cheesy, I know. Yet….it’s true.

I Love Saturn

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I have not written a blog in a long while and hoping to return to more regular posting, especially during these days of the pandemic. This blog is inspired by a conversation with a client about the benefit of Saturn.

Saturn is ruling our lives collectively right now through restriction and limitation with the pandemic and through the movement of dismantling racism and the toxic patriarchal structures. Saturn is in your natal chart effecting you on a personal level too. In this blog, I want to discuss Saturn from a personal healing perspective.

I want to share my perspective on Saturn as he has been transiting my north node Capricorn for years now which is like Saturn riding Saturn because Capricorn is ruled by Saturn.  I also have Jupiter in Capricorn. Wherever you have a Capricorn planet or node you are heavily influenced by Saturn’s way. Wherever transiting Saturn is in your natal chart is also showing you where and how Saturn is influencing.

Saturn is the creator and upholder of structure. The original structure of this Universe we play in is made of of time and space. These bodies we inhabit are also structures that allow our expansive eternal essence to play the game of being limited by birth and death within time and space. The structure itself is Saturn’s domain. He rules restriction, limitation and he governs the laws of nature.

Think about how nature has consistent patterns always in operation. Night and day. Rain and sun. Creatures eating creatures. Decay, death, birth. The patterns of the body’s breath, digestion, and hormonal regulation. These inherent patterns of nature are ruled by Saturn and nature goes way deeper than the physical level we can detect with the five senses. The patterns of the soul moving to the other side with the death of the body and the laws that govern the other side are nature too. Nature and Spirit are not separate categories. They are the same and ruled by laws and structure. This is Saturn’s domain.

Saturn rules the natural structures of the Universe, seen and unseen, that operate automatically without conscious awareness. On a healing level in your psyche, Saturn rules your sense of discipline, consistency, dedication, restraint, discernment, ambition (or evolution) and how you stick to the routines and structures of your life.

In your natal chart Saturn rules a sign in a house. My Saturn is in Gemini in house five. Whatever house is ruled by Capricorn is also Saturnian. I have Saturn ruling my house twelve. You may also have other planets ruled by Capricorn, hence by Saturn.  I have Jupiter and my north node ruled by Capricorn. For me, Saturn plays a huge role in my soul purpose, creative expression, expansion, and my relationship with the collective unconscious. Saturn plays different roles for different folks, some more than others.

I consider myself very Saturnian…now. I used to not be. I used to be all flow, never finishing what I start, having no discipline or consistency or structure. I did what I felt like doing whenever I could and always dwelled in my feelings (anyone with a Cancer south node will relate to this). But I am no longer the spiritual care-taking mother feeling my way through each moment and floating above ground. I am now the pragmatic grounded father with set routines I follow each day, a firm schedule, and a very structured existence focused on growing a metaphorical lush garden. I find balance in the flow and in my feelings in between my routines. My feelings now have a strong container, good boundaries and a realistic lens to look through.

Saturn has turned me into a happy person and this happiness is an internal sense of being, independent of external circumstances. This is why I love Saturn…it’s all his doing, through me and for me, in service to this little ego known as Michelle and in service to my expansive soul seeking Saturnian structure in this lifetime.

Natal Saturn in Gemini house five is where Saturn shows me how difficult it can be for me to spontaneously communicate creatively and in my self expression…how I tend to take life very seriously… how I tend to lose focus creatively and become scattered….and also how I prefer to work on a few different projects at once and always have a love/hate relationship with my creative works. Saturn here also gives me serious dedication to painting and writing. I don’t see my creative expressions as a hobby but more of a job, as Saturn is very serious and work oriented in light hearted playful house five.

I used the serious energy of Saturn to learn (Saturn is  about learning over a long period of time, baby steps up the mountain) how to finish creative projects through making a focused, dedicated and consistent effort and by discerning the best projects to actualize. I learned how to create a routined time structure to stick to while taking the risk to spontaneously express my true self through my creativity. Saturn says, “scared? Do it anyways. Push yourself.”

This is how I led the scared animal (Ego) to the safe house (Saturn).

When I wrote my first book I dedicated three hours a day, six days a week for two years to writing and completing it and I did. No matter if I wanted to write or not, I did it. This trained my ego and brought me the result of a completed book. Both my newly trained ego and the completed book brought much more contentment than the fleeting pleasure of following how I feel in the moment. Saturn teaches you how to obtain a deeper more fortified fulfillment based on your soul longings versus always being trapped by the moment to moment nature of your moods and feelings.

I say trapped because when we are always at the whim of passing moods, we don’t accomplish the broader desires of the soul that take time, patience, restraint, ambition, structure, and dedication to accomplish. Saturn helps us achieve soul fulfillment and purpose.

Saturn takes away the cookie. When I wrote my book I did not get my cookies each day of hanging out with friends, going on excursions, lazing around or whatever my passing mood wanted to do with those three hours. The cookie is a metaphor for what your passing mood craves in the moment just to feel good, or to stuff away painful feelings, or to avoid what needs to be done for a larger goal. Saturn does not hand out cookies on the daily but he does reward your true self in the long run, if you dedicate to his ways.

Saturn took away lots of pleasurable moments yet rewarded me with a completed book and the ability to actualize my creative goals. I would say writing this book was my first initiation of integrating Saturn.

Transiting Saturn continued influencing me. This is when I made my next long term dedication. I committed to hot yoga four times a week. Before this commitment my yoga and exercise routines were always intermittent, inconsistent, and sporadic. My relationship with my body was broken due to the traumas of my past, my mind lived separate from my body and I judged my body constantly. I wanted to commit to yoga to heal through the practice.

I learned from my book writing experience how to do what I don’t feel like doing over a two year stretch of time. Saturn teaches you discipline if you make a serious commitment to him. My discipline with writing made my dedication to yoga easier. I went to class for two years in a row at least four times a week whether I wanted to or not. Many years later and I am still doing yoga (now a home practice) at least four days a week. My body has changed dramatically. My mind is now yoked to my body. I no longer judge my body.

I love being in my body now and this is why I love Saturn. Through dedication, consistency and the practice, I am nestled happily in my skin.

The next huge and perhaps biggest Saturn training of all is when I went on the autoimmune paleo diet. I have to live on this diet for life to keep my disease in remission and the disease I have is pretty awful so the motivation is huge. This diet is beyond hard. I had to let go and grieve all the foods I loved, eating out, eating to socialize, and eating to celebrate. I can only eat certain meats, vegetables, fruits, and fats. My food range is extremely limited.  I have been forced to transcend a very intense food addiction. Yet I made my dedication to Saturn because eating this diet keeps my disease in remission and the happiness of remission far outweighs the happiness of eating the foods I can no longer enjoy.

I love Saturn because I have liberated myself from a life long food addiction and it feels so wonderful to be free. I love Saturn because now my body is healthy, happy, healed and reconnected with my mind. I love Saturn because trauma no longer lives in this body. I love Saturn because I can accomplish my goals and not procrastinate or make excuses. I love Saturn because I love my routines that provide me with daily comfort and joy. I honor limitation, restriction, restraint, patience, dedication, discipline, discernment and the contentment that stems from accomplishment.

I am only sharing a few tidbits here about Saturn as not to turn this blog into a novel though it already is probably too long. I share my personal story in service to inspiring you to embrace Saturn in your chart and in your life.

Saturn is very structure that allows us to be infinite spiritual beings having a limited human experience. He forces us to overcome our limitations so we can grow into the best version of ourselves even under the most painful and restrictive of circumstances.

In shadow, Saturn is rigid, miserly, pessimistic, tyrannical, and toxic like the patriarchal systems of society that marginalize, abuse, and control people. Every planet has the shadowed side when tossed into imbalance. In your personal life this could look like being too structured and rigid and marginalizing aspects of yourself like your feelings and desires too much so you can stay safe or be rewarded with your status and accomplishments.

In balance, Saturn asks you to look at the long term and larger tapestry of your life. Being in the present moment is always the place to be yet we can do this as we also dedicate to creating, over time, the life we choose for ourselves and the world. Saturn’s accomplishments take time, patience, dedication, restraint, and hard work to build slowly over years.

You can even bring Saturn into the feelings, such as when you understand how trust is built over time through practice and not just experienced with the intention of feeling it. Same goes with self love, self worth, and self esteem. Saturn builds these feeling qualities within the psyche over time through various healing practices we do and not through the mind making intentions alone. Words may initiate and activate but only actions create change. Saturn is in the doing.

I love relaxing into Saturn’s way of being and he is big part of my healing path and how I guide others on their healing path, especially in healing attachment wounds and forming self love. The person I am today would shock the person I was ten years ago. The person I am today is happier, healthier and more balanced. Saturn is the safe house for my scared animal too, on the daily. When I get anxious I trust it will transmute on the mat and it always does. When I feel afraid, I know saying my invocations will bring peace. I soothe my nervous system through practice and I am my own safe house. I hope these words may bring some Saturnian inspiration to you.

 

 

5 Skills on the Path of Transformation KO

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This blog is addressing five skills you can build when doing the hard work of creating new neural pathways in your brain on your path of transformation. These skills will make you more peaceful, less anxious, more graceful, less self-doubting, more fulfilled, less chasing the dangling carrot, more present, less stuck in the past or future, more equanimous, less victim to the natural dark and light waves that life presents.

These skills may or may not lessen the ebb and flow of intensity in your psyche because a lot of how we roll is our temperament. Some of us roll more passionate, expressive, up and down, reactive and sensitive. This it is not wrong or bad. We all have our natures. Do not waste your energy judging yourself. As a friend just reminded me during one of my own internal storms, it is important be on your own team and treat yourself kindly.  As a former teacher put it poetically, who you are is not a design flaw.

Happiness is a feeling always in flux depending on circumstances. Peace is more sustainable and brings a certain contentment through dark and light times. Grace is learning how to traverse life’s dark and light times with more fluidity and ease. Fulfillment is being aligned with your true self in all your choices. Equanimity is the ability to have distance from your thoughts and feelings and to not identify with them, creating inner balance. Becoming present happens when the inner witness is strong inside.

The following five skills will help you achieve more peace, equanimity, grace, presence, and fulfillment on your path of healing, in service to true self and self growth…

1) Resilience. The reality is that the feelings you try to avoid and run away from inside will never go away. You will either repress them or feel them. You may repress them by being really angry or hurt by another and blaming them so you can avoid taking responsibility for your emotional experience. You may repress them through the spectrum of addiction/enjoyment/distraction with food, shopping, working, looking good, getting attention, drinking, drugging, etc. But when you are on the path of transforming, you face your addictions/dependencies/distractions and feelings start to rise up.

When you stop projecting onto others you also face all the feelings in the shadow rising up to be felt. And not just feelings. Also, the dark personality that copes with the feelings. Such as your super sarcastic bitchy inner queen, or your lazy nihilistic asshole, we all have our shitty personality that helps us cope and repress the feelings in order to survive. These dark personalities may be in the shadow or not. Mine is not in the shadow but I only show her to my close friends. It’s different for everybody but your dark personality has a bunch of beliefs that are false, such as love is not real, life is meaningless, this type of thing…beliefs that help you cope with what hurts or what you do not have.

To build the skill of resilience is to radically accept the dark personality who has helped you cope with life and then to radically accept all the intense hurt and feelings that are hard and scary to feel that the dark personality protects you from feeling. Radical  acceptance of everything you experience will create resilience and resilience gives you the capability to handle life in the dark and light times and especially long periods of darkness such as the dark nights of the soul we all go through.

2) Non-identification: This skill is connected to the practice of mindfulness. The key is to witness the dark personality and all the hard feelings without thinking you are the dark personality or the hard feelings. You may feel like the queen of bitchy sarcastic rage, for instance, but in your mind say, “this is not me”. You may feel extreme anxiety but in your mind you say, “I am not this anxiety”. You need a practice to be able to say these things to yourself and believe it over time.

You can meditate a few different ways. You can sit and do it. You can do it with yoga by connecting breath with movement. You can chant. You can color, draw, or do something with your hands that is repetitive while you witness your thoughts. Or you can do walking meditation.

The key is to be able to witness your thoughts and feelings, not to make them vanish. This builds the witness muscle. Just like building any muscle you get stronger with consistent practice. As you build the witness you can get stronger and better at not identifying with the constant stream of thoughts and feelings coursing through you as well as the many parts of self. We have the dark personality that protects the vulnerable inner kid, we have all the archetypes connecting to self, we have the family system traits, so many parts inside!

To build the skill of non-identification you need to commit to a consistent meditative practice. It is that simple. When you build the witness inside you can stop thinking you are your thoughts and feelings. You begin to free yourself as you grow more resilient to the darkness as you stop identifying with thoughts and feelings.

3) Mind-Body connection. This skill is also rooted in a meditative practice as well but also you connect mind to body through what you consume. We are supposed to be mind-body connected but the split occurs due to the broken world we are born into and our bloodline’s wounds lighting up in the DNA mixed with how we are raised and what we endure. Long story short, we have to find our way back to the natural mind-body connection that is our birthright.

When mind-body are reconnected we feel our feelings in the body and release feelings as they rise up. This keeps us healthy just like pooping out the excess food we eat each day.

When we are mind-body connected we can’t over eat or drink without it hurting and therefor we can’t escape the moment through food, drink, and drugs…we can only use them moderately because body requires balance. When we are connected to body overdoing it feels like crap physically. When we are disconnected from body we can drink five beers or eat a whole bag of chips and not feel any physical discomfort and in fact we may feel great because we are satiating the void. Numbness, dissociation, and de-personalization are all real deals. Connecting mind to body brings the us back into feeling the body’s responses to what we consume and what we truly need in the physical.

It seems by default we all identify with self in the mind and the mind bullies the body.

To build the skill of mind-body connection you need to have the boring practice that you force yourself to do each day. Find your way to the practice right for you. Is it alone or with others? Is it with a video or an app or just creating some space alone?

The other vital way to connect is through food, drink, and everything you put in your body. How much do our minds bully the body? We say, “I love beer,” and identify with being a beer drinker. We say, “I am a chocolate lover” and identify with eating sweets on a regular basis. These are examples. The body may be saying, “ouch my liver,” or “my intestines are growing bacteria and throwing us into disease” and the mind never listens or cares because the self identifies with the things is it consuming while ignoring the body’s needs.

Every body has its own requirements for a diet right for that particular body. Same goes for movement and self-care. What happens if you challenge your mind to listen to body and use that as a practice? Can you notice the cravings instead of giving in to them? Can you tune into your body and take the long road of discovering its best diet and way to stay healthy? Can you release identifying the self with what you consume, radically accept the crappy feelings that rise up when you use restraint and bring the witness to your practice? This will reconnect your mind to your body.

4) Unconditional love. This skill is built through the transpersonal path of connecting self to the divine. The divine does not have to be God, Goddess, or any version of spiritual belief from religious to non-religious. Thoreau connected to nature as his transpersonal force. You can call the transpersonal and see the transpersonal however feels right to you. The understanding is that you are never a disconnected self living in a disconnected word. There is a larger force than you and this larger force can take your burden, your cravings, your confusion, your anger….this force can bring you peace and what you long for deeply, can provide miracle moments, can open doors, make connections, and open up your heart.

You can keep the force as a natural mystery in your mind or hold the force as a God in heaven or a pantheon, it does not matter…but when you cultivate this connection you can begin to access the feeling of unconditional love. This is a natural feeling every human is capable of experiencing. When you feel it you let go of the hurt connected to others and to the self. Letting go does not mean not feeling hurt anymore, it just means that you accept the hurt and you accept those that hurt you, including yourself.

Once you accept the hurt and those who hurt you unconditional love rises up naturally and helps to wash the past away enough to make peace with unfairness, loss and all the vicissitudes of life.  Feeling unconditional is a process. To build the skill of feeling unconditional love is to cultivate your transpersonal relationship just as you would cultivate any relationship in your life. The more intimate you become with the transpersonal the greater your capacity to feel unconditional love and release the suffering in the heart.

Mindfulness helps you distance yourself from suffering. Connecting to the transpersonal transmutes the suffering.

5) Courage. I know it sounds simple but it’s an invaluable skill that takes time to build unless you are one of those naturally courageous people. Most of us aren’t and judge ourselves for it. Instead, let’s radically accept the lack of courage and not identify with this lack.

With courage we can face what we tend to avoid. What we resist persists. If you don’t face your fear of being vulnerable you will continue to hurt others close to you and yourself with your avoidance. If you don’t face your fear of the broken messed up world you will continue to escape reality and grow stagnant and angry. If you don’t face your failing relationship you will continue to endure with a stiff upper lip and false hope while the sensitive one in the relationship or family system will unconsciously feel all of the anxiety you avoid and they will suffer and not understand they are feeling your feelings too. These are just a few examples.

Courage is key. We all avoid pain, doubt. and vulnerability because we are all scared. Courage gives us the quality to face what we fear. You don’t need to have confidence in yourself to have courage either. Courage is not high self esteem. Courage is simply a willingness. If you are willing you can walk through what you fear and show up aligned with your true self.

You can ask the transpersonal to give you courage and it will work. You can also take a pragmatic path to building courage by telling yourself you will do one small scary thing a day and build tolerance in increments. I know for myself, I have a lot of weakness in this area. On my own path to building the skill of courage, I find that asking spirit to give me courage while meeting spirit half way and doing small scary things is the best recipe.

Courage is incredibly transforming because when we face what we avoid we become who we truly are and this sense of fulfillment opens up many new doors within and in the world.

Resilience, Non-identification, Mind-body connection, Unconditional love, and Courage I capitalize in honor of these powerful skills on the path of transformation and healing. These are not easy skills to build nor are they the only skills that matter but they are five potent keys that will change your life and awaken your true self.

Vulnerability and Attachment Wounds in Romantic Relationship

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This blog is inspired by the topic of vulnerability. I wanted to write about it after writing about the sacred emptiness because vulnerability is what births inside the chrysalis of sacred emptiness.

A new form of vulnerability births in the emptiness…based upon attachment wound healing…that opens us up to a more joyful and fulfilling experience of being vulnerable.

Attachment wounding is the root of not being able to be vulnerable in relationship with others and self. Attachment healing turns the tables and allows vulnerability to become a secure and happier experience.

My reflections on attachment will be very brief and stream of consciousness…

If you want to know more in detail there are a ton of books, Youtube videos and podcasts on attachment theory.  I highly recommend listening to the “Psychology Today” podcast. The subscription is only $5 dollars a month for many deep dives into pertinent psychological topics. Kirk Honda is my favorite describer of attachment theory (and any topic in psychology) as he makes content accessible to everyone with a harmonious blend of knowledge and heart.

This is my reflection on vulnerability and attachment today….

Our brains are the place we develop our personality (ego) very early on in life (infant to about age seven) based upon how we are parented by our prime caretakers. The personality formation is strongest the younger we are and gets cemented after age seven.

Our attachment style is the aspect of the personality that relates with others and with self. It is the way in which we desire relationship, behave in relationship, and express vulnerability.

The romantic parter most closely mirrors the prime caretaker and hence, we face our attachment style/wounds the strongest in romantic partnering yet attachment styles show up in every single relationship including the one you have with yourself.

You do not need to have experienced trauma or abuse to have an attachment wound. If you have endured trauma and abuse your wounds are specific to that yet a child can develop a very deep attachment wound in a home with zero abuse and no big traumas.

The avoidant attachment style/wound (often broken down into anxious avoidant and dismissive avoidant) is created by the prime caretaker(s) not tending to the child’s emotions. There is no emotional attunement. The parent(s) do not talk about feelings or they may see emotions as weak, dismiss them, or avoid them. Boys may be more apt to be taught to repress their emotions due to cultural conditioning as well.

As with everything psychological, avoidance shows up as a spectrum. How much did your caretaker(s) avoid your feelings and avoid feelings in the home between family members? There tends to be a basic structure in the avoidant home with bedtime, meals, routines with school, etc and there may also be morals taught and other principals that foster the mind but the emotional realm of the child is not seen, acknowledged or nurtured.

Avoidant style people do not feel safe in close relationships because they feel cut-off from their own feelings. They experience anxiety around intimacy and tend to use dismissive remarks or behaviors to maintain a certain level of detachment, independence and aloofness in relationship. They either believe they do not need intimacy or they push intimacy away in a variety of ways that may be unconscious (flippant remarks, sexual impotency or lack of desire, minimizing issues and the feelings of the partner) or conscious (having a strong belief about the independence they feel gives them strength, for instance or saying they are not relationship oriented).

The avoidant style is often called the island.

Anxious attachment style people (often called preoccupied or ambivalent) is created when the prime caretaker(s) sometimes tune in to the child’s emotions and sometimes ignore them. The key is inconsistency in attunement and often anxiety connected to emotional attunement when it is present. There is some semblance of structure in this attachment style as if there were no structure in the home it would fall under the disorganized attachment style but the structure does tend to be as inconsistent as the emotional attunement. Maybe meals and bedtimes are not always around the same time or maybe the structure is generally chaotic though the child is fed, taken to school, and put to bed at some point. Perhaps the child switches homes a lot or is handed off in a chaotic fashion. The anxious attachment style is often referred to as the wave.

To be clear, emotional attunement is when the care taker responds to the child’s feelings, names the feelings for the child so they may learn to name feelings themselves, nurtures the child when upset and models how to tend to feelings in a loving way no matter what feeling is arising. Emotional attunement when secure in the caretaker, does not cause intense anxiety. The caretaker is not anxious when the child is hurting nor are they living in anxious fear of the child getting hurt in the unforeseeable future.

Anxious attachment creates a person who is not sure if they are loved. Do you love me now? How about now? If you find out (insert trait here) about me will you still love me? The anxious person needs constant validation and reassurance that they are loved. They don’t have any consistent sense of being tended to that is imbedded in their sense of self. They fear love leaving, being abandoned, and being betrayed. They may put themselves at constant fault for creating abandonment or they may build a false case where their partner will leave them due to (insert criticism here).

The wave is very overt with their insecurity and feelings. The island is very covert as beneath every island is a wave but the island is too anxious to deluge. Avoidant people want intimacy deep down underneath their fear just as much as the overt wave. It’s as if islands have an extra defense mechanism around their anxiety that the waves do not posses and this is molded by how we are parented. 

The wave is usually the pursuer of the island. Islands and waves tend to attract each other because the island needs the overt display and pursuit of the wave for them to feel loved and the wave is used to feeling insecure about not being loved and very familiar and comfortable with chasing the unavailable island. It’s a recipe for healing or disaster depending on how willing and skilled the partners are in dealing with these wounds. Without skill or willingness the island first pushes the wave away and then the wave overwhelms the island when they express needing more and this pushes the island away more until both express extreme versions of avoiding and deluging. 

Disorganized attachment is molded in the brain when the there is abuse in the home, major trauma, or the care taker(s) do not provide adequate structure or emotional attunement to the point where it is neglect. Disorganized people may vacillate between being an island and a wave, never feeling a consistent sense of self. The disorganized wound is chaotic and never follows a certain pattern other than the pattern of not being patterned.

Not having a strong sense of self is also the case for the island and the wave. Sense of self is developed in the brain by the child being emotionally attuned to and given proper structure by the caretaker(s). This is a literal process that happens in the brain (mirror neurons) that forms sense of self in relationship with others, self, and the world. With all attachment styles other than secure attachment, the sense of self is shattered in varying qualities and degrees of intensity based upon upbringing mixed with temperament (nature and nurture).

The temperament (soul, true self, the mysterious uniqueness we each posses) of the child plays a big if not a bigger role in the shaping of the sense of self.

A shattered sense of self is the attachment wound.

Secure attachment happens when there is no trauma or abuse and the caretaker(s) tune into the child’s feelings in a nurturing and loving way while also providing the child with a consistent structure. This assures the child develops a healthy sense of self if there is no trauma or abuse outside the home and if the child is not born with a struggling temperament due to multigenerational wounds or a past life wound (if you believe in this).

It is important to note that a child may also absorb anxiety from any family member conflict even if it has nothing to do with them. Families usually have the one “healer” or empath of the family who tends to absorb the anxiety from other family members and become mentally or physically sick as a result. These types are more apt to struggle and often cannot discern their feelings from the feelings of others due to their sensitivity levels yet they are also meant to be as sensitive as they are because they are the healers of this world.

Attachment wounds also present inwardly with self. For instance, you can have a disorganized attachment with yourself where sometimes you tune into your feelings and validate yourself, sometimes you avoid your feelings using some form of addiction or avoidance to ignore them, and sometimes you tend to your feeling but feel filled with anxiety and self doubt about whether you are good enough.

You can also express different styles consciously and unconsciously. For instance, you can be a wave consciously and an island unconsciously by consciously wanting and choosing intimate partnership yet always unconsciously attracting unavailable islands…or…when you attract an available partner you really like, you start pushing them away by finding fault with them at every turn. In this way the island and wave within the self and in partnership tries to find harmony.

The healing of attachment wounds is rooted in learning how to be vulnerable in the relational field and with self. This starts to show up when you no longer need to build a case against self or the partner, drink booze or take recreational drugs to feel comfortable, lay on the criticism, demand proof that you are loved, or push away the other with conscious or unconscious tactics of any kind.

Being vulnerable and intimate looks like letting each other in your feelings, communicating your feelings, being transparent about your feelings, and tending to one another’s feelings….whether during an argument, when times are rough, or during times of passion, joy, and tenderness. It means showing the real you and allowing yourself to trust your partner.

First you may need to do this for yourself but this is not always the requirement. Some people heal more through being vulnerable with a partner (or friend) first. We can build a sense of self love by going within and being alone and also through being in a relationship. It takes the right relationship if it is the latter. You cannot build a sense of self love with a partner who is unable to create intimacy and be vulnerable with you much of the time. Maybe not all the time, as we are flawed beings learning how to love….but a good chunk of the time at the very least.

Also, if you are an island, being vulnerable and close with another may not feel good for a long time. Perhaps years. You have to be willing to enter the not feeling good zone and go through the anxiety and fear. You have to be willing to enter intimacy with more courage to learn how to be vulnerable in the first place. This may feel awkward and challenge your avoidant personality that has protected you for so long. You have to learn how to trust another to care about you and you have to learn how to want to be cared about.

If you are a wave you may enjoy intimacy and even being vulnerable but you come on like a deluge every time you get triggered. This is important to understand for the island and the wave…

The moment you are triggered your animal brain takes the driver’s seat and your higher mind takes a hike. This means that you go into flight/fight/freeze mode and you cannot come out of it through logic, talking, or anything cognitive. When the wave is triggered they deluge the partner who is usually an island. When the island is triggered by the deluge they minimize the communication from the anxious wave which then triggers the wave more who thinks the island is a jerk which triggers the island more who thinks the wave is crazy and the storm intensifies into destruction.

When you get triggered in the relational field all you can do is breathe, touch, and/or take space from the other in order for the higher mind to get back in the driver’s seat. If you both are triggered, stop arguing and breathe, touch one another or allow one person to take some space. Nothing will change how to recover from a trigger because it is brain chemistry. Skill is vital when learning how to become vulnerable in a way that creates feeling more safety and joy.

Most of us are used to vulnerability feeling scary, disappointing, taxing, overwhelming and leading to our detriment. Islands build a mote around them acting like they don’t need a partner or intimacy, in order to survive. Waves desperately try to make the partner their one safe place in all of life’s pain and chaos. Both feel slayed by vulnerability. Both need to learn how to build trust through building a sense of self.

This is the key of all keys. Building a sense of self.

When you have a strong and solid sense of self you can allow yourself to trust getting hurt in the relational field because you can return to yourself as the safe place.

This is the healing of codependency, toxic unions, and everything relational. When you no longer fear being hurt, rejected, disappointed, broken up with, being single, or left alone because you have a safe, reliable, and loving sense of self to return to if the worst happens. Life never gives us a guarantee in the external world so we need the self to be the security and foundation. Islands, don’t contort this to mean you don’t need intimacy in one form or another. The sense of self is a home base and not an escape hatch to avoid the relational field.

It can be safe and feel fulfilling to be vulnerable in the relational field if you build your sense of self and love yourself with more emotional attunement and loving structure. You won’t give your power away to the partner or to addiction or avoidance. You can handle emotional pain and discomfort and in turn, experience a form of joy in relationship that arises only by being tuned in and true to self. Reparenting the self blossoms us into our true self.

True self creates vulnerable and intimate relationships that heal and fulfill our essential needs and desires in waves…and when the waves wane we can return to self for sustenance on a healthy island that can still welcome the other….

 

 

 

 

Reflections on the Importance of Core Values

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This blog is about core values. Are you aware of your core values? Have you defined them in your mind, do you feel them in your heart? Or are you unaware of what you value authentically as true self?

Differentiating self from others is important business. How often we doubt ourselves when a core value clashes with a core value of a loved one….how often we sacrifice a core value for a loved one…..how often we do not develop firm and loving boundaries that allow us to say yes or no to others in order to protect true self….

Our core values make up an inner map that guides us into living a life that reflects our authentic self.

This map guides us to forming and sustaining the right romantic, friendship, business, and all forms of relationships.  (The West, heart) Without the map you could partner with a person where you have to compromise too much or completely sacrifice what you value. You may also find that over time you realize a core value is not being met and enter the healing process to see if a compromise and balance may be discovered. The matter may be complicated and take time.

This map guides guides us into choosing (if we have the privilege to choose and many do not) the right livelihood that gives us what we need and provides a sense of fulfillment. (The North, body) Without the map you may stay in a job that drains you or that you hate. Becoming aware of your values may also help you see that the job you have hated is actually providing you with core value nourishment in that it may pay well or is stable even if you don’t love what you are doing. The matter may be complex.

Our core values may not give us happiness all the time but they keep us balanced and allow for true self to have wiggle room to grow and express.

The map of core values guides us into understanding when we are in or out of integrity. (The East, mind) When you feel bad about yourself you might be judging yourself harshly based upon a habit of identifying with being bad due to attachment wounds or trauma from the past. Or you might feel bad about yourself because you are not living in your authentic sense of integrity, which is different for each person. When this is the case you need to course correct and return to your integrity to actually feel good about yourself again. Core values are an inner compass.

This inner compass builds a strong foundation in the psyche that helps us act from a sense of inner truth. (The South, will) When you continually act from whatever the impulse or reactivity of the moment is, you do not have your map in hand. You live at the whim of fate and the forces of nature. Learning how to say yes and no to the constant impulses of the body and unconscious mind begins with having your core values fleshed out and firmly in place. A clear and concise map.

Questioning your core values is a developmental exercise that is vital because as we grow our values may shift and change. In your twenties you may value partying or hanging out or dreaming huge dreams in the realm of endless possibility or living in a more idealistic state, etc. When you hit your forties you may have fully lived out (successfully or unsuccessfully) the core values of youth. This is what is called “the mid-life crisis” (the next developmental transit would be around age sixty nine at the second Saturn return, the markers happen all throughout a life span).

As one friend stated in speaking of the Uranus opposition in the natal chart that occurs around age 42 (this mid-life crisis transit), it is time to metaphorically build a new house. The house is our core value map. What do you value now?

I can say from personal experience that I am more of an introverted hermit now (in my forties). I value solitude. I also value discipline, consistency, being structured, grounded and balanced through taking care of my body. The values of my youth were all about flowing, indulging, and being in the heart all the time which allowed me to heal, grow and be my true self back then. If I did that now I would crumble. Now it is solitude, disciplined practice, and my health regime that catalyzes healing, growth and true self expression. I still enjoy socializing and flowing but it is not my main focus.

We may hold onto values from the past with less weight as new values take up more space.

Developmental changes may feel like crisis because change is hard for humans. Across the board. To suddenly experience being drained by what once energized, or to experience your health decline by what once invigorated, or to experience a certain quality of relationship (or the relationship itself) go from feeling right to feeling off and wrong, or to suddenly wake up in your job or lifestyle and it no longer feels satisfying…..

Are all clues that it is time to rewrite the map because your core values are changing. To avoid crisis you would just switch to the new way of being but that’s not how we are as humans. All of us get attached to people, jobs, lifestyle habits, mental patterns, and most importantly we attach to how our values turn into a self identity.

I used to have the identity of a bohemian gypsy priestess rolling through life a leaf in the wind barely touching ground and indulging my senses as I pleased. This identity and lifestyle was partially a privilege and a way of being that allowed me to deeply heal for a period of time.

Now my identity is a grounded, stable, disciplined therapist and teacher planting roots and living like an urban Buddhist monk with how I eat and practice yoga/meditation. I went through a very difficult transition because I was very attached to my old self identity. I resisted the identity I wear now, profusely (a life-long trend for me to have aversion for what I am about to embrace). Now I am content with the new identity.

Growth is always painful and death always brings rebirth.

The artist identity has also changed value. I used to want make it in the world as an artist. Now, I could care less about getting worldly recognition. Sometimes only part of an identity shifts. The artist remains but she values making art for the sake of making art and not for achieving fame or success in the eyes of others.

Do you have a life long identity that also needs a shift within it?

Romantic relationships are a big one when it comes to core values. The kind of relationship you value now may be very different than what it was five, ten or twenty years ago. Your values here may shift in terms of the structure of relationship and in the type of person most compatible with who you are.

Discerning core values from more shallow expectations is vital. You don’t want to miss out on a great core value match because they don’t meet your shallow expectations.

Compromise plays a big role here too. If an introvert is with an extrovert, for instance, your values will clash but can you find a happy medium where you allow your partner to go out more while you stay home and sometimes they stay home with you and sometimes you go out and socialize with them?

Sometimes opposite core values find their balance when other core values match up well between two people.

It is also important to discern the difference between a core value and an unconscious wound or fear. For instance, you may value a close long term relationship but fear being in one due to hurt from the past or not feeling good enough to have what you want. If you don’t know the difference between hurt and value, you may cling to an idea that you prefer being single and free when this is not a core value but rather a defense to protect yourself from being hurt again.

You may need to discover, rediscover or hone into your core value map. There are many ways to feel what matters most to you if your mind is not producing the words.

Look to what makes you cry with tears of beauty. Look to what causes you to feel anger in defense of the sacred. Look to what makes you smile big. Look to what invigorates you and makes you feel more expanded, open, and buoyant. Look to where you find it easy to focus and lose all track of time. Look to which people make you feel like coming home or make you want to be a better person or who make you light up. Look to love.

There may be blocks in the way when wounds, fears, and hurt spiderweb through the psyche. Sometimes finding the map requires an investigation of your shadow land. Patience may be required to navigate through confusing feelings, opposing thoughts, or being disconnected from your true self and over-bonded to the values of others.

Fear of being yourself may present as a projection onto someone or a real situation when a loved one’s expectations, criticisms, and dominating personality takes up too much space on a regular basis (due to their own wounds). This may have been in your upbringing or in a present relationship. Or you are projecting this onto a current person who is not dominating and critical but simply expressing their needs or feeling triggered into their own past stuff.

The path of differentiating true self from toxic patterns in loved ones is a path that requires courage. Discerning projection from reality is a skill that takes time to develop. We all project because it’s natural and just a part of what we do.

Lastly, I want to mention that we are not our core values and we are not our identity. Our values protect true self. To change up the metaphor, identity is the costume sewn by the core values to understand and express true self.

True self is deeper than the sewer and the costume. True self is a felt experience and a verb ever-changing just like nature and life itself.

 

 

 

 

The Defeat Story and the Transcending True Self

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The story of defeat we all can relate to in different areas of life and with different levels of intensity and duration.

The term “dark night of the soul” may speak to a time in life, or a lifetime for some, where loss leads the soul on a journey of healing, redemption and transformation. We all experience the dark night when a loved one dies or we lose something precious such as our health, a job, home, reputation, partner or any fundamental experience that gives our animal natures a sense of security and satisfaction. For some, not having the fundamental experience is a life long karma. Being chronically single or in unsatisfying relationships. Being chronically impoverished or chronically ill physically, mentally, or both.

Again, the duration and intensity is different for each of us and we all can relate to the story of defeat that comes with loss or the never having. This story of defeat is groomed by culture, family of origin, and the soul’s karmic journey.

American culture places value on youth, physical beauty and health, wealth and financial independence, and being the best or number one-getting that attention. These are only a few values out of many that are highlighted while the other values are suppressed into the shadow.

Systemic cultural oppression adds to the stew pot of creating the juiciest of defeat stories. You are not valued the same way in our culture if you are a person of color, a female, in the LGBTQIA community, over the age of 40, disabled, physically or mentally challenged in any way, low in income, not American, or a child. Family of origin and our upbringing also grooms the character and contains all of the ancestral wounds, patterns, and illnesses born of an oppressive cultural narrative that lacks love, care, depth, awareness, and compassion. The soul also carries defeat stories through the lifetimes.

To be quite honest, with all of the restrictions we face, anyone who is free of the story of defeat is a living miracle! And those who claim to be may have the lofty ego compensating an insecure self hiding in the recesses of the shadow. These types project outwardly onto others as the problem. But that’s another topic.

Back to the defeat story. It is a story made by the mind based upon the felt experience of being human. If you get rejected over and over it hurts the heart and the mind will create a story such as, “I am unlovable” or “people are terrible.” For those who meet the cultural standards for what is of value, they may have all the things, the home, partner, thin body, good health, accolade, success yet still feel unworthy and defeated. Or they may suddenly get ill or lose somebody precious and face the defeat story later in life. Realistically, if the ego does not experience the defeat story it may be suppressing childhood trauma or pain and use the cultural value system unconsciously as a way to feel victorious and worthy.

On the surface our karmas look very different but get beneath the surface and we are all in the same stew pot of being human in a sick world, with most of us having endured some level and at different levels; abuse, poverty, oppression, addiction, being rejected, not receiving the proper love and care we needed as kids, and ancestral trauma. As a result, we do not know how to connect to the true self and express our uniqueness, connect with the divine or nature, connect to our philosophy of life, connect to our value system, our dreams and our true self worth.

The ego tries to compensate for defeat by achieving victory. Victory good. Defeat bad. Attention good. Lack of attention bad. Money good. Lack of money bad. Partner good. Single bad. Successful career good. Low paying job bad. Independent good. Dependent bad. Pretty good. Ugly bad. On and on.

This can also be translated into those seeking healing. Enlightenment good. Not enlightened bad. Faith good. Unfaithful bad. Love good. Hate bad. You can plug in the struggle of the soul to be whole into any value paradigm, be it the mainstream American value system or the offshoots such as the New Age, Mindfulness, Yoga, Witchy or whatever subcategory rooted in healing and wholeness of the individual. The value categories are many but all touch upon the fundamentals of relationships, security, happiness, morality, and self worth.

It is important to discern between when your ego is trying to achieve victory over defeat versus when you are authentically connected to and acting from your true self. It is also important to not judge the ego for wanting victory. We don’t judge the cute little doggie for begging for food no matter how much they won’t stop whining. The ego is a cute little doggie that can develop into a mature ego which would be the true self expressed in the world. But the ego is never something to punish, see as bad, or judge. Our egos need our love.

Having discernment between what is true self and what you have been groomed to value is a process. Transcending the victory/defeat ping pong game is also a process. We have to make a new recipe in the stew pot of the inner self and we also have to survive. Disclaimer: many don’t have the luxury to express the true self through their work and lifestyle, which is unfortunate and unfair. But everyone has the ability to transcend the victory/defeat story through connecting to the true self and being who we truly are designed to be, in character.

The true self can be felt and known even in the most grave of human experiences. But it’s not easy. Nor is it easy to make true self the inner compass, anchor, and love generator which is what is needed to transcend the victory/defeat narrative that enslaves the ego.

This blog is not a “how to” in “ten easy steps” blog. I am not about that mentality. But there are methods to help and results are real. The methods I use are fourfold which coincide with the four sacred directions.

North is the physical world and here we can do the work of differentiating self from family and ancestral wounds, we can heal trauma in the body, and we can yoke mind and body through a disciplined practice which is necessary for the true self to marry and mature the ego. The North speaks to somatic healing, family systems and ancestral healing through telling the stories of the past and understanding the patterns. To do this we need to release trauma and anxiety from the body so it may support this investigation that makes self a pioneer seeking to manifest true self destiny. Healing in the north is connected to earth and hence process oriented, slow, pragmatic, and linear.

East is the mind and here we can find the mindfulness practice that allows us to be witness to the story of defeat versus buying what it is selling. When we can watch the mental stories and the mind blah blah blahing while knowing true self is not the thoughts, we free ego from being enslaved to the story of defeat. This gives space for true self to rise up from the shadow and synthesize with the ego. No need to understand how this works. If you learn to watch your thoughts but not believe in them and if you learn how to be the witness to your mind but not identify with mind as self, the true self will rise, synthesize and become ego. The healing of the east is connected to the air, seeing the big picture like a wise eagle up in the sky.

The south is the will. Here we can heal through intention, conviction, and courage. Most of our wills are reactive to what others think of us and how the world treats us. The will is what motivates us. When we are groomed to be reactive to the outside world as the thermometer of how valuable and good we are, the will acts like a ping pong ball always bouncing around based upon circumstance and other’s opinions of self. In the south we learn how to make the will our center. Our true worth stems from the will which is a sturdy yet supple knowing within self and not a temporary emotional reaction. Learning how to live intentionally with every aspect of life builds the will. Making ritual a daily hygiene practice strengthens the will. Healing the will through releasing guilt, shame and other toxic stories connects to the work of the other directions. In the south the healing is one of purification through fire which is using courage, conviction and physical expression to burn away the old.

The west is the heart. Here we heal through connection. The attachment wounds live here and are healed here. In the west we also dive into the deep sea of the psyche to discover and awaken the true self, archetypes, wounds, gifts and all aspects hidden from ego that are asking for acknowledgment. The west is where psychological depth work is helpful to integrate the aspects of self through differentiating them. Uncovering, acknowledging, and expressing all that wants out from the unconscious happens here. This is the direction of the heart. Honoring feelings. Going with the flow of inner wisdom. Being in relationship of all kinds, romantic, therapist, healer, friend, mother, father, sibling, pet, teacher, co-worker, etc. Through being in relationship with others outside the self and aspects within the self, we heal. The heart is purified in the west which is connected to water. Water cleanses and renews. Forgiveness, acceptance, letting go and surrender all happen in the west.

This is how I see it and there are many ways to see it. In my work with clients and on myself I use this basic framework as I learn new skills along the path. I am walking it with you and beside you. Not ahead or behind. Not better or worse. There is no victory to gain over defeat. The story is a creative quest of the soul seeking sovereignty. Say that ten times fast.