Sometimes all I think about is ✨you✨ . . .

UNCONDITIONAL 💘

Growth is a detox process, as our weakest, darkest places are sucked up to the surface in order to be released... Our wounds have been brought forward, not to block the experience of love, but to serve it. It is in the forgiveness of our weaknesses that we are healed of them, and the tenderness of a forgiven heart is a tenderness that will ultimately heal the world.

~ MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

✨Stay open✨

In my experience, everyone will say they want to discover the truth until they realize that the truth will rob them of their deepest ideas, beliefs, hopes and dreams. The freedom of enlightenment means much more than experiencing love and peace. It means discovering a truth that turns your view of yourself and life upside down. For someone who is truly ready, this will be unimaginably liberating. But for someone who is still clinging on in any way, this will be an extreme challenge indeed. How do you know if you're ready? You are ready when you are ready to be absolutely consumed, when you are ready to be fuel for a fire without end.

~ ADYASHANTI

When Joseph Campbell outlined the hero’s journey for us, the premise was that at the moment of the deepest and most unmoving difficulty, the protagonist recognized that it was they who must change. That which seemed to derail the path was the pinnacle moment at which the true path was actually revealed.

The presence of the challenge is the initiator.

If we are lucky, our lives will continue to grow as we are presented with new paths, and various obstacles among them. To heal is not to arrive at a place where we are absolved of that difficulty, but where we no longer interpret the presence of it as our finality, our ending. Rather, we come to see it is as yet another beginning in support of the continual unfolding of all we will one day know ourselves to be.

In a world where most of us die before we are dead, where most of us hyper-fixate on what we cannot control and leave to ruins everything that we can, where most of us fear our humanness and our vulnerability — I hope you find the courage to try. I hope you will come to see that just maybe, beneath the journey you fear to take is the life you had been waiting for, all along.

~ Brianna Wiest

The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is.

~ CARL JUNG

The Tao Te Ching talks about the concept and practice of non-interference. Lao Tzu writes, "When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering."

As with most of life, discernment is key. It’s tempting to step in to alleviate the appearance of suffering with someone we care about, but often times, we can’t know from our limited perspectives what that individual’s soul might actually need to move the needle forward in his/her life. What could look horrifying from the outside, might be the exact experience required to grow that person or give them a new skill, understanding or timeline.

For example, your parents are fighting again, and you are tempted to step in and “fix” it, or stop the heated conversation altogether to alleviate the tension in the room. But what if that argument needs to happen so they can get to a hard truth or work through a chronic issue to create deeper intimacy? Or what if they need to get to that moment of realizing they would be happier apart and an exciting new life direction awaits?

Honing our discernment and acting from alignment will guide us as to when to step in and take action, and when to step back and observe with compassion, while praying for the highest outcome is a blessing to all involved. This is what it is to truly "hold space." 🫶🏻

Achilles: I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

~ Homer, The Iliad

Masculine-Feminine Polarity: The doorway to the feminine is through self-love

The doorway to the feminine is through self-love. When we move internally, when we take care of ourself, when we can validate the way that we feel about something, when we can be patient, kind, loving and compassionate with ourself as we move through whatever. If we give ourself grace, if we're patient, if we spend time noticing our strengths, and we celebrate the things that we do well, and we celebrate the things that we do with love, all the time, day and night, forever and forever.

The feminine is about shifting out of the negative and the skepticism and the judgment—that is all masculine energy.

But as we reconnect with the feminine, this is about the relationship you have to yourself. Feminine energies are relational, they are primarily relational. There is a reason for that, because the feminine amplifies. The feminine multiplies. The feminine takes whatever it's given and it accentuates and amplifies that. There is so much power in the feminine to be able to do that, just innately. Because we know what to do. It knows instinctively what needs to be done.

When you're not in a separated state with yourself any longer, and you are at peace with self-acceptance, and you've accepted what it is, that surrender is a feminine energy.

When you notice that you're in your head, when you're in anxiety, anxious, feeling nervous or tense, or you're worried or stressed, that's how you separate yourself every day. That's also how you heal anything. You go inwardly, and you heal yourself through self-love in that way.

~ Lynnette Duncan

Remember, life is a balance between what we can control (effort), and what we cannot (surrender). Holding on and letting go.

~ Jim Kwik

Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, "This is what I need." It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment - not discouragement - you will find the strength there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!

~ Joseph Campbell