Evolving from Fear and Division to Our Limitless, Loving Self: The Heroic Path of Soul Ascension
Do not fear death. For it’s only in embracing death that you can truly embrace life. Find beauty in its quiet depths, the still sweet surrender, yours and others, so you may find beauty in life. Doing so, you open to all possibilities, versus only the ones fear creates room for. Death is the great portal to life. When we understand this, we remember that, like time, it is a great illusion; that there is no such thing as death, but simply transitions in consciousness and experience. We are here not just to know this intellectually, but to experience it many times over before what most consider to be death — release of the body — and, in this, awaken to fuller embodied experiences of […]
Fear Beneath
Whatever narrative you are choosing right now, set it aside for a moment, still yourself, and you may feel a tremble in your heart, one of wisdom, one of uncertainty, and herein lies the place we hide from in all our grasping, all our need to know, to figure out and control, herein lies the invitation to us all in these times of quieting, to dwell here for a while, humbled, confronting that which compels us to answer and solve, to keep busy fretting and seeking: death, dear one, death of the one you’ve known yourself to be, the fear beneath all other fears, the fear that keeps you preserving that which no longer works, while, underneath, preserving a self who clings to life. _____________________ […]
The Courage to Break Free from Worry
“Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don’t take your thoughts so seriously.” ~ Eckhart Tolle It takes courage to break free from worry. This may sound strange, but there is comfort in the fears that underly our mental fretting and catastrophizing. They are familiar, more familiar than we know, and they buffer us in insidious ways. For these reasons and more, we easily get stuck in fear and thus in worry. Many don’t associate worry with fear. They spend their minutes, hours and days worrying, often believing it’s a feeling—“I feel worried”—without considering that worry, like planning and analysis, is a state of mind. The thinking kind of mind. Fear, however, is clearly an emotion, and it’s the primary and primal one giving […]
To Welcome Someone into Our Heart, First We May Need to Learn to Push Others Away
There is a great emphasis put on letting love in. “Open your heart” says the self-help teacher. “Give yourself to love” sings the romantic poet. They make it sound so easy! Yet, for the one who learnt that love is unsafe, the heart is quite guarded. Coiled around it, usually for decades, is protective barbed wire. The closer one gets to the heart, the closer one gets to the wound and the protective mechanisms keeping people away. For this wounded one (who makes up many, if not most, Euro-westerners), asserting boundaries may be the necessary first step. Before letting love in, the old truncated impulse to protect must be exercised. Completing survival responses A precursor to the vulnerability of receiving is so often the vulnerability […]
We Heal Not To Continue Healing, But To Live
There comes a point along the healing journey when we reach a threshold. We know, intuitively, that it’s time—time to translate all the wisdom we have gathered and gifts awakened into art, into service; time to make courageous changes, to stop searching and begin planting roots for living. It’s time to make ourselves much more available to life, to those who need us. For those who’ve been staunchly committed to their healing journey for years, this can feel incredibly daunting. A great deal of time and energy has been given to turning inwards toward pains and struggles, to giving their fullest attention to themselves. But to now suddenly land somewhere and turn outwards, to commit to someone or something new, to step into the vast […]
Let Fear Motivate You—Fear Of What Will Happen If You Don’t Act On Your Heart’s Knowing
Fear is a great motivator. It’s not just our longing that drives us, our dreams and desires, but also our fear—fear that we may live the rest of our lives ignoring our heart’s knowing and neglecting our joyous, creative potential. Listen to your inner whispers; heed the nudges of your heart wishing to capture your attention. But if you find yourself persistently procrastinating, delaying your wistful nature, take a moment to consider the consequences. Consider what will come of you, what you will be relegated to, if you do not commit as best you can to this one, precious life. Feel the weight of gravity that stubbornly pulls you down into the never-ending banal job, the deadening relationship, the continual denial of your feelings, creativity […]
When Kids Long for Your Ignorance More than Your Knowledge
“It’s only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.” ~ Henry David Thoreau A friend unreservedly praised her wise young daughter while proudly showing me a picture of this rising star. Only 18 years of age, she, at the time, had already left home, knowing, as she had for many years, exactly where she wanted to live—in the progressive community of Nelson, Canada, amongst others she held as like-mind. With a wistful smile, my friend recounted an outstanding mindset her daughter had which she relentlessly advised her mother of—“question everything”; to look beyond the literal, the surface features of life, and sense that lying beyond the veil of reality most in the West traditionally acquiesce to. This young seeker knew there […]
The Adventure We Long For Lies in our Childlike Heart and in Feeling the Unexpected
“Tiny humans see magic and possibility where big humans only see mess and responsibility. May we see the magic again through their eyes and rediscover all the possibilities life has to offer.” ~ L. R. Knost A child is excited to wake up in the morning. Open to surprise, she wanders through her home and yard drawn to the next thing capturing her attention. Maybe it’s the dog, or her new magnetic toy, or the bright golden dandelion blooming through the sea of green grass. Each moment is filled with wonder for this young one, a bubbling awe leading her from one fascination to the next. Each moment is an unfolding adventure. As people depart the wonders of childhood for the predictabilities of life, however, […]
Surrendering to the Business of Life
Surrender, and you’ll find that the real Business of Life does not lie in your hands, but in the hands of Life. There’s a time when learning the tricks of business development is important; when it’s wise to set a few goals, create a vision, set up a website and social media presence, and learn strategies from those more experienced in commercial enterprise. And then there’s a time when the rules of business must be set aside, for now you hear Life calling you more clearly, more urgently than ever, saying, “You’re ready. You’re working for us now. That period of your life is over!” Entwined in these words is a recognition that you’ve done the work. You have, through years of deep self-reflection, healing and many […]
Your Fears and Beliefs Create the Edges of a Child’s Playground, and Your Own
“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are made for.” ~ Grace Murray Hopper Child safety has become obsessive in our society. Children are being controlled to the point of having their natural play-spaces and freedom ripped away from them at an alarming rate. For instance: “…nearly 20 homes on Esgore Drive, in (Toronto), were threatened with $90 fines from the city if they did not remove hockey and basketball nets from their street in the next 20 days.” The article goes on to say that, “A bylaw… states that ‘no person shall play or take part in any game or sport upon a roadway and, where there are sidewalks, no person upon roller-skates, in-line skates or a skateboard, or riding in […]