Awakening and healing are a lot like having a baby. Everyone wants to tell you exactly how to do it, yet you really have to listen to yourself, take what others say with some skepticism and spaciousness and allow the emerging being within you do its thing, have its experience and guide you. It might be fast, slow, painful, orgasmic or somehow all of the above and definitely messy, but it is yours. A helping hand, a few guiding words of encouragement, some valuable techniques can be extremely helpful. Occasionally you will need a radical intervention. Sometimes those interventions are too soon, unnecessary or poorly executed.
There is no one way to do this. To awaken, to heal is a path all your own. It often requires more patience, love compassion and space than we have ever given to anything before.
Do not let others dictate your path of awakening and healing.
Many times I have had teachers and mentors who so enthusiastically evangelized their method, process or system above all others as the right, best, fastest way to heal or grow that I have seen myself in my desire to be the best (I know, so much ego), to get it right, to master it, show up, commit, fully understand the methodology, the tradition or system to my eventual detriment.
Parts of the teachings and concepts have been valuable tools or information, yet in my persistent passionate participation, I have often found myself in pain, exhaustion, injury, disillusionment, and suffering. Occasionally veering wildly off course or finding myself heavily invested in something that I really just want to get out of at all costs.
I know a lot of this speaks to one of my life lessons not to push so hard, slow down, trust and listen to myself and my guides and stand for myself no matter what. This also requires me to confront my shadow of wanting to be seen and appreciated in my proficiency and study.
I have always liked to experience things fully. I have operated full force under the banner of ‘go hard or go home’, I suppose drawing for my fairly hardcore Texas upbringing in a highly competitive sports home. I have always pushed myself to my limits and often overdone life to my detriment. In my 20’s this looked like putting myself in danger with drugs, alcohol, and sex while working so hard as an actor, taking on roles in which my physical body was risked doing stunts and fight scenes and doing ‘research’ which actually put my life in danger. Some of these jobs left me with lifelong injuries and pain.
Once I started on my own path of healing and awakening, it often meant overdoing it in other’s modalities and practices, pushing my spiritual and physical limits in other ways. It is not that I didn’t get a lot out of these experiences and teachings, but in some cases, I simply exhausted my body and created energetic deviations in my system in pursuit of mastery at other’s teachings.
In one workshop weekend learning a meditation and mantra practice, I met a woman who was exhibiting the most profound channeling I had ever witnessed. This was early on for me and it was so touching and exciting to see someone so elegantly express what was still so chaotically expressing through me. She gave me some of the best advice that I have, at times, forgotten:
“Sure, take classes and learn from others, but do not let them train out of you what you already are.”
The longer I guide the less I desire to speak in absolutes, to create the conditions in which someone does not feel the freedom to be completely authentic and personally led and instead relying on others to know themselves and their own healing gifts.
I find myself feeling often more angered by the psychics, astrologers, and other seers and readers who tell people things they then hold onto so tightly that they can see no other way of being, who present information in a way that does not empower or leave room for personal exploration and growth.
I ask myself the question of how do I teach specific practices and systems and channel through messages while doing so in a way that actually encourages people to tap into their own inner knowing, guidance, and awareness. Because I know things, I bring things through and I am fucking certain about a lot of things (in the most humble way possible of course).
I also find myself desiring and actually allowing myself to have the simple pleasures that make life worth living instead of pushing myself to the limit to prove to others that their system, technique or lineage really works.
I just don’t have the time or the energy to do that shit anymore. I will still study hard, give of myself and push myself toward growth, but I also hope to bathe myself in a deeper spring of compassion, ease and simplicity than ever before, to allow my unfolding and the unfolding of those I support to happen with a level of grace, radical self-preserving presence and inner guidance that I see is so often missing in many paths.
As healers and lightworkers, I believe we have a responsibility to share what we know, to develop and study systems that work and support people. This has been my focus and commitment for many years. Yet, I also see that these structures and systems must have room to breathe and grow for each one utilizing them. The people that I work with have their own special skills, frequencies and lifetimes of training and personal development that simply needs to be activated and allowed to emerge.
In the end, I believe what we do with our lives should feel good. It should feel supportive, nurturing and dare I say… kind. There might be uncomfortable times of training, deep dives into the shadow, the very real experience of dealing with our sabotaging nature in relation to discipline and devotion, but the overall path that I want to choose is one of expansive presence to my own self and my own expression of magic. This is what I am devoted to bringing out in others.
9 ways that you can follow your instincts on your spiritual path
- Listen to your body. Not all bodies are meant to do the same things at the same rate of development. I have met people who have blown out knees from a Yoga teacher standing on their legs and so many with other pulled muscles, torn tendons and injured joints from being pushed too far too fast or made to hold physical postures for extended periods of time.
- Feel into your past and your energy. Especially in terms of adrenal fatigue. It is real and those that come from high stress or trauma can be showing up with seriously depleted systems that need more rest and nurturing than some teachers suggest. Rest is vital for this path.
- Drop the comparison game. So many of us are in comparison and competition in everything that we do. It is how we were taught to be as children. Especially when we compare ourselves to those that have been on the path for a long time we risk hurting ourselves in some way.
- Trust your gut. If something feels wrong, stop. If you have come from an abusive past, acknowledge that you gut instinct might not always show up for you, in which case, even more self-inquiry and space might be needed for you to feel what is right for you.
- Be willing to ask questions and speak up for yourself. If you are studying with someone that does not allow this, or puts you down, shames you or does this to others this is a huge red flag.
- Be willing to be alone. The best way to get a good feel on if something is right is sometimes to take some space from it. Be willing to slow down, be alone and listen deeply for your own internal guidance.
- If someone is claiming to have the only way, the only path step back… there are many ways to the top of the mountain.
- Remember that you are a sovereign being. You hold the keys to your path. Your teachers, guides and mentors should be ones who open handedly allow for that.
- You got this. You are whole. You are capable. You are a gift to the world. Shine your unique light and you will allow others to shine theirs. In this, we all heal.
If this resonates with you, join me for my next free Masterclass: Join me for The Healers Masterclass.
