I find listening to certain songs on repeat to be very therapeutic. I always have. Listening to it over and over until every emotion the song exposes has been purged and used the way it should be. It's this repetition that allows me to heal. For the last few days, my immersion song has been the one below.
Give it a listen. Maybe it will help you process your emotions too...
Peace and love...xoxoxo
"WHEN YOUR LOVE IS NOT JUST A DESIRE FOR THE OTHER, WHEN YOUR LOVE IS NOT ONLY A NEED, WHEN YOUR LOVE IS A SHARING, WHEN YOUR LOVE IS NOT THAT OF A BEGGAR BUT AN EMPEROR, WHEN YOUR LOVE IS NOT ASKING FOR SOMETHING IN RETURN BUT IS READY ONLY TO GIVE – TO GIVE FOR THE SHEER JOY OF GIVING – THEN ADD MEDITATION TO IT AND THE PURE FRAGRANCE IS RELEASED. THAT IS COMPASSION; COMPASSION IS THE HIGHEST PHENOMENON." – OSHO
To love this way takes great wisdom, great trust, and great meditation. Music, to me, can be quite meditative. On Mondays, we listen, we sit, we get clear, and we give love. Let's meditate together to Monday Melodies.
Peace and love...xo
From this month's Rock and Roll Yogini newsletter...
Joseph Campbell really knew what he was saying when he said, "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
There have been so many times in my life that I have had to do just that. And it is never without some resistance. It can be scary to start over or to walk down a new path. However, each experience prepares us for the next. When we are open and trust our hearts to guide us in the right direction we will never veer off path. It is all a part of the process.
That said, my process is leading me to enter graduate school. This month, as a result of the combination of having tea with a friend and being inspired by Ashley Turner and her Yoga Psychology movement, I will begin the Counseling Psychology Masters program at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
I am so excited to begin this journey. It is exactly the tool I need to continue the powerful work I am doing.
As a society, we are so afraid to be vulnerable, to feel, to let others see us feel. And, while this is shifting in ways, it has become almost taboo to say, "I'm not okay."
We are supposed to maintain the sunny demeanor of being a lightmaker at all times. The thing about being a lightmaker is that we've processed buckets full of darkness to get to that light. We have gone into the abyss and extracted our treasure. It is through that process that we are able to alchemize our pain into light. It is through that process that we shine.
This is a lengthy process, one that requires bravery, honesty, and the ability to stand alone in our authentic truth while we learn to use our deepest wounds to create beauty and light and love. This is a process that is not for the faint of heart. This is not for the ones who settle or latch on out of need. This process asks you to rise in love, to allow your greatest self to blossom.
It is with great gratitude and reverence that I am entering this graduate program. My wish is to help to heal our fear of emotion. My wish is to hold space for authentic healing of our hearts. And, while I am doing this now, I want to have the most tools available to me. I want to guide those who fear the beating and feeling of their own hearts to a place where they feel comfortable allowing themselves to heal and to love and to trust the beauty of their own emotional power.
And so, a new adventure begins...
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
Yarrow Kae
How about a little Monday Melodies for Humpday Heals on the brink of becoming Thursday?
It works, right?
It's been quite the year, that's for sure, and now I am embarking on a journey I never saw myself going on. I'm going back to school, but it is not as an escape or out of confusion. I am adding a degree to my tool box that will more completely enhance the work I am already doing.
Today, if you are confused about what you are doing in your life, write down a list of all the careers you are interested in then uncover the common theme in all of them and follow that theme to the one or combination that sets your heart on fire!!!
It took me years to get to here, and nothing has ever felt so right. The teaching, the Reiki healing, and now the counseling degree. I've taken a windy path to get back to the same place I was in when I was 18 and my mom and I went to speak to the head of the counseling department at HSU. But, I'm not actually in the same place at all and without those twists and turns I wouldn't be as ready and as certain as I am now.
Peace and love...xoxoxo
On this day, I will sit in the quiet knowing, letting all other opinions fade away. Quell my ego's concern about what others think and sit, in silence, in the quiet knowing of my own soul.
It's harder, to sit and know and understand. It's harder to be and to believe and to love than it is to fret and worry and try to control.
It's harder to be honest and authentic than it is to play games and create allusions.
It's harder to just be and to trust.
It's harder when we allow the quiet knowing to become the louder voice, the one that drives us forward. It's harder to break the habit of running wild on the hamster wheel of our minds.
It's harder to trust the beating of our own intuition. That beautiful voice whispering in our ear the truth we may or may not want to hear.
It's harder to let our spirit animal roam free.
Than it is to fall victim to the brutality of our fear-driven minds. It's harder to sit, still, and let the quiet knowing wash over us until all we can do is believe. And, though it may be harder to believe and to trust enough to live from our soul it's even harder not to.
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
"Mankind lacks the capacity to recognize the difference between truth and falsehood."
Truth, being honest, especially with ourselves, is hard! Delusion is a strong drug. It preys on our greatest weakness injecting its fear into our veins.
Being honest takes great courage. As we travel through this life we each come to places where we struggle and have to let go or struggle and have to work through. And it is up to us to be honest with ourselves about the direction we need to take.
Two years ago, after ten years of writing fiction, I lay in the grass in Central Park. I looked up at the sky and said, "I just want to help people heal."
It was on that day that I had to let go of the years and years I'd spent in front of the computer toiling over characters, plot lines, and words. It was simply that I didn't want to do it anymore. And because of that I had to make a choice---continue doing something, out of obligation, that I no longer felt in my heart or let go and embrace the truth of what my heart sang.
Strangely, once I was able to be honest with myself I was able to fairly easily let go. It felt natural, as though there really was no other option. When life flows we know we have stepped onto the right path. And when an obstacle presents itself it is up to us to be honest with ourselves about the best approach to take in removing, dissolving, or charging through it, making room for life to flow smoothly once again.
The key here is honesty, with yourself and with others, admitting the hard truths that catalyze change. It is in those times when life expands and blossoms.
As The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer says, "I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul."
So often we betray our own souls. We do what we "think" we need to do rather than what our soul screams. It's time we listen to the scream of our souls. It's time we allow honesty to reign, most importantly, that we are honest with ourselves.
I challenge you to write out one thing you have been denying, put it on paper, read it back to yourself, and notice how the truth just sounds different. Allow the truth of your soul to be heard.
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
Good Morning! As we are making our way through the shadow phase of mercury retrograde, I'm reflecting and ruminating on what has been and what is to come to the tune of this playlist. Enjoy!
Peace and love...xoxoxo
Today, one of my favorite students gave me the book "How To Relax" by Thich Nhat Hanh. His plan was not to give it to me. In fact, he prefaced his story with, "I am not giving you this book, but I want to share the story with you."
After he shared his story and read the passage to me I said, "I need that."
To which he replied, "It's yours."
I had not intended for him to hand it over and, yet, I couldn't resist, gracefully, accepting his gift. With the book in my hand I said, "I'll read it in class."
The passages reads,
RESTING
Whenever animals in the forest are wounded, they rest. They look for a very quiet place and just stay there without moving for many days. They know it's the best way for their body to heal. During this time they may not even eat or drink. The wisdom of stopping and healing is still alive in animals, but we human beings have lost the capacity to rest.
THIS!
It's so true. And, not only have we lost the capacity to rest, but we have lost the capacity to heal. We seek an external fix for an internal problem at all turns. Whether it's an emotional issue like a break-up or a common cold we want a quick easy fix for the pain. Immediate relief. We don't know how to listen to the pain or how to stop, go inside and rest so that we can heal. We have lost the capacity to allow the wisdom of our souls to unfold.
Through becoming civilized we have allowed the mind to overtake us, causing us to lose touch with our intuition and as such we have lost the capacity to rest and by losing the capacity to rest we have lost the capacity to heal.
It's time that we reclaim our right to be wounded. We all have wounds inside of us that need rest and healing. It is so important, crucial really, that are able to give our wounds the space and love they deserve, that we take the time to breathe and to be and to heal.
It's only when we heal that we are able to love. I am speaking about real, authentic love. Love that allows space and freedom and isn't based on need. Love that accepts another as he is and understands how to let him breathe. When we heal, we learn how to let ourselves breathe and then we are able to let our love breathe too.
Accept your wounds, give them the spaciousness they deserve, and allow yourself to heal. When you do, magic will unfold.
A little late is better than never. I was in LA last week, and the beach kept me hostage during all spare moments when I wasn't in my Yoga Psychology teacher training!
The other day a man who is dear to me said, "You have roots here."
I had never thought of myself as someone who has roots anywhere. I feared commitment, feared being trapped, didn't want to stunt myself from being free. But, when he said that, I liked it, for I had been growing roots.
I never understood this concept, growing roots, creating home--foreign concepts to me. And then, this year as I was studying more about the chakras, I realized how important it is for me to heal my 1st chakra and to grow roots. It was only by growing roots, creating home that I would be able to accomplish the work I want to in this material world.
I'd always been so connected to the spiritual world, the place where I could connect to my higher self, but the material world, though I enjoyed its luxuries, I often neglected it. I was in my head, in the clouds, daydreaming. And then last year, I realized that I would always feel ungrounded unless I committed to me and grew roots.
And, now, here I am with my roots in the ground and my dreams coming into view.
It takes courage to commit. It takes courage to grow roots. It also takes courage to let go. It takes courage to be true to one's self no matter how it effects another. And that's the balance, being able to grow roots without losing a sense of freedom.
So, my question for you--have you had the courage to commit and to grow roots? Or, are you bouncing from one thing to the next uncertain what you're doing and afraid to put your heart on the line?
Suggestion: Sit in meditation, let the clarity of who you are and what you want come forward and then go for it, put your whole heart on the line! Have the courage to commit to something! Have the courage to believe in yourself! Have the courage to let yourself shine!
Conversely, are you holding onto a life that is no longer yours for fear of what letting go might look like?
Suggestion: Sit in meditation, let the clarity of who you are and what you want come forward and then take action. Have the courage to let go! Have the courage to have the hard conversations and to move forward! Have the courage to honor your growth. One of the most courageous acts we can take is recognizing when a previous life no longer fits us, shed that skin, allow yourself the gift of change, the gift of growth!
Peace and love...xoxoxo
LA feels! I am not one who rushes off a plane and straight into a yoga class. Usually, I want to eat, rest, indulge a bit, but last night I was fully being called to the mat. And, I'm so glad I listened! A big thank you to The Yoga Collective in Venice, especially my beautiful teacher Alex Westmore, for giving me exactly what my soul needed!
Now, let's breathe to the beats...
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
The other day while I was in my lovely friend's class she gave a dharma talk about Noble Silence. This was the first time I'd ever heard of Noble Silence, and I loved the two words together. There is something so gentle and embracing about it-- Noble Silence. Mmmmm. Makes me think of laying on my back in a pile of fluffy pillows while angels flutter above me and kittens purr in my ears to the tune of Tibetan sound bowls.
When I got home I got on the Google and discovered that Noble Silence is a term attributed to the Buddha.
Deep healing and transformation comes from silence, from the ability to be silent. This was not always a state I could exist in. And it is only very recently that I am becoming conscious enough to build boundaries against draining my power with wrong speech.
What she said was even more powerful. She spoke of keeping your words to yourself so that you are able to tap into your own core, your own center without needing confirmation or validation from anyone else.
This has always been a fault of mine, needing the opinions of others, not trusting my own intuition. I looked for validation about my own feelings. And, when someone disagreed with me I'd argue with them until they saw it my way. As though if they didn't believe what I was saying my intuition was wrong. I was giving all of my power away to other people. I have wasted COUNTLESS hours leaking my energy this way.
It was the uncertainty of situations that lead me to walk down this dark and twisty Labyrinth of emotion. I've had so much fear of the unknown, and my coping mechanism was talking my way through the fear, but the thoughts and feelings were unconscious. I was coming at the problem in fear and anxiety, which was creating more fear and anxiety. I wasn't able to sit in the silence. I couldn't allow for it to have an organic life of its own.
My fear overtook me and I felt that talking about it would make it better. If I could talk about it then I could remove the uncertainty, remove the fear. And yet, it never worked. Yes, if I was confiding in a good friend there was some momentary relief, but I was talking my way around my fears until I was exhausted. I wasn't sitting with the fear, uncovering its root and transforming it.
It took me many years to get to a place where I was able to be in the silence with my feelings, to sit with them, be comfortable with them and to not try and prove them to everyone around me.
But, it is only within the last few weeks that I have really come to a place of strength where I am utilizing boundaries with myself about what comes out of my mouth.
Life is uncertain and we all want to feel safe, so we allow ourselves to seek comfort from other people. And, that's not always bad, but when our speech has gotten away from us, when we are talking our way around issues instead of being with them, understanding them, and trusting the beautiful wisdom of our own souls it is then that we are whoring our words out rather than allowing them to be poetic and musical additions to the world where we live.
This lesson has been a really hard one for me. I have often confided in the wrong people, said too much and given people power they didn't deserve all because I wasn't practicing noble silence. All because I wasn't trusting in the wisdom of my own soul.
We all have the ability to intuitively know. All we have to do is trust. Through practicing noble silence we can more completely surrender to our intuition and the more completely we surrender to our inner voice the more completely we are able to believe that we are being loved and supported on our path.
Sit in silence, trust in that silence, know that your silence is your home and allow your inner guide to lead you to the truth! Most importantly, release the fear around the truth! As the saying goes, the truth will set you free, but first it might piss you off...
Peace and love...xoxoxo
A couple of weeks ago, I went to Soul Camp where I did a breath workshop with Kathleen Booker. During the workshop, as I lay on my back in what I call savasana, I felt my body release into a more relaxed state. As a yogi, I understand how deeply important our breath is, but that doesn't mean I always breathe perfectly.
As gently as a fluttering butterfly, Kathleen moved through the room, lightly touching people to help facilitate the breath. When she came to me, she put her hands on the lower part of my abdomen on the left side, gently shook me, and she whispered, "With ease."
With the touch of her hands and the sound of her voice, I felt a release within as the breath moved through a place that had been stuck, that had been stagnant.
For weeks I'd been having issue in my left hip, and I felt the stagnation of that area. The touch of her hand and the movement of my breath released it, and I breathed deeper. With that breath I melted into the floor, my mind became meditative, and I breathed some more.
With ease is something we forget. We rush, we run, we push, we pull, we overdo, but we forget the ease and the beautiful gentleness of life. I've been guilty of this always. It has only been within the last couple of years that I have begun to embrace the ease of being, And, still, everyday I have to remind myself. It's not in my nature. I dwell and overthink, but when I let my breath flow, when I let go, when I allow, when I breathe for ease I release, I relax, and I let go.
I challenge you to take a few moments today to lie on your floor (I love lying on the floor) and breathe. Witness what happens as you let yourself melt into the ground. Maybe bring your left hand to your heart and your right and to your stomach and feel yourself breathe. Let the breath calm you, relax you. Let the breath fill your heart. Let yourself feel the ease.
Peace and love...xoxoxo
Happy Monday Morning! This week's playlist is a kinda all over the place, but that's how I felt last week. Mercury retrograde has really gotten me this time!
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
Yesterday, as I scrolled through Instagram, I came to Jennifer Kass's page where she said that her first water color post read "Happiness is a choice" then she wrote, I was wrong. Happiness is not a choice; happiness is a natural and profound feeling on the other side of allowing all of our painful emotions."
As I read her words, I was transported back to my cheerleading days and felt as though she had scored the winning touchdown. All I could think was , "THIS!!! SO MUCH OF THIS!!!"
She is so right and I have always believed this too, but we get fed this idea that happiness is a choice, as though we have the ability to flip the joy switch on. In my younger more tortured days when people would speak a version of this to me it would infuriate me. I had so much pain, and yes, by most standards I was living an extremely privileged life, but that didn't take away from the turmoil sweeping through me on a daily basis.
As I developed a yoga and meditation practice, I began to experience breath and ease in a different way. I could feel a lightness, a joy, happiness. but that feeling came authentically from many hours of self study, and even more hours of tasting my tears.
As my practices went deeper, I was hit by lesson after lesson and tears continued to flow. The more I increased my consciousness the clearer my lessons became. And then, one day, I surrendered and since that day I have been surrendering every minute of every day and then I surrender some more. It is through surrender that I am able to accept and release and feel joy. But, this is in no way an easy process.
For a girl who was such a control freak that the way I set down my bobby pins determined the outcome of my day, surrendering was not my natural state. But, once I stopped trying to drive the bus, once I let my life unravel, everything began to make more sense and I was able to breathe more easily.
As a society, we are consumed by happiness. We search relentlessly for external stimulus to make us "happy," only to feel empty and searching for more. It is only by going through that we get to the other side. It is only by accepting our pain, getting acquainted with it, and ultimately using to to create that we become joyful.
Happiness may not be a choice, but how we process life is a choice and how we process life will determine our joy or our pain, our resentment or our forgiveness, our anger or our freedom, our fear or our love.
It's taken me a many years to understand that I choose whether or not I attach to the pain or I move through it, release it, and use it to create. It's sometimes easier to attach to it, for what's on the other side, that freedom, can feel very big and very scary.
As much as we are seeking to happiness and joy we get very comfortable in the discomfort. It's time we choose differently. It's time we choose to be brave enough to face our decisions of the past and allow them to fuel our future. It's time that we have the courage to change, that we have the courage to let go, that we have the courage to love and to be free. It's time we have the courage to allow life to unravel so that we can be happy...
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
Happy beginnings of the change of seasons. As we slip into fall, I invite you to join me on Wednesdays for Humpday Heals, a series of blog posts designed to add healing into your everyday life.
Yesterday, I went to tea with a friend. Someone who I hadn't seen in quite some time, and a friend who I haven't spent a ton of time with outside of the yoga room, but a wonderful kindred spirit who it brings me great pleasure to chat with. As I walked away from my tea, my heart felt open and happy, bathed in a freshness that can only come from good conversation with a warm spirit. Later in the day, she texted me an insight from our conversation and it gave me a chance to deeply reflect on a very important facet of my life that I didn't realize I was confused about. Her perspective gave me clarity.
In this world, where we are so busy, it's easy to let people fall through the cracks. Some are meant to, but there are others that it is important we make time for.
So often, we stay connected via social media, but there is such a difference when we look into someone's eyes, feel their energy permeating from them-- when we are able to be and breathe and exchange love with another person, in the flesh. It allows us to feel that connection to ourselves even more completely.
Also, when we express ourselves to people outside of our normal circle, we learn about ourselves and where we are at in our lives. They may reflect something back to us that we don't realize we are projecting and it allows for us to more completely own how we feel. When we speak to the same people everyday, all the time, and they know us and think as we do, it can be very limiting. But, when we expand and allow new perspectives and ideas to unfold it gives us the chance us to blossom even more completely, for it challenges us to own our power and to stand in the center of who we are.
So, in today's Humpday Heals, I challenge you to take the time to get a tea with someone who you may not see very often, but a friend who you feel connected to and who you want to connect with. It may surprise you what you'll uncover...
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
Yarrow Kae
Happy Labor Day and Monday Morning!
On Mondays, we dance. From here on, every Monday, I will be posting my latest playlist. After all, what better day to indulge in some tunes that make our hearts soar.
" Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life." Ludwig van Beethoven
Peace and Love...xo
Yarrow Kae
"I feel there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." Vincent Van Gogh
A friend of mine posted this on her Instagram today. And, well, YES! Simply, YES!!!
Not last Christmas, but the one before my mom and I went to MOMA. All in all a great visit with the exception of the floor where Van Gogh's, Starry Night, lives. Mobs of people hovered around the painting taking pictures with their phones. No one was breathing in the beauty of this exquisite work. It was all about snapping the photo and then pushing through the crowds and onto the next thing.
I stood at the back of the room watching the scene for a while. All one needs to do is google the painting and thousands of photos will come up on the screen. I couldn't understand why pushing one's way through a crowd to snap a photo on a phone and then pushing back through was worth it. I had seen the painting before, so I didn't feel the need to fight the crowds and I certainly didn't feel the need for a cell phone shot of it. I'm certain this is not how Van Gogh wished for his work to be admired. Art, in any form, needs to be breathed with, so that it can breathe with you.
When I read this quote all I could think of was this moment and the disconnected connection we have built through the use of technology. In many ways we are more connected, but in so many other ways it isolates us. There are many google searchable articles about this, so I will not delve too deeply here, but when I read Van Gogh's words, "I feel there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
All I could think was, "And, this is a lost artform." Then I thought, "Or, was it ever a fully developed one?
Love has so many meanings and signifies so many things, but to truly love people is one of the rarest things in the world. To truly love ourselves is one of the rarest things in the world.
Take a moment, sit in silence with how you feel about the "ones you love." What comes up for you? Where is the love? How does it feel? Do you express it? Why do you love? What does love mean to you?
Love is so many things, but at its simplest and purest love is accepting another and letting them be free. Love is giving without expecting in return. Love is being strong enough to take care of you first. Love is allowing and letting and creating. Love is beauty. Love is life. Love is breathing and letting go. Love is weaving your soul into the world and being okay with whatever comes back in return. Love is...
We have lost the meaning of what it is to love, or maybe we are just now beginning to understand it.
In this day, when we have sex available at the swipe of a screen, it is so important that we sit with ourselves, that we love ourselves enough to know when we love another and let another love us too. To be patient and kind and trust our gut. To be honest with ourselves and understand the whys of our relationships.
It is time that we create unions based on love, not on need or loneliness or lust or business, but truly having the courage to love, deeply and fully and be okay with the vulnerability love will expose. It is time for us to have the courage to give and receive love. To be brave enough to be the most important artists of our time and let love be our guide.
Peace and love...xoxoxo
Yarrow
Inside of me lives a nasty critic. And, she is by far more critical of myself than she is anyone else, yet she also has this talented gift for making the most incredible excuses for me. Over the years, through my yoga and meditation practices, I have tamed her, but there are moments when she peaks through and I have to reason with her until she hides away again.
It's easy to be a critic. It's much harder to take the risk and put yourself out in the world, to give yourself permission to shine rather than sit behind the screen and nitpick and compare.
We are all meant to shine, but it takes a special bravery to allow ourselves to do so. We get scared and want to hide behind our varying different numbing mechanisms-- be them, eating, drinking, drugging, television watching, social media obsessing, relationships...the list goes on and on. We take the beautiful light that we are and we dim it until we are unrecognizable.
Per the recommendation of a friend, I am reading the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. The book lays out the ways in which we sabotage ourselves from living in our Zone of Genius, as Mr. Hendricks calls it. It discusses how we fear being truly happy for long periods of time and tend to sabotage that happiness through varying different ways and for a variety of reasons, all of which stem from fear.
Fear is this powerful, yet useless emotion that blocks us from really living as the bright and shiny creatures we are meant to be. I spent years hiding in relationships or behind different numbing mechanisms or, even worse, making excuses and thinking I already knew everything. I didn't have the courage or the strength to shine and I criticized those who did. I hid behind excuses and avoided committing to me.
I had moments where I would shine but when my world would shift I'd have a difficult time following the change and I'd shrink again. And then I'd shine and shrink and shine and shrink. I thought too much and analyzed too deeply.
Within the last few years, I finally began saying yes to life and life began saying yes back. I had the courage to commit to myself, which was one of my biggest issues, my inability to commit, not to others, but to myself. When that became clear life blossomed.
When we have the courage to let go of our bullshit and sit, in silence, with ourselves that is when we begin to heal and when we begin to heal, truly heal we can get clear about who we are and what our unique purpose is and then we are able to give that back to the world. And when we shine we allow others to shine too. When we commit to our purpose and to the beauty of our soul life sings our unique song and allows us to dance to our unique tune.
Be brave. Dream Big. Commit to yourself. And, let go...
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
It can be scary to let go of our pain, to move forward and let life blossom. We fear loss. We fear letting ourselves be happy. We fear losing that happiness, but what we give our attention to is what we create. So, when we spend our time fretting and worrying we are creating more fretting and worrying. But, when we spend our time building a strong foundation of love, trust, and security we are growing roots to allow ourselves to blossom in ways we never believed possible.
I have been guilty of gripping onto pain, obsessing and creating stories around it, keeping myself small inside of it. I reveled in my tortured spirit, and in my teen years I would often binge-drink in order to avoid dealing with the stew of pain brewing inside of me. And then one beautiful night I stepped foot onto the dance floor at a rave and it was there that I found God.
This may sound strange, finding God at a rave, but it was the drum beat--the bass line--that penetrated inside; it allowed me to get to the center of my core and, by dancing my way through those dirty warehouses, I began the process of becoming meditative. It was in that space that I started to strip away the ways I'd been hiding from my pain, which meant that I had to face my pain.
In my sober state, without any hiding or numbing mechanisms, I created systems I believed kept me safe. I'd line my bobby pins perfectly, close my make-up bag just right, flip the light switches a certain number of times etc.. If I could maintain the perfection of these routines I felt I could keep life from changing, but what I didn't realize is life wasn't really that great anyway and the only constant in life is change.
Change was scary to me, so scary. I didn't know what was on the other side. I attached and had difficulty letting go. So I wove myself into cages that inevitably I'd always have to break free from. And then the cycle would begin all over again. And it was in these systems that I thought I had created the perfect system to keep me from loss, to keep me from pain. But, the pain was already there. It lurked inside of me and it had to be used. I had to transform it into a thing of beauty.
On that dance floor, I felt God and from that moment forward every action contributed to my healing. Every moment since has been a process of learning to alchemize my pain into light.
It takes time and discipline and patience to transform our pain, but it is necessary. It is through the use of our darkness that we are able to shine bright, which enables others to shine bright as well.
We are always growing. We are always changing. And it is through action that we are able to move forward, that we are able to manifest the greatest versions of who we are into the world. This is not easy.
At their worst, our minds create so much fear, but once we harness them and train them to use that fear for the good, it is then that our fear becomes love. And then we are living, truly living, not merely existing and hiding, but embracing the beauty of what life is.
Peace and Love...xoxoxo
