Joy and Pleasure

Prayer – Now More Than Ever

Repost from April 2020

Over time it has become increasingly evident that prayer is the single most powerful tool in my toolbox. For me, there are three aspects to prayer: Gratitude, Asking, and Humility.

You might not think of the first, initially. So let’s look at GRATITUDE. I see gratitude as letting the powers – whatever they are – know that I have noticed and received the abundant gifts all around me. I accept! I delight in them; I take them in. I receive them; they are for me. I feel loved and grateful. I notice all manner of things, large and small, obvious and subtle; straightforward and quirky. These gifts are here, whether I notice them or not. I attribute them to a benevolent force more powerful than me. I let my thank yous flow free and abundant.

The second aspect of prayer is ASKING for what I want more of. Something that is not as easy as it sounds for many of us. Reaching for what our hearts desired was often shamed out of us as children, and it was not in our repertoire to believe that we were worthy of asking God for what we wanted. Therefore, we unlearned to naturally reach for what we wanted or put importance on developing a regular or clear sense of what we liked or preferred. Rather we learned to hope that if we were good enough (not greedy or selfish), God would reward us with all He thought we needed and that was the correct and proper way of it. Nor were we encouraged to know ourselves; to understand what made us uniquely ourselves, and what made our unique hearts sing (beyond merely getting by). This is what we saw our parents doing too. I sometimes attribute this trait to my Puritan ancestors. Make no mistake, it is not normal or healthy; it is a form of intergenerational trauma. But I digress.

I now understand that for so many years my body was too bound up in defenses and unprocessed emotions to ask for what I wanted. And there was the issue of the missing skill set. That is what I am working on now. And I am making beautiful strides. This crucial step in growing one’s self up emotionally involves studying oneself and noticing when they like something. A smile creeps over your face. You feel lighter. You sense that your heart has been flung open. Or there might be a subtle putting down of defenses, a relaxing. A nod. And then taking that one step further, taking the risk to admit, I want more of that, please. Can you help me? For me, that is the third aspect of prayer: HUMILITY.

As I dedicate these days to studying myself, caring for myself and slowing way down in the heart of this God-Only-Knows-What-To-Call-It-Time, I think of The Serenity Prayer, which tells us to ask for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. This is such an important prayer to be praying at this time. Being confused about what we do and don’t have control of is something that might also have followed us from emotionally impoverished childhoods. It was developmentally appropriate at age seven to believe we had control of things we absolutely did not. Many of us learned that we should try to control things we had no business controlling – other people’s moods, feelings, opinions of us. And without proper role models or any other way to recognize these errors, we entered into adulthood with the toxic combination of unexamined shame and unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others: I am responsible for the bad things that are happening. I am responsible for your bad mood, etc. I should be doing something to fix this. And if I try harder to be what you need me to be, then I might be able to get what I so desperately need.

Wisdom often comes with maturity which comes not just from getting older, but from resolving trauma and releasing hurt from the past. It is what helps us know whether we should accept a thing or fight to change it. And whether it is ours to change.

My wish for you is that you learn to cultivate a prayer practice beginning with gratitude. Pray. Ask for what you want, even if you’re not sure what to ask for. Even when you can’t see how your heart’s desires could possibly be granted. Spend time thinking about what you would rather have. What you want more of, what would truly delight you. Go ahead. Make it detailed, and imagine what it feels, looks, tastes, smells and sounds like when you actually have what you have asked for. Write those things down because they matter.

You are an infinite being of light; one cell in the organism of humanity. And that organism needs you and me to be fully who we are. It needs for us to choose for ourselves what we want. To reach for what makes us shine, what delights us, to bud and blossom into all of who we are, which necessitates kicking into self-care mode, fearless self-attunement. I do this now in order to coax out what I had deemed as my shadow before, but which is actually my Great Self.

Spirit, please let this time be the container I need to study, to know and to nurture my Great Self. Help me to appreciate and cherish Her. Help me to value Her above all else. Guide me so that I can be the person I came here to be, to contribute what the world needs most from me and can only get from me. Guide me so that I can find my way to my tribe, to feel that I belong. To share physical warmth, harmony and deep connection in a supportive family environment, to be part of a whole – a thing of great functional beauty. This family community is the one that gets to usher in a new version of modern life. A more sustainable one, connected to heart and filled with physical and emotional warmth, balance and beauty. Thank you, and so it is. Amen.

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Thank you, Spirit, for putting me in a family of visionaries and healers. Three of the healers and visionaries who continue to inspire me, who never cease to amaze me with the way they use their gifts and talents to make the world a better place, and serve as role models for me, also happen to be my biological sisters. If you don’t already know them, allow me to introduce them to you:

Tracy Barnett inspires me endlessly in her tireless ability to see the bigger picture, to be an advocate for the planet, and for people who are on the front lines making strides toward not just environmental and economic sustainability but regenerative living. She has helped me to add flesh to the bones of my vision of what that kind of life might look and feel like, and that is such a priceless gift. She supports so many in telling their stories that would otherwise go untold. With her magnificent heart and her journalistic spirit, she shows us the world, and introduces us to change makers and wisdom holders. I hope you will check out her Patreon and learn more about Tracy at Esperanza Project. She also studies Aztec Astrology, is part of an Aztec Danza Community in Guadalajara Mexico, and conducts bimonthly interviews for Mundo Holistiko TV on Tuesdays. Watch her Facebook page for alerts.

Tami Brunk Tami’s knowledge of astrology, ancient myths and symbols, dreams, and all the wild things that connect us to and on the planet never fails to knock my socks off. You can follow her astrology oracles on her YouTube channel here or learn more about her work and sign up for her newsletter here. Her Substack will be live later this summer, enroll now here.

She is currently in the process of moving to Substack but hasn’t activated it yet. Stay tuned!

And last, but certainly not least: Trina Brunk has been one of those people who leads by example in her dedication to working on her mental and spiritual well-being, and from this example I have benefited tremendously. Also leading in music, she has branched out into new forms of connecting, and fostering positive change in her community and the world. Affecting change is one of those topics that can get tricky fast, and that’s why it thrills me no end that she is aware of the importance of bringing presence and embodiment to activism.

All of Trina’s albums contain nuggets of wisdom that calm the mind and soothe the soul. But for these times, I especially recommend her latest one, Stop, Drop and Feel, which is what we all need to do when we notice that our systems are in overdrive, and we need to downregulate. These days, Trina refers to herself as “a weaver of songs and other natural fibers.” Her current teacher and muse is the dandelion. You can often find her singing in her garden or with her beloved community for love, justice and positive social change. Check out her new album on Bandcamp here, and here on Insight Timer.

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I have immeasurable gratitude for these three during this time of great transformation and change. If you need inspiration or support on your journey of learning to better care for yourself and/or create a better future for yourself and the planet, I encourage you to check out their offerings for a deeper, richer, more connected reality for yourself and those in your circle.

Repost Note: Since this post’s original publication, I’ve moved to Missouri, where I now live with and play in a community surrounded by my natural and soul family. Prayer really works. I am so grateful. Feel free to reach out to me, or schedule a time where I can help you find the words to ask for what your heart yearns for, or remove the blocks that have been obstructing your reaching for them.

Downregulating the Nervous System – It’s Up To Us Now.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while. I’m cold in the house because I haven’t turned the thermostat up yet this morning, and I like it to be cold while I’m sleeping. I’m half packed and getting ready to leave for my mom’s for a few days. My body feels contracted and I’m shivering a little, which also could be excitement because right after my client this morning, I’ll finish loading my car and head for Mom’s. But I’m also excited because on the way, I’m stopping at the music store to buy some manuscript paper. The guy at the store told me it was half price when he mentioned it. I didn’t see it, but he said it was big, because it’s designed to contain the entire score for a whole group – with all the parts – which is actually something I want.

But back to my epiphany. I’m still kind of trembly, and uncomfortably cold, but I don’t want to turn the heater on. I’ll be gone soon. So I put a fuzzy scarf on, I find a comfy place to sit, and I put a soft, warm blanket in my lap. I feel that this calms my body a little, as does putting down my thoughts on paper (This is just too big an idea to carry alone). Here goes: I read the other day that the vagal brake is needed to calm the heart muscle because otherwise it would beat unsustainably fast. I bet that’s a theme that covers many of our organs and systems. It makes me think of the harrowing and novel experience of coming through the birth canal after having spent more or less nine months in the utterly soft and warm environment of the womb. The infant needs help not just in being received, and being clothed and fed. It needs help physically, to acclimate to being a soul in a body. I’m thinking about how mother mammals lick their young and how baby kittens when taken from their mothers too soon can neurotically lick holes in blankets, for example. I even think about mothers licking their babies when they have shit and other nasty things in their fur. This is not just about cleanliness. Our nervous systems need this kind of stimulation to promote normal development; humans are no different. I catch my mind wandering to the sterile, cold disposable wipe that is considered normal to use on a baby’s bottom at a diaper change. And then, by contrast, my mother’s request for a warm wet washcloth that I would go fetch her to clean up, while she attended the baby that had a soiled diaper. And I’m seriously thinking about the difference this has got to make (among countless others) in the experience of an infant human.

This terminology can be a little tricky, so don’t worry if you need to read it a couple times to get it, but Parasympathetic Nervous System Braking is just ‘when your body is in “rest-and-digest” mode, actively calming the stress response (sympathetic system) by slowing your heart rate, lowering blood pressure, deepening breathing, increasing digestion, and promoting relaxation for healing and energy conservation.’

‘The PNS Brake is a crucial “off” switch, signaling safety and recovery after a threat has passed, shifting focus from survival to restoration and well-being.’
– Google AI

All of this to say, that while we are learning to parent ourselves well, we might benefit from knowing that our bodies are kind of geared to be in fight or flight for so many reasons. And if we don’t build in ways of calming ourselves regularly, if we don’t schedule relaxing and calming activities, if we don’t gentle our bodies, we continue to clip along at a rate that we weren’t designed to stay in. And that’s hard on the body. Without the regular return to ‘rest and digest,’ our systems will become stressed, depleted and burdened by toxins, and we will be susceptible to all kinds of things we don’t like (autoimmune disorders, chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, etc.).

Sometimes our bodies need help of a different kind in order to shift out of fight or flight. This could be especially so if rest just seems totally wrong. We can learn, through trial and error, what the body needs. In such cases, you might need to shake, stomp, punch, run, kick, roar.

Learning to care for the body isn’t a luxury. It’s what we’ve needed from the very beginning. And even though we may have had parents who didn’t know how to help us downregulate at bedtime, or after a meltdown, it’s never too late to tune in now. It may take a while, but over time you can do it. Build a lifestyle for yourself that helps your body actually know it’s important to rest, relax and repair. If you don’t, at some point, you won’t have the choice. And that’s not for the body’s lack of trying.

The question is, are we victims of our body, or are we just having unrealistic expectations of it? Are we doomed with the body’s curse or can we begin to see that there are little things we can do over time to help the nervous system understand that we are actually relatively safe? I have it on good authority that those things are actually kind of nice, and make life deeper, more connected, more fulfilling. How this has escaped modern society is beyond me. But, people, rest is appropriate. It really is. Idleness is a necessary part of being human. Play is called for. Long and luxurious sexual encounters with a beloved rejuvenate and restore. Holding a baby calms you. Having unstructured and non-productive time is essential to a sustainable lifelong routine. Creativity for the sake of expression can reset the nervous system. The body is actually not asking too much. It’s just asking us to understand that we don’t actually benefit from staying in fight or flight – sympathetic (SNS) mode. Our vagal brake engages when we are safe enough and when we do what is necessary to signal to the body that it can actually slow down now. The danger has passed. We made it. We actually survived ALL OF THAT, and lived to tell about it. That was intense, wasn’t it? But here we are.

As I move through my day today, I have a new appreciation for the things I’m learning from my clients, as they all have ideas and experiences about what works to help them calm themselves and what doesn’t. The biggest barrier, it seems to me, is the fact that our culture (including our medical system), has kind of missed the boat on this. So we individuals, one unit at a time, out of necessity, get to figure this out on our own and share it as we can.

What tender little thing are you willing to do to help your nervous system and your body know that it’s actually okay to rest now? What little hack have you found that works? No, an iced mocha latte does not count. JUST NO. Retail therapy? Sorry. Facebook? Probably not. What tangible way did you let your body know, today, that you appreciate what it’s been doing all this time, even while being blamed for everything that frustrates you? Is it time for a reset? I’m fairly certain that it’s not too late. Even for you. Please start today. If you’d like some help getting started, I’d be happy to assist you. Book a session with me, and see what little things you can do to make this big difference in your life.

Are you dehydrated? Are you racing around, too overwhelmed by your to-do list to stop and use the bathroom? What kind of creative expression have you been putting off because it’s not going to pay the bills? Make some time to do one small thing consistently and see what happens. This is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It is small gestures sustained over time. Follow comfort. Not numbness. Follow pleasure, not self indulgence. Study yourself. You can find the difference. And you are totally worth it, as you have been all along.

Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay

The Tarot of Tuesday’s Emotions

I was indulged with several readings at a coffee shop on Tuesday morning by a gifted friend in JC who is studying tarot. The reading I’m going to talk about here is a 5-card Life Purpose spread that is telling me a lot about emotions, which is delightfully aligned with the Constellations topic for Winter 2025. Here goes:

Card #1: II Wands (Reversed) – This position in the spread signifies how I’m really doing right now. The fact that it’s reversed tells me something about surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, and also fear. What Jessica Dore says about it in her book, Tarot for Change, is that this card has to do with staying stuck in a wrong situation to avoid the disappointment of something not living up to what my fantasies about it were. It’s about how one walks away from such fantasies, and back into flow; into what really is. The two wands represent a doorway of sorts. Each wand, or staff, represents an aspect of this particular moment in time. One staff rests on a battlement (war, suffering, chagrin), and the other is fixed in a ring (riches, fortune, magnificence). The picture is worth a thousand words. The man in the image holds a globe in his hand, and he’s standing in front of a stunning vista that is apparently his domain. Will he focus on the replica or the real thing?

Card #2: VI Swords (Reversed) – This position in the spread signifies what I am really good at. The fact that it is reversed speaks of declaration, confession, and publicity (proposal of love). According to Jessica Dore, this card is about breaking old patterns, which involves being honest about how I may be actually choosing things that bring me suffering and connecting with the fear that lies at the heart of that choice. This requires that I be willing to do what’s necessary to bring my attention to the emotions that I have for so long avoided (with good reason). This exact location, Dore says, is where the pattern can be broken.

She compares what happens in this realm as “driving a bus of monsters toward what matters to me.” The huddled figures on the raft that is crossing the water could represent self doubt, self criticism, feelings of inadequacy. The card, she says, points at the act of moving through inner obstacles on our way toward what is personally meaningful. Hell yeah. I’m good at that. That’s what I do. “Fear is not just a thing to be tolerated, but in fact an indelible part of living in alignment with what’s precious.” “Fear is the cost of admission.” Accepting fear as part of who I am, my mantra moving forward could be: I am willing to take a new route if it’s a better one. I am willing to grow.

Card #3: King of Cups – This position in the spread signifies what my purpose is, right now. (It is not reversed.) This card showed up in several places during the morning reading extravaganza, and each time it was upright, which tickles me no end. Cups, it appears, have to do with emotions. And as I well know, emotions appear to defy logic. Dore says that the cups suit is about delineators. “To understand water is to give oneself over to its currents, instead of trying to put it into containers with labels.” This card signifies, she says, that we’ve talked and reasoned and prepared enough, and now it’s necessary to drop into the water itself. And according to this spread, this is my purpose, right now. Go figure.

“People in cultures all over the world in geographic isolation from one another have generated and told stories with motifs and characters that echo or resemble one another since time out of mind. Queens belong to the realm of imagination while kings belong to the domain of will. But for King of Cups – King of Imagination – will looks different.” Here we see a more receptive application of will, or active acquiescence. So my mantra might be: I am prepared and ready to do what is required in order to accept and stay afloat as the waters rise. Luckily, the card tells me that I have the competence to find resolution where others have been unable to.

“Emotions are often passed down through generations until they reach someone who has the right set of resources and abilities to resolve them. Clearing a space for them to emerge, unfold, and find full expression.”

“The King of Cups protects the rights of emotions to have and experience the full cycle of life: to be born, to have a safe space to fully express and to die, eventually.” Emotions have a beginning, a middle, and an end (unless, of course, we clamp down on them to keep them from moving through, or otherwise repress them).

“Knowing this helps us to become willing to actually feel what we feel. Humans can endure more pain when they know it’s time limited.”

“This is the way an emotion makes its way out of an individual, out of a family, and ultimately out of a bloodline. And so if you are feeling something big and deep, consider your kingship.”

My takeaway from this card: I have the tools and temperament to usher the thing through once and for all, and this is actually my purpose now.

Card #4: II Swords (Reversed) – This position in the spread signifies whatever might be getting in my way. The fact that it is reversed speaks of Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty. Swords are the domain of thought. I have long been aware that I rely heavily on my mind. This card tells me that I can use my intellect to my advantage and that I have skill at this. But it also signifies that it is my mind that can get most in my way. Fears of imposture, duplicity, disloyalty. Working with this card demands that I continually examine which thoughts I give weight to, and which ones I choose to speak out loud. It asks me to be exquisitely aware and present when I speak about who I am and what I desire right now. This has been a particularly important aspect of my life right now, as my identity shifts and morphs as I step more fully into these roles in my life that acknowledge and honor even more of me. Dore also points out that this card is about honing knife skills, which involve cultivating a bit of cunning.

In staying in contact with what one knows to be true, Dore says, sometimes you need to lift your head up, roll your shoulders back and act like you know. Here’s an interesting line from this chapter: “I’m too scared to admit what I know, or to do what knowing requires of me.” And keeping the blindfold on (not making a decision) can be protective when it’s not the right time to make a choice.

“We form an alliance with ourselves by choosing narratives that are supportive and empowering rather than disparaging. If you wouldn’t describe a friend who was hesitating to act on what they know to be true as ‘confused’ or ‘lost’ maybe don’t talk about yourself that way either.” I really appreciate this.

Card #5: Ace of Cups (Reversed) – This position in the spread signifies how I can love myself so I have the energy to fulfill my purpose. The fact that it is reversed speaks of mutation, instability, revolution; House of the false heart. This card was exactly what I needed during this time, as my focus is on emotions; on seeing and dealing with them newly. I have not known my emotions well enough to name them, much less to be true to them, but I am willing to grow from here. It is the work of a lifetime, making good enough friends of our bodies so that we can access what is alive in us in the moment.

Ace of Cups represents “House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.” In this chapter, Dore talks about how psyche is something we exist within – it’s bigger than our physical body. She points out what mystics have known for centuries, that internal and external life are linked. As this card shows up in a spread, it might be asking, What is my environment expressing through me?

This card is also linked to the High Priestess, and the practice of contemplation (as the creative process of coming into dialogue with other forces such as emotions). Breaking down the roots of the word contemplation, she points out that “The prefix con-, meaning ‘with,’ tells us that it’s a collaborative process, and templum, the Latin word for temple, connotes a sacred space where a deity was believed to reside.” And so to contemplate is to engage in spiritual dialogue, which, like all dialogues, is going to involve both speaking and listening.

This card encourages me to slow down enough to listen. “What you’re listening for might be an invisible force, like that of helping spirits, energetic currents, or a Higher Power. Or you could be listening for something concrete, like a river over rocks, birdsong, a groundhog’s rustle through high grass. This way of being in a receptive relationship with what surrounds us seems difficult for modern people of the West to understand. We think in terms of the individual, the hero, the character who performs tasks and overcomes obstacles.

“But the cups, in addition to being emotional, are also symbolic of a certain receptivity, as a cup receives water. Receptivity implies relationship and asks us: What would a more relational way of engaging with our surroundings look like? What would happen if we reoriented the imagination toward a way that sees the self both as dreamer and that which is dreamt?

“Could we make room for the possibility that what we feel and experience in the flesh house of the body is not always rooted in a private individual experience, but comes from an ecosystem to which we belong? What if, for example, rather than seeing ourselves as taking a walk through the woods, we see ourselves as being a wave of energy rippling through the consciousness of a family of redwoods? How would this change the way we move through the environments we dwell in? How would it change the way we relate to our experiences?

“Emotions are how we understand our raw experiences, not in an evaluative or judgmental way as with intellectual understanding but rather as an intuitive, felt, cellular-type knowing. The trick – and what’s taught in many behavioral therapies – is learning to suspend action for long enough that this kind of knowing can move through us.

“In her Dear Sugar column, Cheryl Strayed once advised a reader, ‘Don’t own other people’s crap.’ And I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. To understand the cups suit, we have to get clear on what aspects of our experience even fall into the realm of ownership. For example, my behavior is something I can ‘own’ or be accountable for, while other people’s behavior is not something that I can or should. But with emotions, it’s not always clear who ‘owns’ them. I’ve woken up heavy with the boulder of my grandmother’s grief on my chest, breathed deeply while sweating from the fire of my mother’s rage, and I could say, ‘That’s theirs, not mine,’ if I wanted to, but what good would that do? Emotions are living energetic currents with life cycles of their own. They tend to survive down the vertical and horizontal lines of human relationships – through generations, through communities – until they arrive to the place where they can be fully experienced and expressed. That can take a while.”

I’d better stop before I owe Jessica too much for using her material, but I think you get my point. My reading was a blessing, as is Jessica Dore’s Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance & Growth. Maybe I’ll put you in touch with my tarot reader friend, too, if you want. She’s amazing.

I’m on Retreat

and I’ve told many people that I’m taking time alone. I explored a niggling worry back in the deep recesses of my mind about whether I was making best use of this time; taking my retreat seriously enough. So far, the answer is a deep and resounding YES. It’s felt divinely guided. It doesn’t appear that anyone (ethereal or visceral) wants to punish or even scold me for sidestepping my isolation for an evening with friends and family the first day or driving to St. Louis to be with a friend getting medical results on the second. I’m thanking my lucky angels for all of it. It’s all as it should be. The sunshine warmed me as I ate my Ethiopian leftovers (yesterday). Today I put the finishing touches on the wonky tarot reading we didn’t finish on Monday. This morning I’ve typed up the notes I wanted to share from Sarah Peyton’s hardback book. Feel free to check that out here. It’s just so juicy, so relevant and so comforting. I finished reading Your Resonant Self Workbook, in bed yesterday morning. I hiked to the creek at the bottom of the hill twice yesterday, the second time with paper and matches so I could build a fire, sit back and read from another great book.

In a nutshell, here’s the tarot reading. I drew 3 cards from a traditional tarot deck and am referring to Jessica Dore’s book Tarot for Change, with some of my personal story interwoven.

4 of Cups – Throughout my young life, I had been resistant to taking the good stuff that was being offered to me. Somehow I couldn’t see it. I was too hurt and sad and angry.

9 of Cups Reversed – wish fulfillment, contentment, victory, success. Reversed it speaks of Truth, Loyalty, Liberty. To accept what we want requires us to also accept the pain of not having it. This card is asking me to articulate my desires from THAT place. This retreat is the time to turn inward and care for feelings I haven’t had the courage to look at before. What do I want to acknowledge and validate so that I can heal and grow beyond it?

As a 22 year old I just wanted what I was taught to want. So as a married adult woman, living with a husband and a child for 4 and 2 years, respectively, I was entering a place where I had to decide who I really was, and what I wanted from my life. As an 18 year old, I hadn’t been able to imagine anything else but being a mother and a homemaker. But that wasn’t working out so well. As my then husband complained, I was just so predictable. My higher self was urging me to try something else. And so I did. Boy have I learned a lot about desire since then.

Words of compassion from Jessica Dore: “Not knowing what you want is often rooted in things that weren’t your choice and aren’t your fault.”

It’s okay if I’m still trying to figure out who I am and what I want. It’s okay if I’m still learning to make a good wish.

4 of Pentacles – Crowned figure, Pentacle over the crown. Clasping another pentacle over the heart. Pentacles under both feet. Holding very securely that which I have. (knowledge, concepts, ideas). Pentacles in general signify physical behavior.

Jessica Dore looks at this card through a different lens: “Transcending and accepting limitations or blocks through the physical body. Moving stuck energy through the body via breath and gaze with gentle curiosity, not force. Reframing and perspective shifting = storytelling. When we relate differently to something, we tend to behave differently around it. Stories don’t mirror life, they shape it.” – Mary Van Hook, a social worker

The simple fact of identifying a block means movement is happening. Hitting a wall is not a bad thing. It helps you know that you need to find a door or a window by changing course slightly or drastically. Or dig a tunnel.

Calling something a block or a limit or a challenge “is a protest in itself, a statement or declaration that you’re not okay with being contained in this particular way and you most certainly do not plan to shape a life around some limitation that really doesn’t need to be there.”

Learning to live in harmony with blocks. My body has areas of stuckness and limitation. Which attitudes and narratives are most effective for clearing blocks? And for learning to live better with them? The pentacles at the crown block awareness. The pentacles at the heart block connection and understanding. The pentacles at the soles of the feet block action.

“With any kind of block, the first task is to be present enough to notice that it’s there – whether it be physical, behavioral, energetic, emotional, or psychological – rather than either avoiding it altogether or trying to muscle through it.”

It’s not dangerous to investigate blocks. But when I do it, I need to do it with gentleness, giving myself full permission to back off anytime it gets to feel like too much.

Noticing the block is something to celebrate. That’s when I know I’m ready to do the work.

Poke around. Find the malleable parts. The parts that have some give. Where transformation can happen, little by little.

Super excited to see what the rest of my retreat will bring. I’m here until Friday!

Tarot Reading for Today

This spread perfectly describes my takeaway from a recent Constellations Circle. Absolutely love Jessica Dore’s Tarot for Change

Six of Cups The intellect sifts out what is true; the will reaches out for what is good. But there is a third dimension to reality: Beauty. Our whole being resonates with what is beautiful. When we experience beauty, we start to speak about emotions, and the more we are touched on an emotional level, the more we seek to celebrate the experience, and it’s there that we begin to create ritual. Benedictine Monk David Steindl-Rast writes that all rituals have to do with, and celebrate, belonging.

The tenderness of the image on the Six of Cups cards tells a secret.

What if, all I’m trying to do here is to create rituals that have the potential to mark, preserve, and facilitate a return to emotional experiences that are sacred to us?

To feel safe is sacred.

To be soothed is sacred.

I am a lover of beauty and belonging. I am a lover of deep emotional resonance. I am just trying to recall some sacred feeling.

I am exploring new ways to recall those feelings – and new rituals for feeling safe and soothed.

Page of Wands: Childlike Enthusiasm, Innocence, Wonder, Youth. Knowing absolutely what I like and don’t like. According to James Hillman (along with Bert Hellinger): We each come into the world with a calling.

There is something (apart from nature/nurture) unique about each of us – a part of our being that is connected to our “daemon,” which was similar to the Roman concept of genius: Something that you are, that you have, that is not the same as the personality you think you are.

Mythologist Martin Shaw: as adults, too many of us have become “heavily defended against experiences of our own beauty.”

What do I love?

What captivates my attention?

What grips me?

What lights me up? What claims me?

Invitation to reconnect with something raw and original within us, something many of us relinquish as we cross the threshold into adulthood.

My specific calling is never far from reach.

Wands show me how to protect the spark and keep it safe so that it can warm me, and also warm whole villages.

Nine of Cups

Values Clarification. If I’m going to do the hard work of change, what will make it worth it? A life compass. Am I moving toward or away from what is precious?

Knowing what you want is deceptively challenging.

Exploring what we desire can be hard because:

Often the physical reality of our lives doesn’t line up with what we desire.
- To accept what we want requires us also to accept the pain of not having it.
Identifying what’s personally meaningful and articulating desires from that place is often in and of itself a whole healing process.
Making a wish sounds like fun until you realize you have no idea what you want. Until you realize you’re not even sure what it feels like to truly want something and are not convinced you’d know it if you felt it. This experience of finding a void where a wish ought to be can be profoundly distressing.
Not knowing what you want can bring up shame. “I’m 60 years old. I should know who I am by now.”

Making a wish might be hard because:

Your feelings were constantly invalidated, so you don’t trust your own sense of what you like and long for.
You’ve experienced a lot of frustration trying to get your needs met in life, which makes it difficult to want to try. Feeling hopeless about or quickly shutting down anything you have an inkling of really wanting is how you’ve learned to feel safe.
The people you relied on in childhood were unpredictable or erratic, so you developed the skill of scanning and tending to other people’s needs at the expense of your own needs as being necessarily dictated by the needs of others, so it’s hard to untangle them.
You developed a protective strategy commonly known as perfectionism, which means you organize your life around avoiding contact with any potential indications of being inadequate, defective, or unlovable. Wishing for or trying new things is a direct threat to that defense.
When you were growing up, no one around you had any coping skills, so you didn’t get any, either, and instead you carry an intense fear of the feelings that come with wanting something and not getting it. Fused with a belief that those feelings are unmanageable, the stakes of having a true wish are simply too high.
A heart’s desire sprouts from a sense of self that’s sturdy enough to have preferences independent of external factors.

There are so many factors that go into the maturation of a budding sense of self, and probably infinite ways to botch it, so even though adolescence is technically the time when we are “supposed” to be doing the work of figuring out who we are and what we like, there are enormous swaths of us doing it in all decades of life. And we’re often doing it not just once but over and over again as the conditions of our lives change, and with them, our wants and needs.

Sometimes, learning to make a good wish is the work.

Credit goes to Jessica Dore, author of Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-care, Acceptance and Growth

Election Day 2020

I elect to follow beauty, harmony, joy, resonance. I elect to explore new levels of peace and playfulness. I elect to be in the moment, following the guidance of my heart and my infinite potential. I elect to release shame, guilt, obligation, bitterness, urges to control, judgment, comparisons, projections. I elect to allow the beauty of this moment, of this time, to fully enter my consciousness. Spirit, thank you for this opportunity to be more of what I came here to be. I am open.

Thank you for these glorious playmates you sent into my life. Help me to love them and myself well. Help me to honor and cherish them and myself in the ways that glorify you, and all of life. Help us all to move through this time of great awakening. Help us know the gods and goddesses we are. May love rise up and conquer fear and brokenness in all of the dark places as well as the light. Today, Election Day, 2020. May it be a glorious resurrection of love. May we all trust, regardless of any illusions that might suggest otherwise, that it is so. Amen.

Announcing my Body-Owner’s Manual

Happy October everybody. I wanted to let you know that the manual is up and available for purchase at Amazon. However, it is also available in PDF or Word format. Just let me know if you’d like your own copy. Just send me an e-mail and I’d be happy to give that to you for free.

To me it feels tragic that a person can go through any significant portion of their lives feeling alone and unsupported! I’d like to say that at the ripe old age of 56 I have put this feeling thoroughly and completely behind me. And I think this manual is what turned the key. I am so so so so excited!! I’ll tell you a little secret: I started taking tango lessons!!!!

But in all seriousness, the feeling of isolation, having only oneself to count on, and chronic touch deficit is entirely too prevalent in our society, and only exacerbated by Covid-19 and our political divisions. It is my belief that the current state of our country has its cause deep in early relational trauma, which leaves people feeling that they are different, alone, and lacking in essential resources and belonging. And people who feel like this are susceptible to the messages and shenanigans of narcissists and sociopaths. They have yet to find a durable and supportive tribe or connect with stable roots. As they move through life, these feelings become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Body Owner’s Guide for the Stewards of the New Earth: My Meta Self Owner’s Guide offers you eight chapters, channeled by eight loving ethereal masters, offering nuggets of wisdom in a format that can be read from start to finish or opened at random to spark your creative juices and inspire you to reach for more of what your soul is longing for. This handy reference book includes affirmations, dream interpretations and more, with the intention of bringing into focus a vision of a post-trauma future.

Though this manual was created for me, it is also intended to inspire you to strengthen your connections with your own angels, guides and ancestors. They are always there, and there is nothing they would like more than to see you learn how to care for yourself well. May this set you on the path of creating your own personal volume.

Do You Have An Angry Adolescent Inside?

I remember, in 2013, prior to my second flight from the Midwest (the first being to Bangladesh, in 1994), giving my clients the following homework: Take a week to be just as lazy, selfish and irresponsible as you can be. I’m not kidding. If that is not possible, take two days. If that isn’t possible, then at the very minimum, take four hours. That was the advice I, myself, needed to take and so I finally did. But it took me this long to realize what that would actually look like, and what it really meant. In hindsight I wonder how possible it was for any of my clients to do this assignment without drastically changing their environment – the cultural, political and economic setting of the USA in the 21^st Century. But why, you might be asking. Why this assignment? I will give you the long explanation now.

Recognizing Protective Reflexes

So many of us, as survivors of early relational trauma, have been programmed for survival, though the danger is not what we think it is. So many of us have an inner critic that berates us mercilessly, perpetuating feelings of shame and self-doubt, if not self-loathing. It hurls names at its person, and depending on the words their family used to express their unresolved pain and shame, these might have included “lazy,” “narcissistic,” “selfish,” “stupid,” “irresponsible,” etc. Many of my clients are learning what to do with the part of themselves that spews these toxic messages. What we are learning together is that this abusive part is actually an automatic reflex designed to “protect” its person from feeling the overwhelming feelings of pain and loneliness from the past. It protects us from the pain and overwhelm of one or more tender, vulnerable parts that are stuck in the past, needing our help to get them out. But it is designed to remain undetected to our conscious mind, and that is what makes it tricky to deal with in a straightforward way.

Until we do bring consciousness, care and compassion to these unresolved issues, these parts will continue to get activated and wreak havoc in our lives. I knew this when I created Self-Abuse & The Drama Triangle, but I’m realizing it at a deeper level now, as I recognize with renewed clarity what a tremendous amount of my energy can still be wasted in self-doubt, self-flagellation and something just under the surface that is keeping me from feeling like my clear and shining adult self.

My inner critic is 14-15 years old. She feels indignant and she believes that she can’t stop or she will be just as outrageously unforgivable and deserving of repudiation as the ones responsible for the violence and neglect she experienced in the past. She believes that if she lets up, she will fail us both (she is operating from her adolescent perspective with righteous indignation and her 14-15-year-old determination to keep me from getting hurt). And so she continues to do her thing, just beneath the level of my awareness. Her toxic message – this survival reflex – gets kicked up as I diligently work to reclaim my original, First Nature, and say NO to the generations-old programming that kept me small and quiet by telling me that the world is an unsafe place and that I should not expect to be loved.

This reflex kicks in to preserve the status quo. With the incisiveness and sophistication of a terrified 15-year old, it scrutinizes and second guesses my motives, my choices, my decisions, my reactions, my performance, my physical appearance. She can go on and on and on before I recognize what is happening in there. When I ignore this dynamic over time, it chips away at my confidence, at my general sense of well-being, my health and my Life Force. This part does not trust me because of mistakes she is sure I have made in the past. She can be seriously abusive because she is terrified and she doesn’t believe she can ask for help and get it, and because she believes our lives and integrity depend on her keeping up this internal battery and its concomitant feelings of shame and self-contempt.

I am thinking of one of my clients who has figured out how to talk to his angry little one inside. His is only five years old. He shows me how firm but loving boundaries can be instituted and maintained with this little one, who has brought so much destruction to his closest relationships in the past. When he feels his angry little one starting to get agitated, he checks in with it. He reassures it. He has even learned to be preemptive. In the mornings he snuggles up with it, telling it that it is okay, and that he is big enough to hold it and protect it. You are safe now, he tells it. You can trust me to take your needs seriously. I love you. I am here now. I will not abandon you. It is your job to play and have fun now. You don’t have to be big and angry to keep us safe anymore.

Another client too, has learned to take a bit of time to attune to the disturbance and the players inside. Like mine, his is 14-15-years-old and has a tongue that slices him to shreds if he allows it. He is learning to talk to this inner critic softly but with assurance, pointing out the landmarks of his growth and success, what he is doing right. Reminding them both that he does not deserve to be punished, and never did. As the inner critic softens, he is freer to accept himself and his past mistakes and release the remaining shame, self-loathing, self-doubt and self-censure that he has stockpiled but failed to examine all these years. Together we form the alliance necessary to glean the wisdom from his life experience, to acknowledge his successes, and discern his real needs and the real maturity he has gained through his efforts and experiences instead of just trying to hide, amputate or erase this terrified, vulnerable part of himself, along with his imperfect past.

We need to be able to attune to and acknowledge the wisdom beneath the disruption, this hidden chaos inside. Because what other recourse does the powerless have than to revolt? The parts that feel powerless and abandoned need to be listened to because they showed up in the first place for a reason. They have wisdom that is profound and irreplaceable. But we do need to get support and take the time necessary to find out what is actually happening in there.

Saying No to Inner Violence

Just as important as recognizing that they are there for a reason and having compassion for these tender parts, it is necessary that we let them know that they are not allowed to abuse us or others anymore. We need to value ourselves and have enough substance – enough Self – to put into place firm boundaries. Though we have been programmed otherwise, we need to be more selfish to do this. As my sense of Self strengthens, that’s what keeping my commitment to doing a daily meditation feels like for me. It is a revolutionary act, holding nurturing routines in place, adjusting them as I grow to fit my continuously changing needs. And it is what is necessary to leave the status quo and achieve the change I really want.

Featured Feeling

Envy
* Stifled Longing
* Frustration
* Comparing
* Resentment
* Shame

This morning, as I put the finishing touches on my owner’s manual, I realize that I have been newly reconnected with envy and how much this emotion has impacted my life without my even knowing it. I was so clueless of envy, never thinking that word described any part of me. Well now I see how anger, jealousy and envy were so central to my life and experience, and how thoroughly I blotted them out, pushing them under so they could be hidden, so I could maintain my image of a “good girl.” Now I can see how this has contributed to the stifling of my reaching reflex. How it crippled my ability to want what I wanted and even to receive what was sweet and available all around me.

Now, I am reclaiming my envy, and with it perfecting my own reaching reflex. Every hint of envy is my new best friend because it tells me what I want more of. It no longer needs to remain hidden. As with anger, it can now inform me. I am so grateful for everything in my current life that is helping me develop my reaching reflex. Films, Netflix, free time to reflect on my relationship with people I have judged as selfish, irresponsible or lazy. Newly admiring their ability to enjoy their lives and allowing myself to distill my own understanding of my unique constitution, tastes, values and desires as similar and distinct from theirs. I am so thankful for my clients. Each one of them a tremendous gift. So thankful for each day, a dance, a step closer to a life that is even more filled with the things that I have been afraid to ask for. A calmable nervous system. People who help me calm my nervous system. People with whom I can and do regularly play and explore the wonders of this experience called Life.

As I sit here with rubber bands between my molars, I feel the “opening” of my avenue of expression. It’s uncomfortable but it is fundamentally changing me. Expanding my ability to experience joy and pleasure. Expanding my ability to express and share myself. I feel everything falling into place just as it should.

I am learning to enjoy liminal space these days, not exactly knowing what will happen next, and it’s uncomfortable sometimes. But it’s okay. Better to be in this space than to jump prematurely to the next thing.

I vigilantly work on recognizing self-doubt when it comes up, I attend to the tender vulnerable feelings underneath, and step in to make sure that nobody is abusing me inside.

Here’s what I can watch out for, lurking in the shadows:

Rumination
Self-judgment
Feeling critical of myself
Comparing myself with others
Feeling critical toward others
Negative self-talk (You’re irresponsible. Who do you think you are? etc.)

Nurturing a stronger, more reliable sense of Self means that I can more readily step back and recognize this as the abuse that it is, and that it says nothing whatsoever about me. Once I recognize that I am doing this again, I can firmly but compassionately redirect that energy. I am committed to mastering the skills necessary to do this.

In the spaciousness of my life, here in my Mexican retreat, I can recognize that disruptive younger part of me now and tell her that I appreciate her and all she has been through. I speak to her softly, lovingly, and assure her that I am committed to learning how to be embodied, how to gracefully navigate the world as an adult and how to live a life that we have been worthy of all along. I let her know that I’ve got this now, thanking her, but assuring her that she can safely rest now, and do what she, as a 14-15-year-old, enjoys. Supported in my village and with my ancestors and guides, I am in a position to keep her safe now, and I let her know that I am committed to doing just that.

I let her know that I am learning the skill of turning feelings into needs. When she feels critical or judgmental, I can understand that she is scared or envious or angry or ashamed of being scared or envious or angry. I can help her know that her tender vulnerable feelings are okay, that there is a place for them, and that it doesn’t hurt anyone on the outside when she makes me aware of them. I can be curious about what she is feeling without making her wrong. And once I know what the feelings are, we can work together to figure out what she needs. This can take some work, but I am up for it. And I am worth the effort it takes. I am anything but lazy, though from the outside I might be judged otherwise. That is why it is so important that I surround myself with people who share my values and worldview at least a large part of the time.

You are enough, I tell her. You no longer have to be better than anyone else. You can just show up. We have all the love and support we need. We are thin enough. We are attractive enough. We are smart enough. We work hard enough. We have plenty of money. We have enough time and resources to take care of ourselves, and I am committed to taking the time I need to stay adequately attuned to your vulnerable needs, preferences and potential. This may be the most important work of all. And then I make sure that my schedule is open enough to stay attuned to her needs and appreciate her contributions to my life. Some may call that selfish or lazy or irresponsible. I call it coming home to my fully embodied and integrated self; making my body a place where it feels good to be, where I truly belong.

Image by Kittiwat Junbunjong from Pixabay

Transformational Spring Reading – Hold Me Tight

I have been thinking about belonging, and the various points in my life when I felt I more or less belonged. At this particular phase where I live a rather secluded life due both to personal choice and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic, all of my attention is going toward taking care of my most basic needs, I set up my daily schedule so I can get all of that important self-care stuff in like I never have before. My house is set up so it can be as efficient as possible. If I didn’t make a concerted effort to do it, I assure you, it wouldn’t get done.

The quality of my life, of my future, depends on how well I meet my basic needs. This was also true when I was an infant. Like all infants, I had many needs and obviously a good many of them were met because I survived, right? I am here writing this blog post. But as I am getting more clear on my unmet infant needs now, my home was set up primarily to meet everyone else’s needs because either they were providing the income necessary to put a roof over our heads or because they were attending to one urgent emergency after another, juggling financial hardship and probably postpartum depression, leaving me not feeling particularly safe or cherished. The home was not set up to make sure that my unique needs were well met.

I have more clarity about this today because of a book I’m reading called Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, by Dr. Sue Johnson (a little hint as to what I was needing and not getting). The book’s basic premise can be summed up with an acronym, A.R.E., which stands for Accessible, Responsive, and Emotionally Engaged. The level of belonging I felt in my family of origin was directly proportionate to the degree to which I felt that my caretakers were accessible, responsive to my needs, and able to emotionally engage with me.

The quality of my relationships and my adult life have been a reflection of the absence of the accessibility, responsiveness and emotional engagement that nobody but me was even aware of. Through this lens, I can finally see what it was that caused me to create relationships where I did not feel connected or safe. And now that I am in the process of parenting myself well, I am experiencing what it feels like to be safe and connected, if only to myself. And it is with great joy and anticipation that I can say that I feel as though a whole new world awaits me. As a result of the ongoing dedication I have to caring for myself well, and books and other resources such as this, I am broadening my vocabulary, my capacity to experience new things interpersonally and educating myself about what is possible when we feel truly attuned to, and are accessible to our tender selves, responsive to our own needs, and committed to staying emotionally engaged with ourselves – uncomfortable emotions, vulnerable needs and all.

I see a very different life opening up for me, where the dialogue involves a whole lot of listening to and paying attention to what delights me (even if that sounds silly or selfish), and at the same time offering myself an environment that provides safety, along with the structure and tangible practicalities that are necessary to meet the more typically recognized needs like adequate rest, good enough hygiene, sufficient exercise, hydration, routines that ensure that my spiritual needs are met, human connection and remedial care that my body requires after a lifetime of neglect. A lifetime of not being sure that I was the kind of person who could get attuned to, responded to, and emotionally engaged with – at least with a parent or a primary partner. Holding it all together on the outside is a very different thing from feeling that sense of safety and true belonging on the inside that is a result of strong bonds and healthy intimate relationships, whether it is the mother-infant dyad or the couple who knows how to stay calm and listen and offer assurance when his or her partner is experiencing intense emotions or an automatic reflex that harks back to an earlier traumatic moment.

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, by Dr. Sue Johnson is a godsend. It is just the material I needed to catapult my healing work forward. I recommend it highly to anyone who wants to experience more depth, connection and oxytocin in intimate relationship.

“…once distressed partners learn to hold each other tight, they continue reaching out to each other, trying to create these transforming and satisfying moments again and again. I believe that A.R.E. interactions turn on this neurochemical love potion honed by millions of years of evolution. Oxytocin seems to be nature’s way of promoting attachment.”

– Dr. Sue Johnson in Hold Me Tight

Affirmations to Address Blocks to Sweetness and Abundance

And the kicker, which is a combination of my conditioning and what my body instinctively knows: This really is a matter of life or death. I die either way. If I’m not attuned to or if I demand what I want/need. The ultimate double bind.

(As infants) “our most intimate sense of self is created in our minute-to-minute exchanges with our caregivers.”
“Early attachment patterns create the inner maps that chart our relationships throughout life, not only in terms of what we expect from others, but also in terms of how much comfort and pleasure we can experience in their presence.”
Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score

I get to reach out for what I want.
I am more of who I came here to be when I reach for what I want.
I get connection that feels sweet to me.
I get to have friends who give of themselves, who have skills, who do their emotional work.
Doing without is not a virtue.
Doing without is a way of shutting down and blocking the flow of good.
Identifying with doing without is another form of anger, resentment and unfelt pain.
God and I are on the same team.
God tells me what I want and need by giving me emotional responses, which I can attune to, and learn from.
I can be involved in this process.
It isn’t some mysterious process that happens behind the scenes.
If I stay in denial about my emotions and needs, I am telling myself that I am not worthy of my own care and attention.
There is no reward for applying austerity measures in response to scarcity.
I am totally worthy of the sweet stuff.
Doing without is not what gets me what I should have had in the first place.
Doing without is not what gets me what is already available and free for the taking: the really sweet stuff of life.
The really sweet stuff of life is free.
I am the one who gets to say what I like and what is sweet to me, in each moment.
There is no should when it comes to my desires.
I am completely worthy of pursuing my heart’s desires.
Spirit is right behind me, encouraging me to reach for and satisfy exactly that.
My heart’s desires are gifts, and I can attune to them, clarify them, and explore them.
I am encouraged to act on my desires.
I can be deeply satisfied even when I am reaching for other things I don’t yet have.
Me being deeply satisfied hurts nobody!
I can get what I want and need.
I release the pain, frustration, anger, resentment, and terror of not being well-attuned to in infancy and childhood.
I can let that go now.

These affirmations sprung out of my head after working with a client who shares my blocks around moving from scarcity to abundance.

The fear and pain and resentment that is trapped in a human body from infancy and childhood can be expressed in words. Once the words are stated, a part of oneself can feel seen, heard and validated. Once the feelings are acknowledged, they can actually be released.

Here are the emotions (not truths) expressed in words:

• If I do without (the sweet stuff – these profoundly necessary things: connection, being attuned to well, expression of my desires) I will be rewarded.
• The real reward comes if I am self-disciplined and accept doing without (without complaining or being upset).
• I will be rewarded with what I “really” need (what God thinks I need).
• If I accept the lie and tell myself I’m not worthy – for some reason – of the sweet stuff in life, then I will subconsciously believe that doing without what I really want will get me what I should have; that I will be rewarded and that I will then be worthy.
• Sacrificing gets me the good stuff, that I may or may not like or understand, but God knows better than me, so I’ll trust and accept that.
• If I accept the other lie that what I really want is not a trustworthy or reliable gauge of what I should have, I’ll eventually get what I should have.
• I can’t trust my desires, for sure. That will bring me unhappiness.
• Acknowledging my desires and outwardly reaching for what I want is selfish and bad and will only result in unhappiness.
• I will be punished if I act on my desires.
• There will be serious negative consequences if my wants and needs are deeply satisfied. It will probably really hurt someone I love.
• It is impossible for my wants and needs to be satisfied, so it’s an infernal waste of time to pursue that or focus on them.
• This really is a matter of life or death. I die either way.
• If I’m not attuned to or if I ask directly for what I want/need.