Talking about something difficult, no matter the risk of judgment or rejection, always winds up being much easier to endure than hiding from the things that need to be said. This is why the truth shall always set you free. The truth can always be said directly, diplomatically, and with the belief that no matter how anyone reacts to your sharing, each human being is hard-wired in connection to the Universe to become even more evolved over time as a result of each outcome. This is so, whether you are meant to see its evidence and no matter the opinions that others may have of you or the decisions you make. As you choose communication over avoidance, dare to believe in the unwavering support the Universe equally has for you, as well as others.
All of this is so you may be fully available to loving and encouraging yourself throughout the expression of your most difficult feelings, as your heart is divinely guided to share. In doing so it’s essential to remember, you don’t have to make anyone else wrong, in order to declare what is ultimately right for you.
Please enjoy this heart-warming newsletter to help you become a more empowered empath—for yourself, your loved ones, and the world around you.
Being grateful, being positive, being healthy, does not mean we never feel angry. Being grateful, positive, and healthy means we feel angry when we need to. Today, I will let myself be angry, if I need to. I can feel and release my emotions, including anger, constructively. I will be grateful for my anger and the things it is trying to show me. I can feel and accept all my emotions without shame, and I can take responsibility for my actions.
People who are incapable of self-reflection are helping you find your new true North. What often feels like a refusal to listen, an inability to accept responsibility, the casting of blame, judgment, or personal attacks on your character, or even moments of personal rejection is the Universe re-directing you into the trajectory of your next exciting chapter. What often feels like a refusal to listen, an inability to accept responsibility, the casting of blame, judgment, or personal attacks on your character, or even moments of personal rejection is the Universe re-directing you into the trajectory of your next exciting chapter. Those who are meant to know and love you on the deepest level do not require you to prove a point or wrestle for control during any interaction. Therefore, the people you have the biggest conflicts with are those who souls are saying: “please do not distract me with your brightness and brilliance, I’ve got more than enough to handle — just being me.”
Even when it comes to people you have to be in shared space with, the key is tending to the matters at hand and ensuring proper boundaries are created anytime mean-spirited behavior is conveyed. This is the fierce grace of compassion in action. I’ve got more than enough to handle — just being me.” Even when it comes to people you have to be in shared space with, the key is tending to the matters at hand and ensuring proper boundaries are created anytime mean-spirited behavior is conveyed. This is the fierce grace of compassion in action.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned the last few years, is it’s ok to not know.
It’s ok to not know what the future holds. It’s ok to not have everything planned out. It’s ok to not know what the world will look like next year. I’m learning to trust by faith.
Faith over hope.
As I stated in this post, there’s a difference. In the process of just trusting, we may have some depression or sadness. As I listened to my audible tape “Care of the soul” on my way up to a camping trip yesterday, I listened with curiosity as he describes depression as a needed thing sometimes. It gives that space to reflect, to heal, to process. We don’t always have to live in this happy positive unauthentic state.
Anyone who’s experienced a “Dark night of the Soul” knows that you ultimately come out a better person. After all:
You can't know light without experiencing the dark.
Notice dark night of the soul is about confronting of your own ego story and resistance to darkness. Facing the inner darkness is not about becoming evil. It is not an impossible task, cannot overwhelm or even harm what is real. It’s about accepting and integrating all of you. Inner darkness is the fear of seeing something you do not want to see, something that shakes up your conditioned understanding of the world and how it works. It is also the fear of feeling something you do not want to feel. Humans are taught by society how to hide these aspects of self. We are taught fear is a weakness. So we are taught to deny or avoid what evokes discomfort, taught to focus attention on things that feel good and overlook corruption, social-cultural mistreatment, abuse, exploitation of living creatures, Earth and human beings and energetic brainwashing of beliefs we come to hold. Many humans think they can run from their inner darkness. This is what is projected into the external world and what is arising to the surface as you are ready to acknowledge it and see things as they are. Some people go to great lengths to do all kinds of good deeds in effort to erase, counterbalance, or avoid recognizing discomfort. Yet, wherever you think you go, here it is. When unconfronted, darkness thrives. It exists when you don’t look at it. This is the nature of the dark. It is absence of light. Just start to turn and look at it, and it is evaporating. In dreams, face what is chasing you. Watch it disappear.” – Liara Covert
There are so many things in my life to be grateful for right now. When the little shadow of fear that lingers ever so strong in the shadows of my soul, starts to sneak up on me; I just have to grab onto my faith.
Faith that everything will work out for the best. I will have enough money to meet my needs. I will have a job. My kids will be ok. My grandkids will make it in their own way.
I am enough and I have enough- always.
By acknowledging what drives my depression or my worry ( fear) I can hopefully send it on it’s way and leave me in peace.
“Depression is caused by overconsumption. Overconsumption is caused by obsession. Obsession is caused by fear. Fear is caused by an absence of love. An absence of love is caused by a belief in others. A belief in others is caused by a label called others. A label called others is caused by a need to organize life into some form of understanding. A need to organize life into some form of understanding is caused by an inability to trust life as it is.
By loving the one who doesn’t know how to trust life as it is, the need to organize life into some form of understanding dissolves. As this occurs, a belief in others can be recognized as a belief in a label called others. Beyond the play of labels, a love that knows no other emerges from within you. As love emerges, you are absolved of fear, the tendency to obsess, or the need to over consume, at the rate in which the one who is depressed is embraced with equal respect, support, and heart-centered attention.
As depression is loved as never before, it becomes a vital stage of emptying out. As you empty out, the seed of ego dissolves to create space for the blossoming of consciousness. This allows depression to be a pivotal stage of growth and expansion, instead of something to fight, ignore, or avoid.” – Matt Kahn
The following quote with my writings came up on my Facebook memories a few days ago. It’s over 5 years old, yet I’ve been musing about it for days and today it hit me hard. Although my situation and my struggles are completely different now, the advice (my own advice) are timeless! How cool is timeless (& situational-less) advice?
Today I overheard a patient tell another patient “Everyone knows their own journey”.
It stopped me in my tracks, I went Into my office- closed the door, and felt that familiar lump in my throat.
It doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read, how many classes you’ve taken, hours of meditation, praying, or positive thoughts you’ve tried to manifest, nothing prepares you for that moment when time stands still. When you get that phone call, read a text, discover a secret in a child’s journal, see a partners email or lose a huge project you’ve been working on, or realize that what you have yearned for – for weeks/months/years even, maybe isn’t going to happen right here, right now. Your heart drops to your stomach, it feels like the blood is draining from your body.
As someone who feels things deeply (& chooses my energy & attention carefully) I can’t quite internalize the concept of having "No Expectations". I just have to remind myself (& am so grateful for the wiseness of our elderly) in these moments which help with that.
Everyone’s journey is, indeed their own. And really has little to do with ours! No one can tell them what’s best for them….
When it collides beautifully with my journey or painfully departs from what I want… all I can do is LOVE thru it💗myself & them also, trusting that the universe knows what’s best.
Time is irrelevant. (As hard as that is to navigate in real time) Intention & destination are what matters. Memories are wonderful, but if you didn't enjoy them by living in the moment, by placing a certain time expectation on the relationship, you were probably eventually disappointed. The process of reciting earthly time or the numbers of phone calls or even counting sunsets, marking points in time as proof of the relevance of the relationship is not really helpful if ultimately, the thing, doesn't fulfill their (& yours) highest destiny. And if their intention is not YOUR intention.
We just don’t have the understanding to know how the shaping of our hearts & souls is all working together for our best purpose.
Just like you can’t protect a child from pain…..you can’t keep yourself from disappointment.
Today hearing my wise patient say the words I needed to calm my restless heart & dry my flowing tears….helped me to remember TRUST THE JOURNEY.
💥 TRUST MY JOURNEY.
Wow. I mean- you could argue that I’m just re-telling my same old self-destructive stories: that no one cares, no one understands, no one can handle me. Or that I’m justifying bad behavior. Or you could say that I was drawing on some ancient sage advice. Whichever it is, I welcome the perspective. These days I live day to day. Moment to moment. I don’t count on anything, yet I hope for everything. Some days I want my life to be finished. Others, I get a twinge of excitement at the future. I have a bit of PTSD about the future. I think I may have invented that.
Future PTSD. Afraid of what the future will throw at me.
Psychoanalyze that.
It’s pretty simple actually. Everything goes back to living in the moment, for the moment. Type A people with their Franklin Planners are cringing about now.
But rumor has it- that if your past experience prove you are unsafe in your feelings, then you tend to be scared of the future.
Gabor Mate might call that unhealed trauma. I call it – my reality. So having expectations, in my world, tends to be opposite. Expecting the worst. Paranoia.
Apparently I need to work on that pronoia stuff.
As for others’ journey, they need to work on their stuff too. We can’t do it for them and really can we fault them? If they are operating in their MO at all times, filling their needs as they perceive them at the time, is that bad?
“It’s selfish”, you might argue. “Everyone should be courteous to everyone else”.
At all times? So everyone should live and breathe and do what someone else thinks they should do- at all times?
“Well no, only when the situation arises”. What situation is that? ” the one where I think they should do things differently”. Oh ok. Are you going to tell them when those arise? “No, they should just know”.
Ok.
And so enters the never-ending human behavior argument that existed wayyyy before any pandemic. It’s what almost every marital argument or divorce court hearing is based on. Is someone else responsible for my needs and my own happiness? Where do their rights to happiness end and mine begin? On paper, in many counselors offices, it’s called a compromise. We each give up a little In order to achieve a goal. The problem arises in what that “little” constitutes.
Ahh but that may be grounds for another blog. For now, it might be safe to say, everyone is always doing the best they can with what information they perceive. Most of the time we have no way of knowing what their information or experience is. Not do we really need to know. (in my opinion.)
So much more to this. To go deeper here’s a pretty long video on self actualization (knowing needs and wants and how to improve by our interactions).
This is true – even if we are talking to ourselves.
Meeting ourselves where we are.
Two years ago I wrote in my journal:
I wish I was more grateful I wish I felt more secure I wish I was more loving I wish I was less worried
I still wish for most of those things. Truth be told, the last few years have kicked my trash. I am extremely grateful for many things, on the daily…….My God KNOWS.
But it seems to never even out. If it’s not one thing it’s another. I find myself telling my same old story. It’s like groundhog day. If it’s not one child, it’s another. The places and spaces that appear as challenges in my life, seem too unsolvable, especially in the beginning. They stare at me in the face, like a bully on the playground. I seem incapable of what that GUY in the sky thought I could do.
My purpose? Do we ever find it? If it’s to enjoy each day for what it brings, as a wise elderly housekeeper told me years ago; then I’m gonna have to change my story real fast. I’m 54. I find joy in many places but I am not still not sure of my value. Joy seems selfish.
I know life is short. Problems are temporary. They change like a silent old black and white movie. Sometimes I feel like that is my life. It flashes before me without much (valued) effort from me. What effect do I really have on scenes that will play out anyway? Is everyone prone to these lonely thoughts? If you look at their problems, it would seem that way. Everyone just wants to feel relevant. Is relevance real? Is it genuine? Do I need recognition to feel real?
Yes, I know I shouldn’t.
I’m actually the Queen of NOT wanting attention. Don’t give me an award and ask me to speak. God No. I can think of no worse torture.
But, at times, I want to know I made a difference I guess. Don’t we all. Those who are in front of me want that to.
The never ending circle of life- of LOVE.
Anger says: “I’m so mad that I can’t get my way and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Sadness says: “It’s so unfair that I can’t get my way.”
Fear says: “I can’t imagine not getting my way.”
Denial says: “My way would be so much better.”
Boredom says: “My way is anything but this.”
Emptiness says: “It seems as if my way is always opposite or different than how things are.”
Acceptance says: “The Universe is always orchestrating life in my highest favor, whether it seems to be going my way or not.”
Peace says: “When my way is put aside, the way is shown.”
Compassion says: “I understand how you feel. I didn’t get my way either.
Joy says: “Everything is always going my way, no matter the details, outcomes, or circumstances.”
Love says: “I embrace the one who needs life to be one way or another and I cherish the one who has no particular way to be as the eternal innocence of all.”
Oneness says: “Even the notions of getting my way or having no way to be are equally unique ways of the Universe playing in form.”
Transcendence says: “All paths lead to the same way.”
Truth says: “I AM the way, the way I AM.”
Matt Kahn
What would love do? Sit with it. Sit with you. Sit with me.
Be that person who demands a more kind, peaceful, and compassionate world that doesn’t leave evolution any other option when leading by the power of your own living example.
Be that person who reaches in for nourished support, while reaching out to those who have forgotten their hearts as the source of eternal sustenance.
Be that person who fearlessly meets conflict with curiosity, daring to ask more questions, instead of making assumptions about the paths only other people’s feet have walked.
Be that person who transcends the ugliest of circumstances by showing there is no single moment absent of the beauty of our true enlightened form.
Be that person who builds a living relationship with the nature of divinity, no matter how often the seasons of change move through your field.
Be that person who holds no expectation over another person’s head, while maintaining an uncanny degree of ethical worthiness for how you will and won’t allow yourself to be treated.
Be that person who meets the venom of negativity as the defense mechanism of a snake afraid to part with known realities by shedding another layer of skin. When seeing the operating system fear hides in, a bite of venom becomes cleansing medicine instead of poison within the wisdom of a shamanic heart.
Be that person who turns turbulence into transition and sadness into a celebration. Much like a song initially only your heart can sing or hear, written by the lyrics of each tragedy survived, that brings other radiant souls towards you to share in the mutual glory of a mission fulfilled.
Be that personwho measures achievement by the deeper qualities each moment cultivates in you, whether demonstrated with immaculate precision or still being brought to the surface by the moments in view.
Be that personwho remains an ally to the innocence in every heart with the intuitive discernment to know how to hold space for the healing of others without being a place for anyone’s unprocessed pain to hide.
Be that personwho cannot be manipulated into taking sides in a battle only molded by the hands of greed. For whenever sides are taken, the ‘I versus you’ or ‘us against them’ ensures no one will be that person who brings greed to justice — a justice only served when each of us dare to be that person — together as one.
Be that person who leaves this planet with the most breathtaking garden of insight to discover, grown from the seeds you so intentionally planted by insisting there is more to life than a rhythm of loss and gain.
Be that person, who becomes the person, no longer hiding within you, but brought to the surface for the unending joyful benefit of a world still afraid or unaware of that person deep within themselves.
Hear the peaceful rumble like the drumming of sacred ceremony echoing throughout all directions and corners of Mother Earth. It is an interconnection of light beings mindfully assembling for the salvation of our planet. It is a movement of progress only set into greater motion when that person dares to step forward. As each of us answer this call to be that person, it is only then when we the people can be heard, acknowledged, and respected by the reciprocity of collective progress. Welcome to the Love Revolution.
In every moment, you and everyone else is always doing the best they possibly can. If anyone could do better — they would. When anyone can do better — they will. While spiritual teachings can give greater focus and attention to heart-centered choices, they are not to be confused with rules used to punish yourself with. Instead of ridiculing yourself with unrealistic ideas of perfectionism, most moments of healing call for a deep level of self-forgiveness where you are able to truly forgive yourself for any misjudgments in perception and reaction by truly accepting yourself — talents, flaws, and all. No one is designed to do this perfectly and it’s for such an important reason. It is to guarantee that in en route to realizing how conscious, liberated, and heart-centered you already are, life creates moments to intentionally burst any bubble of perfectionism the spiritual ego tends to hide in. As the spiritual ego gets down on itself for not “nailing it”, you are able to embrace such a part within you, allowing your love to further set free the aspect of self who only knows how to be rewarded with praise, honor, and accolade in exchange for doing something “right”. Let your journey be insightful, illuminating, clarifying, and sometimes, as messy as its meant to be. No matter the roads traveled and the choices made, everything is made right in the end.
Confessions of a Spiritual Perfectionist
by Matt Kahn
My friends and I have a running joke. We like to say, “I am not a perfectionist, but I’m working on it.” This light-hearted one-liner is a bird’s eye view into the infrastructure of intensity I lived in during the early developmental years of my spiritual journey. To the best of my ability, I forged into inner explorer mode, eager to glean each insight and accomplish each milestone to the point where I was so worried about getting it wrong that I wasn’t able to enjoy the perfection of my evolution. Perhaps this rings true for you as well.
While all of us living on planet Earth are empaths of varying degrees of awareness, embodiment, and integration, the majority of empaths who are aware of their energetic sensitivities are also recovering spiritual perfectionists. Because an energetically sensitive being has an inferior ego, or conditioning fed by low self-esteem, it is nearly instinctive to engage the endless potential of the Universe with an ongoing fear of making a mistake, doing something wrong, worrying about missing a window of opportunity or being left behind the highest curve of expansion.
I site these examples as experiences I have had and survived, only to discover a Universe operating by such a level of perfection and grace it is categorically impossible to ever step outside of the spotlight of your unfolding destiny. Often times, when the ego hears of such a perfection, it feels defeated by the will of the Universe, as if it’s competing with the Cosmos for your undivided attention. All too often, the ego only feels useful if it believes it controls everything. When it discovers a depth of alignment beyond the grip and grit of personal control, it mopes in a state of uselessness as if it plays no purpose in life’s incredible journey.
Since everything is a unique and equal expression of one eternal truth, the ego plays a pivotal role in your evolution, albeit not the role it imagines or wishes to portray.
As you awaken, your ego’s job is to unravel in order to create space for the soul to emerge. It’s as if the ego has parked its car in the numbered space of your energy field, unaware that it is momentarily parked in that spot, until the soul is ready to move its vessel into position. While the ego might adopt a belief in being the caretaker of the parking spot, even working tirelessly to keep it clean and clear of debris, it is maintaining the integrity of a parking space so the soul has a place to be parked. Upon finding out this surprising twist of fate, the ego can often become territorial with the parking space of your energy field, even perceiving the soul as an invasion to fend off. It’s not that ego refuses to let go, as much as ego delays letting go until it feels as if it has gotten everything perfect. In reality, no matter how perfectly the ego does its dance, it always imagines an even higher level of perfection to attain, which perpetuates the tendency of holding on to its belief in control. Using this analogy, the ego asks the soul to be patient as it feverishly cleans the parking space for its arrival, always finding some pebble to move around as it works to get everything just right.
“…the ego asks the soul to be patient as it feverishly cleans the parking space for its arrival, always finding some pebble to move around as it works to get everything just right.”
Even if the ego were to imagine getting everything perfect, its role now shifts into the same amount of effort to maintain the perfection it worked so hard to cultivate. Because it will never be free of the nonstop effort of chasing or maintaining perfection until it lets go, the more often the repetitive tendencies of ego are openly met with relaxed loving attention, the easier a transition can occur where the ego exits the parking lot to allow the soul to move into place.
In order to assist in your transition out of the perfectionistic patterns of ego and into the glory of your soul’s true essence, here a few helpful tips to aid in the process:
1. You are always doing everything correctly, even when you think you’re getting it wrong.
While the ego believes achievement occurs as a result of doing things correctly, the soul understands that both right and wrong are merely ways of interpreting the nature of outcomes. The soul knows that every experience is correct since it brings you into communion with the exact emotions needing to be felt in order to resolve the past and inspire the awareness of greater insights. It’s never a matter of seeing something wrong or right, but how much time you are meant to spend percolating in various emotional states in order to access the gift of expansion.
While the ego believes doing things in a more correct order will help it gain access to more positive feelings in a shorter amount of time, the soul abides in the awareness of truth — knowing you are meant to feel, think, believe, and choose exactly as you will to build up the momentum created in states of repression and discomfort in order to catapult into the opposite spectrum of higher energetic and emotional states. If you ping-pong back down, it is only to discover greater wounds to be healed, which builds up pressure to accelerate you into even higher moments of expansion than before. This means, if you take the time to be at peace with exactly the way things are and have played out, life will guide you exactly where you wish to be, as long as you allow the Universe to work on its preferred timeline of events.
“…if you take the time to be at peace with exactly the way things are and have played out, life will guide you exactly where you wish to be…”
2. You may not get what you want, but you will always feel the way you desire.
This might blow a giant cannonball through the old understanding of the law of attraction, but it’s worth deconstructing in order to give you fresh perspective and space to breathe. Imagine something that you want to attract into your reality. Notice that it is an object that has been associated with a belief that bringing this into your reality will also bring with it all the positive emotional states you wish to feel more often. Because an energetic healing period is the time you are meant to spend in lower states as a way of building momentum and skyrocketing into higher states, there is no inherent connection between what you want and how you hope to feel. It is merely a limiting spiritual belief fed by an assumption that you will feel differently once your personal circumstances appear differently. In truth, you are destined to feel much better, most likely before the logistics of your circumstances may be ready to shift. It’s not as if the Universe doesn’t wish to give you what you want, but it works in accordance with delivering to you exactly what you need, in order to become who you were born to be.
Ultimately, the process of envisioning different circumstances is only meant to get you in touch with how you wish to feel. Once established, the Universe brings to you all the encounters and moments of healing to help you inevitably feel as you’ve envisioned. When aligned with the soul, you are able to imagine better circumstances as a foreshadowing of intuitive knowing when not needing different experiences to permit different feelings. When incubating in the ego, you only imagine feeling better once your life circumstances change to your ego’s exact specifications. When you are able to honor what you want, while accepting that it may not be the very thing you need in order to feel how much better you’re already destined to feel as more of your healing journey is completed, an alignment with a greater depth of maturity helps unravel beliefs of superstition within the ego’s grip.
3. The Universe isn’t fragile.
How often do you tip-toe around in your reality, hoping not to disturb the sacred ground of existence with limiting ideas, over thinking, or the triggering of negative emotions? While there is much benefit to being tactful with your words, actions, and responses, you are living out the necessary highs and lows of your evolution in a very durable reality. A reality that is dressed up as a planet that has survived ice ages, volcanic explosions, and even held space for the arrival of meteor showers can surely endure the impact of your most limiting thoughts.
Especially if needing to be deprogrammed from old paradigm beliefs in the law of attraction, you are likely to think that any degree of imperfection will cause the Universe to frown upon your behavior and delay the arrival of your deepest desires. When trying to “get everything right” as a way of seducing the Universe to give you more of the things you want, it is a moment of inauthenticity conveyed through expressions of spiritual materialism that obstructs the vantage point of your clearest view.
“When you understand that you…do not live in a fragile Universe, you are well on your way to recovering from the pitfalls of spiritual perfectionism.”
The Universe is not fragile and remains as indestructible as the destiny that unfolds throughout each passing breath. You may need to make fear-based choices in order to build up courage and resonate with more inspired options, or spend time in tumultuous circumstances until you are ready to step into the unknown; but isn’t that what the play of life is about? Life is a living journey of expansion, where you are becoming aware of all that you know and remembering all that you are — one incremental choice at a time.
Your life is a work of art in progress. As most artists will tell you, it’s impossible to bring the magic of art to life without initially making a mess.
When you understand that you cannot make a mistake, do not require life to bring you different circumstances in order to feel better about yourself, and do not live in a fragile Universe, you are well on your way to grounding your empathic energy and recovering from the pitfalls of spiritual perfectionism.
Once each day isn’t a series of fear-based rituals or constantly checking things off your endless spiritual to-do list, you are able to meet the mystery of your existence as openly and authentically as it always meets you. From this space, you are able to see the importance of each momentary milestone and explore the infinite spectrum of personal experience without anything to manage, remember, control, or keep straight. This is where the immaculate potential of a spiritual journey truly begins.
In every moment, you and everyone else is always doing the best they possibly can. If anyone could do better — they would. When anyone can do better — they will. While spiritual teachings can give greater focus and attention to heart-centered choices, they are not to be confused with rules used to punish yourself with. Instead of ridiculing yourself with unrealistic ideas of perfectionism, most moments of healing call for a deep level of self-forgiveness where you are able to truly forgive yourself for any misjudgments in perception and reaction by truly accepting yourself — talents, flaws, and all. No one is designed to do this perfectly and it’s for such an important reason. It is to guarantee that in en route to realizing how conscious, liberated, and heart-centered you already are, life creates moments to intentionally burst any bubble of perfectionism the spiritual ego tends to hide in. As the spiritual ego gets down on itself for not “nailing it”, you are able to embrace such a part within you, allowing your love to further set free the aspect of self who only knows how to be rewarded with praise, honor, and accolade in exchange for doing something “right”. Let your journey be insightful, illuminating, clarifying, and sometimes, as messy as its meant to be. No matter the roads traveled and the choices made, everything is made right in the end.
Confessions of a Spiritual Perfectionist
by Matt Kahn
My friends and I have a running joke. We like to say, “I am not a perfectionist, but I’m working on it.” This light-hearted one-liner is a bird’s eye view into the infrastructure of intensity I lived in during the early developmental years of my spiritual journey. To the best of my ability, I forged into inner explorer mode, eager to glean each insight and accomplish each milestone to the point where I was so worried about getting it wrong that I wasn’t able to enjoy the perfection of my evolution. Perhaps this rings true for you as well.
While all of us living on planet Earth are empaths of varying degrees of awareness, embodiment, and integration, the majority of empaths who are aware of their energetic sensitivities are also recovering spiritual perfectionists. Because an energetically sensitive being has an inferior ego, or conditioning fed by low self-esteem, it is nearly instinctive to engage the endless potential of the Universe with an ongoing fear of making a mistake, doing something wrong, worrying about missing a window of opportunity or being left behind the highest curve of expansion.
I site these examples as experiences I have had and survived, only to discover a Universe operating by such a level of perfection and grace it is categorically impossible to ever step outside of the spotlight of your unfolding destiny. Often times, when the ego hears of such a perfection, it feels defeated by the will of the Universe, as if it’s competing with the Cosmos for your undivided attention. All too often, the ego only feels useful if it believes it controls everything. When it discovers a depth of alignment beyond the grip and grit of personal control, it mopes in a state of uselessness as if it plays no purpose in life’s incredible journey.
Since everything is a unique and equal expression of one eternal truth, the ego plays a pivotal role in your evolution, albeit not the role it imagines or wishes to portray.
As you awaken, your ego’s job is to unravel in order to create space for the soul to emerge. It’s as if the ego has parked its car in the numbered space of your energy field, unaware that it is momentarily parked in that spot, until the soul is ready to move its vessel into position. While the ego might adopt a belief in being the caretaker of the parking spot, even working tirelessly to keep it clean and clear of debris, it is maintaining the integrity of a parking space so the soul has a place to be parked. Upon finding out this surprising twist of fate, the ego can often become territorial with the parking space of your energy field, even perceiving the soul as an invasion to fend off. It’s not that ego refuses to let go, as much as ego delays letting go until it feels as if it has gotten everything perfect. In reality, no matter how perfectly the ego does its dance, it always imagines an even higher level of perfection to attain, which perpetuates the tendency of holding on to its belief in control. Using this analogy, the ego asks the soul to be patient as it feverishly cleans the parking space for its arrival, always finding some pebble to move around as it works to get everything just right.
“…the ego asks the soul to be patient as it feverishly cleans the parking space for its arrival, always finding some pebble to move around as it works to get everything just right.”
Even if the ego were to imagine getting everything perfect, its role now shifts into the same amount of effort to maintain the perfection it worked so hard to cultivate. Because it will never be free of the nonstop effort of chasing or maintaining perfection until it lets go, the more often the repetitive tendencies of ego are openly met with relaxed loving attention, the easier a transition can occur where the ego exits the parking lot to allow the soul to move into place.
In order to assist in your transition out of the perfectionistic patterns of ego and into the glory of your soul’s true essence, here a few helpful tips to aid in the process:
1. You are always doing everything correctly, even when you think you’re getting it wrong.
While the ego believes achievement occurs as a result of doing things correctly, the soul understands that both right and wrong are merely ways of interpreting the nature of outcomes. The soul knows that every experience is correct since it brings you into communion with the exact emotions needing to be felt in order to resolve the past and inspire the awareness of greater insights. It’s never a matter of seeing something wrong or right, but how much time you are meant to spend percolating in various emotional states in order to access the gift of expansion.
While the ego believes doing things in a more correct order will help it gain access to more positive feelings in a shorter amount of time, the soul abides in the awareness of truth — knowing you are meant to feel, think, believe, and choose exactly as you will to build up the momentum created in states of repression and discomfort in order to catapult into the opposite spectrum of higher energetic and emotional states. If you ping-pong back down, it is only to discover greater wounds to be healed, which builds up pressure to accelerate you into even higher moments of expansion than before. This means, if you take the time to be at peace with exactly the way things are and have played out, life will guide you exactly where you wish to be, as long as you allow the Universe to work on its preferred timeline of events.
“…if you take the time to be at peace with exactly the way things are and have played out, life will guide you exactly where you wish to be…”
2. You may not get what you want, but you will always feel the way you desire.
This might blow a giant cannonball through the old understanding of the law of attraction, but it’s worth deconstructing in order to give you fresh perspective and space to breathe. Imagine something that you want to attract into your reality. Notice that it is an object that has been associated with a belief that bringing this into your reality will also bring with it all the positive emotional states you wish to feel more often. Because an energetic healing period is the time you are meant to spend in lower states as a way of building momentum and skyrocketing into higher states, there is no inherent connection between what you want and how you hope to feel. It is merely a limiting spiritual belief fed by an assumption that you will feel differently once your personal circumstances appear differently. In truth, you are destined to feel much better, most likely before the logistics of your circumstances may be ready to shift. It’s not as if the Universe doesn’t wish to give you what you want, but it works in accordance with delivering to you exactly what you need, in order to become who you were born to be.
Ultimately, the process of envisioning different circumstances is only meant to get you in touch with how you wish to feel. Once established, the Universe brings to you all the encounters and moments of healing to help you inevitably feel as you’ve envisioned. When aligned with the soul, you are able to imagine better circumstances as a foreshadowing of intuitive knowing when not needing different experiences to permit different feelings. When incubating in the ego, you only imagine feeling better once your life circumstances change to your ego’s exact specifications. When you are able to honor what you want, while accepting that it may not be the very thing you need in order to feel how much better you’re already destined to feel as more of your healing journey is completed, an alignment with a greater depth of maturity helps unravel beliefs of superstition within the ego’s grip.
3. The Universe isn’t fragile.
How often do you tip-toe around in your reality, hoping not to disturb the sacred ground of existence with limiting ideas, over thinking, or the triggering of negative emotions? While there is much benefit to being tactful with your words, actions, and responses, you are living out the necessary highs and lows of your evolution in a very durable reality. A reality that is dressed up as a planet that has survived ice ages, volcanic explosions, and even held space for the arrival of meteor showers can surely endure the impact of your most limiting thoughts.
Especially if needing to be deprogrammed from old paradigm beliefs in the law of attraction, you are likely to think that any degree of imperfection will cause the Universe to frown upon your behavior and delay the arrival of your deepest desires. When trying to “get everything right” as a way of seducing the Universe to give you more of the things you want, it is a moment of inauthenticity conveyed through expressions of spiritual materialism that obstructs the vantage point of your clearest view.
“When you understand that you…do not live in a fragile Universe, you are well on your way to recovering from the pitfalls of spiritual perfectionism.”
The Universe is not fragile and remains as indestructible as the destiny that unfolds throughout each passing breath. You may need to make fear-based choices in order to build up courage and resonate with more inspired options, or spend time in tumultuous circumstances until you are ready to step into the unknown; but isn’t that what the play of life is about? Life is a living journey of expansion, where you are becoming aware of all that you know and remembering all that you are — one incremental choice at a time.
Your life is a work of art in progress. As most artists will tell you, it’s impossible to bring the magic of art to life without initially making a mess.
When you understand that you cannot make a mistake, do not require life to bring you different circumstances in order to feel better about yourself, and do not live in a fragile Universe, you are well on your way to grounding your empathic energy and recovering from the pitfalls of spiritual perfectionism.
Once each day isn’t a series of fear-based rituals or constantly checking things off your endless spiritual to-do list, you are able to meet the mystery of your existence as openly and authentically as it always meets you. From this space, you are able to see the importance of each momentary milestone and explore the infinite spectrum of personal experience without anything to manage, remember, control, or keep straight. This is where the immaculate potential of a spiritual journey truly begins.
I’ve looked at this picture and accompanying words several times over the last 3 years. Oh, how many times I’ve wished for treatment on a deserted island or a posh beach-themed ibogaine clinic in Costa Rico overlooking the warm ocean waves. How many times have I wished for my “tribe” to surround my son and will him back to life by chanting mantras and singing songs of hope? How many times I wanted tearful meetings filled with prayers and arms slung desperately over shoulders clinging to each other for strength on what the next best course of action should be. I wanted us to come away feeling fulfilled and hopeful that my son would know how much he was loved and would just see the error of his ways as he collapsed in sincere repentance and dramatic promises.
I believe in the power of Love. I believe that connection is a valid treatment (not cure) for addiction. I believe when lost souls push people away, it’s really the addiction making room for more addiction. And although we may not do the Ubuntu tribe thing; we are all healing in our own way. We are all doing the best we can, even if it’s not supporting each other in unison together.
As of now, I’m in complete gratefulness in my blessings of having everything I asked for come to fruition and so much more that I “scarce can take it in”. Although nothing is promised other than the moment we are living in, I am forever grateful that my son is on his journey of recovery.
My “tribe” was other mothers, my husband, my daughters, and a couple dozen zoom meetings of suffering parents. My God, who was the recipient of all my crying and sometimes screaming, in my car, patiently held me as I let him lead my son from the murky waters of addiction into the cold cement walls of the jail where he was supposed to heal his damaged brain by being around other damaged people. But guess what? They were his tribe. They were the ones who welcomed him with workout clothes, the “best bunk” and an immediate entrance into a certain group which is paramount for survival in jail. Certain people giving him valuable advice that you can’t get out of a book. God was watching my boy when I couldn’t.
Today I want to share a collection of positive stories and quotes on helping people. I hope you enjoy these and can apply them to your situation somehow.
This memory recently came up on my Facebook page after the deadly Las Vegas shootings 4 years ago. This is what I wrote in response to that:
"I see the anger and shock in people while they move thru their emotions of this tragedy as it plays out; I'm convinced again that despite all the good that social media has done; the hate, blame, anger, snarkiness, rudeness in times like this, serve more damage than any good.
I know all of these emotions are usually fear-based and are people trying desperately to make sense of their world. We want to feel like we have some control over our lives & our destiny. When something like this happens, we realize -again- that we have zero control over anything. We only have our experience of what we are seeing. So, according to that perspective, we lash out to try to get our views heard to somehow make sense of it. Our goal seems to be' to try to change our state of how we are feeling or make sure that in the future, this doesn't happen again. We do this by placing blame on anybody, anything. We want to feel like we matter in the scheme of things and that we can make a difference somehow. But truth be told, we just can't understand why things like this happen. Human behavior, natural disasters, are all completely out of our control & have been the study of man for centuries. We are certainly not going to solve them suddenly by arguing on social media. It's really wasted energy to try to wrap our heads around it. And it's not really that beneficial anyway, because the next shooting Is going to be different circumstances, a different city, a different gun, a different motive (if we ever discover the true motives).
So what if...
What if we love our fear?
What if we accept that we CANT UNDERSTAND it?
What if we*******gasp****** fought hate with LOVE??? Can you do it? To set your own soul free can you forgive the face of evil without knowing why? What if the reasons were crystal clear to us? Would that help heal 100's of gunshots & wounds & would it make 57 funerals not have to happen? No, it wouldn't. Even if we knew the grand scheme of things, or even the possibility that these 57 victims agreed to come to earth & be the focus of such evil, would that make our hearts hurt less? Or our fear the next time we go to Vegas- any Less?
I doubt it.
We all are going to have to work thru our thoughts & feelings of fear & shock & disgust. Why not accept those feelings for what they are without needing to know why, then give ourselves & others more love during this time, not more hate.
Of course we may never know the reasons behind such tragedies (that particular one included); Matt Kahn says it best:
Blame is the first act of war. Compassion is the first sign of peace. In tested times, an awakening soul first turns to prayer instead of resorting to blame. This doesn’t exclude external action. Instead, the power of prayer energetically infuses each necessary action step, as a living fulfillment of your highest intention in motion, instead of unconsciously expanding the vibration of victimhood through patterns of blame.
If first choosing prayer instead of blame seems too passive of an option, then the internal war rages on. There is much change to be made in this world, but it can only be accomplished by those who are willing to stand up in the name of truth, and act out their most noble values, without forgetting their Divinity or closing their hearts along the way. This is the grace of conscious action.
Whether you blame instead of pray, pray instead of blame, pray for those who blame, or even blame those who pray -- you always deserve more love, not less." - Matt Kahn
When our loved ones disappoint us, when our hearts are shattered to pieces and we think we can never recover. When we want to yell at God or the sacklers, or the governor- anyone who may have contributed to our misery- who is the one who needs love now?
Us.
We can wrap ourselves up in the arms of a soft blanket and feel the power of love envelop us. We can recognize the divine wisdom of polarization. To know darkness is to appreciate and relish in the light.
And while we are trying to show up for ourselves, maybe 🐝 Bees 🐝can help us figure it out:
“My dad has bees.🐝Today I went to his house and he showed me all of the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off of a 5 gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them and he said he was sure they wouldn’t survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose. I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly, after all he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside. Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey 🍯 collection, there were bees flying all over outside. We put the 3 🐝🐝🐝little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all of their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters. When it was time for me to leave we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty. Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free. Bee Sisters🐝Bee Peers🐝Bee Teammates🐝Bee helpers🐝Bee a friend🐝 We could all learn a thing or two from these bees. 🐝 🐝 🐝🐝🐝
-Author Unknown”
The Ring Theory
Source: Illustration by Wes Bausmith”
In Psychology Today author,Elana Premack Sandler wrote this article on where to direct our anger in crisis. I thought it was fitting for addiction situations when our addicted loved one is in the center circle most of the time. It states this:
“If you want to scream or cry or complain, if you want to tell someone how shocked you are or how icky you feel, or whine about how it reminds you of all the terrible things that have happened to you lately, that’s fine. It’s a perfectly normal response. Just do it to someone in a bigger ring.
“Years ago, psychologist Susan Silk and her friend Barry Goldman wrote about a concept they called the “Ring Theory.” it’s used as a guide for family and friends to help prevent suicide.
