Intend with care...you just might receive it

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

I have written and spoken about in my podcast recently that my intention is to live from my heart/soul. This path has been evolving over the past, 6-7 years or maybe longer…in some ways much longer. Only in the past year or two have I been directly intending to live from the heart/soul. This has made a huge difference….it has destabilised my life. I shouldn't be surprised because that is what happens when you ask for change and receive it.

When you want change, something has to change and letting go of the familiar even when it is painful and unhelpful is never easy. As the new often feels scarier than the known familiar pain. It is similar for faulty patterns as it is for addictions etc. I imagine. If it was easy we all would have done it.

Most people want change but the prospect of feeling worse for a while, as the old patterns are replaced by the new is too much. At least until it is realised the pain of staying as we are limited by these patterns is worse than the pain of changing by facing them and integrating them.I am at this point….

So I acknowledge myself and any others who make the intention and stay despite the seeming tsunami of pain, fear, sadness, anger and any other maladapted coping mechanisms that suddenly rise up to defend their existence. For this is what change entails….the recognition of our coping strategies and the shadow parts of ourselves. These parts all rise up to defend themselves and it is easy to fall back in line as these patterns are often so deeply ingrained. They are unconscious on many levels, until we bring them to light. Witness them, feel them and allow them to be integrated.

Six or seven years ago, I recall lying in bed early in the mornings before getting up for running training. I would do some mindfulness meditation,breathwork and some yoga style exercises and as I lay there I began intending to know what true health is. Back then I thought maybe if I used visualisation or imagined white light, a healing would occur. I knew western medicine and techniques had their place (still do) but were NOT the full picture. It was good at keeping us alive but never investigated root causes very well or even acknowledged alternative health practices or energy medicine etc….I wanted to know how people attained a ‘true healing’. Why did some have ‘spontaneous remissions’ or suffer terrible injuries yet overcome them to achieve amazing things, while others were caught trapped in often chronic cycles of pain, illness and dysfunction? What was the secret to the first group? I wanted the answer for myself AND to assist others in learning this. This was my starting place.

Since then I have learned a lot. There really is a lot of evidence and research out there, even though so many of my colleagues in more traditional western style medicine discount it. This blows my mind because by having an open mind I have learned a lot and it is fascinating. Sometimes it seems so simple in theory but in practice it is more difficult. Some things seem so esoteric but often have research and science to explain them…remember science is always playing catch up. It asks questions of things it doesn’t know and is always changing as a result of the answers. It has limitations also, but is needed to validate claims. I always remember that the observer influences the results of experiments, so keep an open mind, as a closed one will only prove to yourself that you were right, but it maybe observer bias. So I attempt to keep an open mind, with discernment. Reminds me of the Henry Ford quote - “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't – you're right,”

Before I delve into my story of week, I will briefly summarise a large topic, from my point of view. True health in a nutshell comes from within us all. Our bodies have the ability to heal themselves BUT they may also require assistance from other modalities & practitioners, including traditional western modalities. True health requires a regulated nervous system to operate predominantly within a person so the innate healing system can function as intended, but many things block its efficiency, including our erroneous beliefs about our bodies and ourselves. True health requires intention and attention and a connection to ourselves. Modalities are required to assist and catalyse healing but modalities and practitioners are usually not the reason for healing. Although the higher the consciousness of the practitioner the higher level of healing available to the client. High energy/consciousness can lift another up so they can access these higher states themselves and just the memory of having done it once can be enough to stimulate us to be able to do this for ourselves. (Think of learning to ride a bike, we need training wheels, then maybe some physical guidance and eventually - we ride ourselves.) This is the nutshell….

As I have evolved I realised re-connecting with my SELF was vital and learning how to release all that blocks this has been what I have been attempting to master in recent years. I also do yoga, eat healthily, exercise, meditate and read and listen to inspiring people further along my path, who are paving a way for me. I have had therapy to explore areas in more depth and to be held in a safe space and higher consciousness.

So, in the past year or two, I realised that integrating my unprocessed emotions, discovering and surrendering my faulty beliefs (not very easy) and developing my inner strengths by a variety of methods, have been assisting me to get closer to my true SELF…I know it is a process and can take a lifetime/s, but each time we integrate something we not only help ourselves, we contribute to the collective and help the collective consciousness of humanity & raise everyone up. When I began intending to live from my soul by connecting deeper to myself, the earth and the universe(all-that-is). I knew it meant changes, but even I am surprised by what is happening.

I have been writing that I am in the dark night of the soul. The human equivalent of changing from a caterpillar and waiting to become a butterfly. I am in the chrysalis stage, being deconstructed then reconstituted. It is not fun or pleasant a lot of the time, though some days I do feel incredible peace and calm…only to have the next tsunami of fear, sadness, shame, guilt, terror and anger to sweep through, washing away all remnants of the inner peace. I have to keep reminding myself, I am getting what I asked for….In my moments of inner peace I see progress…then it is washed away again….everything seems so far aways and almost impossible. It challenges my self beliefs….am I really a failure??? Am I really not good enough to do this????

It is scary being in the chrysalis phase, as there is no guarantee that a butterfly will emerge. Some days I feel I will be stuck in this tsunami like metamorphosis for eternity. I have no idea what is outside the chrysalis, I only know I intended to live from my heart/soul and to get there I had to demolish everything that does not support this. I had to identify and dissolve all the faulty patterns, beliefs etc that I had created from trying to stay safe in this world. (We all do it, it is how we learned to survive) Demolision isn’t fun, but I knew it was part of the deal. But knowing it is part of the process and actually living through it are totally different. I am always thinking something looks easy before I start and then I begin and realise it as way harder than it appeared in my imagination….but I digress.

I always knew I grew up in a dysfunctional family, there was a lot of love there, but my parents had so many unresolved issues of their own (it is human). I saw as a child that my father came from a long line of people with similar and even worse issues. He probably was a better version of his ancestors, but still he had issues of alcoholism, mood changes etc. Also my mother’s mother seemed very judgmental and not a happy soul from what I learned from my mother. My mother also was a mix of great wisdom but searing critical judgement - not an easy conflict to resolve as a child.

I knew my parents had affected me (do you think having OCD and anorexia may have been a clue???) and so from my early 20’s I was on a quest to heal myself. Shame (interesting word choice) most research and modalities that we are learning now weren’t around then. Of course there were some timeless wisdom texts but those were hard to find and of course there was no internet back then. This was the 80’s. Louise Hay’s books helped me the most and Shirley MacLaine also held a torch for different ideas, which she was ridiculed for at the time, but I resonated with them and today these ideas are becoming more mainstream and popular- it sucks being an early adopter….so early on the progress for me was slower.

Fast forward a few decades….I was making intentions to live from my heart/soul. I thought I had healed a lot…..but in the past year, especially as I focused the clarity of my intention, the foundations of my life began to crumble (Covid time was a catalyst for rapid change) and in the last few months they collapsed completely.

To the person at the start of this type journey (it isn’t called the road less travelled for nothing), this is terrifying and is often interpreted as signs to go back to the old ways and forget this path and maybe feel sorry for ones self. But I have travelled a long way down the path and know this is me getting what I asked for….I have to allow my faulty foundations to collapse and be replaced with the new modern fully connected and integrated SELF. (Well this is how I interpret it, I am still in the chrysalis remember). It is scary to have your foundations ripped away. I used to easily grab for a safe place before but now those options are gone.I have lots of doubt, fear, terror but at times inner peace. I have to laugh (with compassion for myself) that I naively thought I could change these foundations with just a few minor inconvenient changes…one of my patterns is to control everything and have all the answers to avoid pain…this pattern got exposed and is writhing in agony trying to stay relevant as I write this.

I sometimes want to abandon the mission, because I fear what I don’t know,(and my control patterns fear annihilation) which is on the other side of the chrysalis. But I have read about this process and I see the signs that I am well on my way, but I still want to abandon this at times and run away back to safety and something familiar. Many people do quit at this stage because the familiar, even if it is awful, painful and keeping us miserable, is often preferable than the scary unknown of what may be on the other side of the chrysalis. What is the expression, ‘Better the devil you know’. I feel this a lot at times. But I know I have courage and my courage allows me to take one more step forward, even if I may never leave the chrysalis, even if I fail at this metamorphosis…I allow myself the feeling of fear of failure and step anyway. I step even though the sensations in my chest feel like a massive constriction limiting my ability to take a deep breath and to move my arms. I step because I intend to know what is outside the chrysalis. I step because my safety devices/patterns have dissolved. I am exposed. Vulnerable.

So the whole point of this post today is to discuss how I am receiving what I asked for and living in the scary inner renovations of my life. I can see all my old familiar world crumbling away and blowing into the distance. I know what is happening and yet at times I feel it is all wrong.

I have to reinforce my intention by more conscious connection in my meditations and with my nervous system balancing techniques. I feel I am being asked to leave my doubt behind and trust. So hard for me to trust the universe. (It has assisted me a lot on the past, I have evidence but yet I still fear - maybe it will abandon me this time…yet still I step.) In fact this morning I received in my feed two Youtube shorts from people I admire (one was an old video clip of Louise Hay), stating what I need to do during the middle of the demolition of my self into my SELF. Receiving these two messages this morning I took as a sign from my SELF/universe that I was on the right track and to follow these videos’ advice. So today I have been….I always love receiving signs from the universe. I am always grateful. These signs reinforce my committment to finding my SELF and re-connecting to mySELF. Like anything worth achieving, it is packed with obstacles and challenges. But these forge us into better versions of ourselves. It is never pleasant outside our comfort zone. As Albert Einstein is quoted, ‘'If you've never failed, you've never tried anything new'. I am striving to choose the new.

I know I have gone as far as I can as a caterpillar and the obstacles I face require a totally new approach…so I await the completion of my metamorphosis so I can emerge from the chrysalis and fly over these obstacles and feel proud that I committed to finding my solutions at a different frequency than from where the problems were created…again inspired by a quote from Einstein -“We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.

Who will I become and how will it feel to be who I am on the other side of the chrysalis? Sometimes I get glimpses and strong feelings. It is hard to imagine something that is unfamiliar, but I suspect I will feel more free, more expansive and be filled with more inner peace and joy….I keep stepping…..while patiently waiting to reconstitute inside the chrysallis..nothing like a mixed metaphor:) to end on.