Belonging – Remembering Ourselves Home

Picture from inside “The Wave” Arizona

I am reading a new book that has me pondering things and I think it might have triggered some unresolved trauma. It’s a book about belonging and remembering ourselves home. It was written for the rebels and misfits, the outcasts and the shunned. The black sheep and those who struggle to fit in, believing that they don’t belong. It’s no secret that I have long identified with these emotions and feelings. Sometimes stronger, sometimes barely noticeable, they have been a part of my entire life. A life spent, never truly belonging.

Some think that belonging is a place, home and where you consider yourself from. Others may think that belonging has to do with another person, belonging to a partner, a lover and significant other. Perhaps belonging is identified to being a part of a family and your place in it. Or it might be your place in society, in your community and in your contributions, about what you bring to the table. Is your input sought after and appreciated, do you have a sense of belonging!

As I break this down for myself, questions like “who do I belong to” and “where do I belong to” naturally come to mind. I am thinking of my soul who has agreed to have certain experiences in this life time. Of the lessons that have to be learned. I am thinking about things I value to be true, guidelines I live be and like to follow. I remember that all we seek and need is already deep inside of us. That we have the tools to make it all happen. That the wisdom is already there and that when De Ja Vue stuns us in amazement, that it is then we get a glimpse that our soul has been here before, having that same experience and that we know what to do.

A sense of not belonging can be a very painful and lonely experience, even a deadly one. I grew up in a home that didn’t made me feel that I belong. It was no fault of my Mother who struggled with the loss of her husband when I was only 10. She herself most likely grew up with a lost sense of belonging, but she served a purpose all of her life. The purpose to survive a physical and emotional war, loneliness, having to be an adult while still being a child, the purpose of being practical, responsible and accountable while taking care of me, raising a 10 year old child alone. No doubt were these important things, but I second guess whether they gave her a sense of belonging. Surely she felt needed, but did this feeling speak to the heart of belonging, to her purpose on a spiritual and emotional level!

As a small person of 10 years old, my heart broke for my Mother. I wanted more for her and I wanted her to be happy again. I made it my impossible mission to comfort her and reassure her to believing in love, by keeping her heart open and not locking herself away. What was it even that I knew about love at the age of 10. Still I made it my mission to step into my Father’s shoes as if I could replace him, giving her a sense of belonging. I look back and wonder if it gave me a sense of belonging.

Today, I see the world more connected with all of our technology advancements than ever, and yet people are lonelier than ever. The author of my book Toko-pa Turner has said that the absence of belonging is the silent wound of our time. I agree, but for me it has had a lifelong presence and maybe it is just now we are truly becoming more enlightened, more awakened about these feelings.

I ponder if this belonging is not associated with a place or with belonging to another person. What if we are meant to belong to ourselves? Would it be selfish or would this prevent ourselves from sharing our life with others? Sharing our life is sharing our light, sharing our purpose and our experiences, to not be lonely, but is our belonging truly rooted in doing this with another person? I ponder if this purpose is independent from our outer circumstances, but is fueled by a way of how we view things. How we master our lessons, how we see life and our experiences. If we have everything we need already inside of us, then we will always be ok aren’t we! If we find inner peace and a way to be still and content, if we saw our adversity and lessons as growth, would that equal a sense of belonging? I am curios now how you would describe yourself when it comes to belonging. Where do you fit in?

Souls who feel too much

I’ve said it before and I say it again. I have always felt too much. Always too deeply and I don’t even know when it started or how else I could be. I have analyzed it and I can’t find a concrete answer as to why it is this way. It just is. It’s like a love – hate – love affair that takes on different meanings, different turns from time to time. On one side I don’t want to change a thing because how else could I ever truly experience the depths of life. Of living vs just existing. All moments would pass with no significant meaning, one day after another, one month after another, year after year. What would be the meaning of life, of our purpose, of our journey if we didn’t feel deeply within our hearts! On the other side it is that very vulnerability, that feeling too much at times that shatters and breaks my heart into a 1000 pieces. Over and over again as if there are no lessons learned, no way to correct the course and protect the heart. It’s all or nothing, and there is no in between. It’s a pain that is felt to the core, that reaches every corner, holding it in a tight grip. A grip that chokes and sometimes squeezes the life right out of you. And that pain changes everything.

Pain is life altering and most often turns us into a different person than we were before. It’s a long bumpy ride with many obstacles and many fights and struggles that take place all within ourselves, often deeply hidden and unknown to the public. But we know, don’t we? Hopefully we can look back and say that we changed for the better, even in times when it’s hard to imagine. Pain has many faces and many names but in my journey with the physical pain and the RA, or my journey on an emotional level and chasing love all of my life, I’ve had many opportunities to throw in the towel and just give up. It is true that souls who feel more, also hurt more. Feeling too much comes with a heavy price tag and is no easy trait. It demands our hearts to break over and over with every experience while encountering the hurt, in whatever shape and form it comes to find us. Feeling too much is the ultimate test between giving up and learning to embrace the pain. I feel it every weekend, but that’s for another story and another post.

You know that I have chosen the later, the optimistic route, to embrace, but it doesn’t always make it easier. It’s just a mindset, a way of being, of not giving up and a means to proceed. It get’s tested often, sometimes to the breaking point. Leaving our hearts wide open is something many don’t dare to do and honestly I totally understand and can’t blame them. Being taken advantage off – get’s old, being hurt – get’s old, and it’s not pretty. But what we don’t realize, is that every experience makes us stronger. So strong that they say we become unbreakable. I wonder what that will feel like and I’m definitely not there yet. Would that mean that I become so strong that I become insensitive to what is happening? Will I become numb to it all and not feel at all anymore? And if so wouldn’t that defeat the entire purpose as to why we have chosen to feel it all?

Dark night of the soul

I was born on the day of ups and downs and life certainly has echoed this theme. I say this and realize that most likely everybody on the planet could make a similar statement, the difference is that when we talk ourselves vs somebody else, it always becomes more personal. That doesn’t mean that it’s more important or takes the first row, but it leaves us as the experts to our own story.

There used to be a time when I viewed being born on the day of ups and downs as a curse, as the Story of my Life . Over time this has changed and like everything else it is what it is. I have come to accept it and I roll with the punches whenever I can. Successful or not, it is my motto. We seldom have another choice anyways, but I am extremely grateful that I was able to see these times as learning experiences without getting discouraged, disgruntled and turning into a negative victim mentality. Talking about the dark night of our soul, I feel that there have been a few of them throughout my life, but the past two years have brought some of my most important work as a person. It has taken me to the edge nearly losing myself, only to show me that I come back stronger each time. It had taught me that nothing fuels and develops me more than adversity itself, when challenges arise and when the predictable happens and is trying to hurt me. That pain has always made me rise stronger. It’s a process that is ongoing and it wasn’t until recently that I could understand and fully grasp the meaning of the words written by Aby Vohra in regards to what the dark night of the soul is and how it will transform your life.

It is referred to as a long, depressing, and very dark experience that can continue for days, months or even years. If you’re experiencing the dark night of the soul, you will feel a sense of being lost. Your heart will be in anxiety as if your world with its known habits and conditioning is coming to an end. This is because, after a spiritual awakening, your conditioned mind pattern is dying. While dying, your mind is making you feel miserable by re-identifying yourself with its old dysfunctional patterns. The soul is about to shine like a sun, and deep down, you have started to feel it’s presence. While a spiritual awakening is the process of rebirth of everything you are! The dark night of the soul is the process of dying of everything you are not!

I have felt this in layers, one after another peeling away, at my pace and when I am ready, having fully processed the prior learnings. It has been an up and down, physically and emotionally, at times empowering, stepping into my own and at other times devastating and lonely. Through it all people continue to come and go. I trust that the people I need or the ones who need me will or have crossed my path to be in my life. Only meaningful relationships are honored at this time and there is no time for chasing false ideals. This morning I drew an oracle card soliciting the universe to share which spirit animal will lend us their energy for September. I was surprised at who showed up and we have seen this animal earlier in the year. Perhaps more work is waiting to be done as we will revisit this energy in an upcoming post on September 1st.

Time has also been a great teacher this year, pain has been a great teacher and so has been the isolation and the experiences I have encountered, along with the choices and decisions executed this year. It can be maddening at times, but it is a test of times. A test of how I process these experiences under extreme circumstances, a test of who remains in the end, what I shed and no longer give importance to, and how I form new beliefs. It’s a time picked by me and chosen carefully. Everything falls to the wayside that does not support this journey.

If I had to sum it up in a few sentences I would say that the dark night of the soul has brought me face to face with myself. It allowed me to process and discover the layers to myself that I have experienced so far. It has brought me face to face with my past and my upbringing to learn and understand who I am. My times of struggle have shown me that times can be very lonely since everyone needs you to be that upbeat person, the one to look up to, the one you have something to gain from. It also has shown me that our Motto’s a time have to be selfish and nobody is in a position to take on additional issues, especially if it’s not theirs to carry.

The closet door has been unlocked and the skeletons have been freed. Through the process I have come to love myself and don’t act from a place of not tolerating certain things anymore, but from a place of a higher self worth. Time is limited and we better not waste a moment of it. The dark night of the soul sounds intimidating and scary, but it can also be one of the most freeing and worthwhile times in our life. I am grateful for this time and no matter how painful some of these experiences have been, I wouldn’t change a thing and do it all over again vs. sitting there comfortably, numb, lost, alive but not living. Maybe this post brings a sense of familiarity to you, as you recognize your own journey. Know that it cant be rushed, let’s just hope it doesn’t last for years. And if it does, then I say it is due to being beyond profound and special, and may you never seize to see the lessons and your growth in the process of it.

In light and love, always

“The story of my life”

Have you ever heard someone referring to an unfortunate event with the saying “it’s the story of my life?” This phrase seems to fit only the hardships and I don’t recall anyone ever using it while something positive has happened to them. It’s quite the opposite, and it’s always referring to something negative, to something bad that is filled with emotions and pain. It’s a bad thing that has happened frequently and sometimes it’s used in a humorous context, even though we brace ourselves and have come to believe that we attract these circumstances. That pain and darkness is ours but luck and good fortune is not. We use “the story of my life” to lament the fact that a particular misfortune is about to happen, or has happened already. It’s about something you have experienced many times, something you know all too well.

On the contrary nobody has ever shouted from the rooftop of how lucky and blessed they are, or have they? I wonder if this would be deemed as acceptable behavior or would we think that the poor soul must have gone bonkers! Would we shake our head in disbelief or would we feel jealous and envious, secretly wishing that we could the same? Or would it fuel the gossip mill and give us something to talk about, unable to relate and therefore easily deemed as foreign behavior? Could we celebrate and be happy with that person, the one that is different from us and would our compassion meter have enough to share with another besides ourselves?

With certainty it is not the norm to hear someone proclaim such a statement and maybe it is an invitation for us to count our blessings and DO shout it from the rooftop or wherever else with gusto and every inch of our being. Maybe it is an opportunity to commit and try it for ourselves. What we’ve been programmed to assume when someone uses this phrase is someone soaking wet, caught in a heavy downpour at the worst possible timing, as if one thing has lead to another, in defeat, and because “when it rains it pours.”

What about if we looked at “the story of our life” through a different lens! How would you describe the story of your life? What would it entail? What have you come to expect when it comes to your own chapters? Is pain a big part of the story?

Eternal Spirits

Photo: Alexander Sviridov

I asked an elderly man once what it was like to be old and to know the majority of his life was behind him. He told me that he had been the same age his entire life. He said the voice inside of his head had never aged. He has always just been the same boy. His mother’s son. He had always wondered when he would grow up and be an old man. He said he watched his body age and his faculties dull but the person he is inside never got tired. Never aged. Never changed. Our spirits are eternal. Our souls are forever. The next time you encounter an elderly person, look at them and know they are still a child, just as you are still a child and children will always need love, attention and purpose.

~Unknown 💙

The next step – Soul work

Inspired and quoted in part by the book Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin

The steps seem to always have fallen in place for me. Perhaps they have always been there. What changed is that I learned to see the signs and eagerly embrace a willingness to learn more. Books, quotes, oracle cards and animal messengers have always found a way to guide me onto the next thing, just waiting to be discovered as the student moved along. Throughout it I have encountered ancestral trauma healing, inner child healing, addressing trauma bonds and shadow work – facing the darkest aspects of myself, energy healing, herbalism, Shamanism and journeying to different roams. Each a powerful tool, bringing more wisdom and knowledge on this journey of finding my authentic self. I have left behind a life of comfort, a predictable life and I find myself amidst the unknown. And it feels good to just embrace the moment, one day at a time, neither controlling it, nor having all the answers and possible outcomes.

In the western world, many are called but few respond. Entry into the life of the soul demands a steep price. This is my soul journey.

Soul work requires the surrender of control and predictability. To go on a soul journey you have to leave your home, your familiar surroundings, the predictable life. Your ego must be shocked or shifted in avoided the extracts you from your surface life.

We each must undertake the journey of descent if we are to heal ourselves at the deepest levels and reach our full and authentic adulthood. To acknowledge that there are powerful and dangerous beings in the underworld who are not particular friendly or attractive, and that we are forever changed by the experience.

In order to heal at the soul level and take a spiritual journey it is not a matter of ascending towards the light into the heavens, but a matter of descending into the darkness and facing the unknown and often feared.

Mastering your Soul System – The foundation for your brilliant life

Picture credit: Google

In a few recent posts I have quoted a book from Danielle MaxKinnon called Soul Contracts. We have talked about the importance of a support network and covered root belief systems, seed thoughts, as well as discordant emotions. Today we explore a little more and learn how it all comes to be. Why our experiences form the emotions we feel and ultimately shape us into who we are. Why we react a certain way, and why we carry this deeply rooted trauma within our soul.

Here is a short summary of what we covered already to re-familiarize and refresh ourselves.

Seed thoughts: this is an original thought you had about yourself, (usually accompanied by intense negative emotions called discordant emotions) that you planted in your soul rather than experiencing it and growing.

Discordant emotions: these are the intensely negative emotions you were feeling at the time you embedded your seed thought within your soul. These emotions are embedded with your seed thought, which is why you continue to re-experience them as an adult until you release them.

Root belief system: A root belief system is comprised of seed thoughts and their attached soul contracts. In a soul system, you can have several different route belief systems.

So what is a Soul System and why is it important to understand and master it? Your soul system is made up of your soul, your connection to source and protection by the universe, unconditional love, and your perception, as well as any root belief system you have created. Your root beliefs are your morales, principles, thoughts, feelings, what you believe in and what is important to you. Keep in mind that we often to find our own values and what we come to believe in until much later in life, and most of our values and principles have been passed on to us from our parents, not necessarily fitting us. Usually we don’t learn this until we question the status quo (if and when) until we dare to take that first step and find the courage to take a deeper look.

Here is what MacKinnon says is the soul system foundation for your brilliant life:

Your soul is the beautiful, brilliant, and unconscious energy within you, connected yet amorphous. In a healthy soul system, your soul drives your decisions, how you feel about yourself, and how you perceive the world. When you learn to access your soul, you come to realize that:

You are safe

You deserve to be happy

You are loved

You can feel satisfied

You can be stimulated by your life and live with passion

You can wake up and live your life every day

You can be abundant, wealthy, and supported

You are a good, whole, healthy person

When our soul system is unhealthy, we hide these truths from ourselves, unknowingly denying ourselves real happiness and success.

A healthy soul system comprises three main parts:

1. Your soul. Your soul is the essence of your being and the foundation of your existence here on earth.

2. Your connection to source-to the universe. With this connection in place and it’s pathway cleared, your intuition balances with your logical mind perfectly.

3. The living desire to help you see, hear, breathe, experience, and know the unconditional love that exits within all of us, and very day.

Accessing your brilliance is easy and an every day occurrence in a healthy soul system. A soul system becomes unhealthy when it has at least one root belief system. Remember that a root belief system carries your negative experiences, emotions, and perceptions. Carrying a root belief system within your soul system blocks the energy to your soul, which ultimately prevents you from accessing your brilliance. It then causes more negative emotions in the form of unhappiness, failure, sadness, depression, anger, and negativity. One of the fascinating things is that you can influence your soul system consciously and unconsciously through very strong emotions, such as love, fear, and insecurities.

Our first step is to build our foundation. To make our own personal energy strong and clear, to develop the ability to make superior decisions. To identify and face these seed thoughts and discordant emotions to determine and locate our blockages. I hope this sheds a little more light and helps you in the process of determining the health of your soul system. Once you know if your soul system is healthy or unhealthy, and you have identified the weak links, you are ready to do the work and strengthen your foundation.

Never alone

The reason old souls enjoy spending time alone, is because they never really are.

When souls meet

When soul meets soul, magic happens. Presence falls away. One becomes authentic.

When soul meets soul, it is more of an energetic exchange, for one is now reading the other, at energetic soul level, for the soul is pure energy.

All that is left, is pure, unconditional love. Live without condition. Live that just openly loves and accepts all as it is.

Love that loves. ❤️

You beautiful, brave soul

Picture taken from Pinterest

Dear brave one,

Your heart has been broken a thousands of times. You carry the scars of the past on your beautiful body, but many are often visible only to yourself. It is your love and passion that holds you together like sticky glue and prevents you from falling apart completely. You are unique, unapologetic, a beautiful mess of perfectly imperfect perfection, a warrior and a wild child, searching for a place to breathe, a sanctuary where you can just be.

Are you asking too much you wonder? Are your dreams fueled with the desires of your passion unrealistic and too far fetched? Is it all just wishful thinking, made up of the stories that only exist in fairytales?

Let me tell you that you are perfect in every way. You are not too emotional and you are not too sensitive. The strings of your emotions are pulled by bittersweet memories. A past that has taught you many lessons, but a past that is not your future, and a past that has definitely not defined you.

I know your heart is constantly at war with all of your emotions, each one fighting to be dominant. In confusion it distorts your reality to the point where everything becomes questionable. You put forward your best foot in a fight between the ego that rules your thoughts, and the heart that begs you to take a leap of faith and just trust the process. But you are stuck on repeat in this vicious cycle that never seems to have any answers, a hamster wheel that has you coming back over and over, to peddle faster and faster to not fall off. Time passes, perhaps even years go by as you grow weary and tired. What you would give for the noise to stop, to make it all go away, but still you haven’t managed to stop feeling. You find yourself amidst the never ending circle of an empath, ruled by so many feelings and outside influences.

You know the pains of such when you pick up on the energies of others. You feel when they’re happy, sad, angry, fake, and truthful. Without a spoken word, you know when they are using you and when they are being genuine.

You are not weak. You’re gifted with the ability of heightened intuition. It is said that it can be a blessing and a curse until you learn to protect yourself and surround yourself with those that bring out the best in you and not the stress in you.

Your anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of, and you carry a load much heavier than most. It’s a reminder that you have the gift of empathy. Not many possess this rare treat because it takes a special kind of individual to be as genuinely compassionate as you are. Your kindness is your strengths, not your weakness. Your open heart is love incarnate, and one of the most beautiful things in this world. Accept your blessings and own who you are. You have a beautiful, brave soul.