It’s true, we ALL suffer from feeling like there’s something missing, or we aren’t good enough, or that we’re lacking in some way…
Certainly, the human part of us can fall into this kind of thinking. Especially when we feel anxious or fearful.
I think it’s helpful to recognize that we encounter feelings of lack or not enough-ness when we either feel separate from the one-ness and disconnected from the universe, OR we identify and believe we are our self image / personality which comes with, according to Robert Holden’s new book on the Enneagram, a core sense of deficiency.
Having fun connecting with the Divine Feminine? Doesn’t it feel amazing?
Here’s another way to connect to that essence.
It’s our last mothering tool.
Can you guess what it is?
Yes, it’s connecting to the great goddess on which we live and get ALL of our physical sustenance and nourishment, Mother Earth.
During the Covid lockdown, I did a wonderful initiation into seeing the earth as Tara- Tara Gaia. And yet, there are countless first nations who have and continue to honor the earth as our sacred mother.
How has your journey of re-parenting been going?
Have you been able to heal some of that woundedness?
Did you get a glimpse or feel into the excitement of your inner magic?!?
If you’re ready for an even deeper step, this is just for you.
Today we’re exploring how to work with the Divine Mother and bringing that woundedness to the Mother of all mothers, to the essence of the Goddess that dwells within.
I thought for the the next sequence of blogs, we’d explore this idea of mothering, being mothered, and re-parenting ourselves. It feels timely and necessary. Maybe it’s because I also work as a psychotherapist that this topic is much on my mind…
So today we’ll explore the idea of re-parenting our wounded inner child.
Are you familiar with that expression? The wounded child?
From Caroline Myss’ work, we know that we all have a child archetype in our constellation. In part, because each of us experienced a childhood. And, at some point, (unfortunately) we got a negative message(s) about ourselves.
I bet you can see, even touch, a floor right now and perhaps a ceiling overhead- wherever you’re reading these words, yes?
Most structures have both , but did you know that this (floors & ceilings) is also an idea stock traders talk about?
It’s part of a metrics they use to evaluate where a stock may move. As a company’s stock drops in price, it can “hit a floor.” This might indicate a time to buy. Stocks can also “hit ceilings” which could indicate a time to sell. Obviously, this is a basic definition, but recently I took this way of thinking about floors and ceilings and applied it to the process of our inner work.
What do I mean?
I have this mp3 track of Louise Hay called 101 Power Thoughts for Life. At the beginning of it she says, “the thoughts we think and the words we speak are constantly shaping our world and our experiences. Many of us are in an old habit of negative thinking and do not realize the damage we have inflicted upon ourselves. However, we are never stuck because we can always change our thinking.”
Sometimes it’s fun to sprinkle in a little astrology… why? Because those GIANT orbs in the sky actually affect us here on earth.
January thus far may have had its fits and starts, but good news is a foot! Beginning on January 28th when Uranus ends its retrograde, there will be NO major planets backspinning from now until April 1st!!!!
In this time of giving, I’m reminded of a lesson from A Course In Miracles, “to give and to receive are one in truth.”
Initially, this can seem like an impossible statement, because if I have a sweater and I give it to you, then I no longer have that sweater, right?
Right!
But what if, on an energetic level, giving and receiving were the same thing?
For a number of years now, I’ve had this connection to the White Goddess. I first identified her as White Tara, Buddhist goddess of healing and compassion. But on my recent trip to Vietnam, I learned of a new white goddess, Quan Am. The Vietnamese version of Kwan Yin, the Boddhisattva of compassion
If you are unfamiliar with the Sanskrit term, bodhisattva, or bo tat in Vietnamese, it refers to a Buddhist concept of devoting your life to easing the suffering of others. A Boddhisattva vows to help release all sentient beings from suffering before being truly liberated.
This entire month, I’ve been kinda obsessed with the idea of the veil. Meaning the veil between worlds, or the veil that hides the truth from us.
In Hinduism, the goddess Kali is known to rip this veil from our eyes, to help us see the truth. Another way of thinking about it is that the goddess Maya is cloaked in the veil of illusion, which, in truth is as gauzy as a wispy cloud.
While I appreciate the imagery of both of these, the visual that has always, always, always speaks to me is the mists of Avalon. There the priestess stands in the prow of her boat and parts the mists, thus allowing her to enter the island of Avalon. Whereas, the others who are incapable of this feat wander forever lost in the gloam.
I was having a conversation the other day about how there are 2 types of people: YES people and NO people.
I realize this sounds incredibly generalizing, but hear me out.
Think about yourself. When you’re asked to attend something or hear about a new idea, what’s your initial response?
Is it a resounding and quick, YES!
Or a NO?
Responding like this is automatic. There may be judgment around one way being better than the other, but I don’t think that’s true. in essence, it’s simply a way we’re oriented towards the world.
You know when someone shares a technique or exercise they do with you, and as soon as you hear it, your brain says YES!
That happened to me the other day. A woman shared something that a coach she had years ago told her to do. It goes like this:
I was really struck with this notion, of envisioning trust blanketing everything and everyone, as opposed to feeling guarded or on alert.
The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who, after 40+ years of marriage, is now single! As part of her healing journey, she told me that she never felt like she had permission to be in a reciprocally loving relationship.
Not only was this a huge A-HA for her, but also led to a discussion about this idea of permission, how unconsciously we believe we can or cannot act in specific ways, do certain tasks, or take on specific roles.
Make sense?
Rejection can definitely feel painful, but have you ever considered that it isn’t necessarily the enemy? Could you perhaps see rejection as a helpful guide?
I say this because we might not always know what’s in our best interest.
WHAT?!?
Think about it this way, perhaps you're convinced that working for a specific corporation is your dream job, only they don’t hire you. Instead, a smaller organization does, and it turns out to be exactly where you fit and what you needed to build your skills and open new doors.
Rejection offers a chance to re-think your plans, to realign or challenge your initial beliefs, and ensure that where you think you want to go is indeed in your highest and best good.
The other day, I was looking through a book of poems called The Gifts of God. It’s a compilation of writings by Helen Schucman. She’s the scribe who for nearly a decade received the words that became the mystic Christian book, A Course in Miracles (ACIM).
During that time, mostly in the 1970s, she also wrote poetry. She was pretty adamant that they not be published and so they were not until after she died. That was when the not for profit organization that publishes ACIM put the book together to honor what Helen had gifted to the world.
