Where are your beliefs housed?
August 25, 2023Do your beliefs live inside your body?
Are they in your mind?
Or are they in your soul?
I believe they line in all three.
“Sometimes you no longer recognize yourself. You want to overcome it, but it overcomes you. You want to set limits, but it compels you to keep going. You want to elude it, but it comes with you. You want to employ it, but you are its tool; you want to think about it, but your thoughts obey it. Finally the fear of the inescapable seizes you, for it comes after you slowly and invincibly.
There is no escape. So it is that you come to know what a real God is. Now you’ll think up clever truisms, preventive measures, secret escape routes, excuses, potions capable of inducing forgetfulness, but it’s all useless. The fire burns right through you. That which guides forces you onto the way.
But the way is my own self, my own life founded upon myself. The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever present. But I’m ashamed of my God. I don’t want to be divine but reasonable. The divine appears to me as irrational craziness. I hate it as an absurd disturbance of my meaningful human activity. It seems an unbecoming sickness which has stolen into the the regular course of my life. Yes, I even find the divine superfluous.”
-Carl Gustav Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus
My compass was busted, spinning in chaotic circles.
I was sick. Clogged up with the clay of the world. My body had become a receptacle for shame and fear. Discarded and abandoned.
My desires were no match for the grief stricken memories that played out in loops under my skin. They exercised their sabotaging powers with a veracity that I was powerless to protect myself from.
I’ve lived a wild life. I spent much of my early 20s dancing and drinking my way through China and southeast asia. I went on to create a small fitness empire in my mid-20s. I’ve always wanted to help women feel worthy and loved. Funny how we give to others what we most crave isn’t it? All of that would end in fire and fury after a reality show aired. I was still caked in the clay of society at the age of 28. Painted with the exploitative money hungry brush of dramatized television, I was crucified on social media and youtube.
I closed my gyms, left my home and fiancee of 8 years and spiraled into a deep and dark depression. I attracted not one, but two toxic and abusive relationships. I believed I was a terrible person who deserved to be abused. I believed I was not worthy of care or safety. As a child, I had been sexually abused for years at the hands of my primary teacher. The halls and closets of church were my personal hell. I was vulnerable, a loving and tender child enraged with a longing to be kept.
Where did the cruel fire of self-sabotaging beliefs live within me?
How would I ever express the ocean of grief that stood between me and everything my heart wanted?
How would I learn to trust when my childhood had been a minefield of trespass?
My body, a vigil to violation.
“The moon is dead. Your soul went to the moon, to the preserver of souls. Thus the soul moved toward death. I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.”
― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus
Those who have experienced complex childhood trauma know the ache of longing for their own innocence. Many of us turn to substances in an attempt to connect with our souls. The cloud of trauma can feel like a thick poisonous metal. For many of us, myself included, our bodies become divorced from feeling.
Through forgiveness, we become real.
Forgiveness walks with self-protection.
Two years ago I embarked on the spiritual path inward. I gave everything away. My life was becoming an epic of love and loss. Heartbroken, I couldn’t bear the thought of another external dream being ripped away from me.
I desired to see, to hear, and to feel.
I longed to know a love built on trust, safety, support, and protection.
I wished to taste and realize the song of my soul.
I yearned to live a life I didn’t have to be stoned to live.
I longed to breathe easy and to wake up with excitement for each day.
My life at the time was so incredibly far away from this dream. I had no idea how I was going to get from hell to heaven. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to wait until I died to find it.
It’s a sobering moment to realize that intelligence and creativity alone aren’t enough to change one’s life. My good intentions were continually usurped by the sabotaging grief and anger of the abandoned child within.
So, with tears running down my cheeks, snot on my whaling lips, and humility in my heart, I did something that changed the course of my life.
…
I hadn’t prayed in a long long time. I was raised fearing the wrath of the Western narcissistic God. This controlling, jealous, and patriarchal God was not my God. A seasoned escapist, I received my education in the world as I traveled the globe seeking belonging.
In my early twenties I saw the prayer of the Chinese elders every morning in the green parks at 6 AM. The faint sound of the erhu hung in the mist. As the sun ate the moisture, I watched their delicate dance with energy. I saw the serenity on their faces. Their weathered bodies flowed with a fluidity I hadn’t seen before.
In Luang Prabang, Laos, I watched as locals gathered at sunrise lining the cobble stone streets. Every morning, the monks walk through town in their saffron robes punctuated by hazy blue light. Their walk is a daily call to alms. I was amazed by the Laotions who lived so simply, yet offered what food they had every morning. I saw the peace in their prayer of giving.
When I was 18, I took a greyhound bus to Atlanta GA. I learned about chance and opportunity as I knocked up and down that town selling security systems. Countless African American families took my hand in a prayer circle in their living rooms and driveways to ensure I was graced with safe passage.
I saw God in the face of my dying Grandmother. A devout Mormon and temple lady. She died on her own terms, in her bed. In perfect peace. She was ready to go. I watched as she held the hand of everyone who came to visit her in those three days of grace before she went on to reunite with her Ernie again. She looked deep into the eyes of everyone she knew, she said, “I love you, I will always love you, and I will always be there for you.” It still makes me cry. She was between worlds during those three days. I know she is with me. And somehow with the countless others who pray to her for comfort. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know she is with me.
I have felt the buoyancy of grace on a bus plunging through the Himalayas near Okhaldhunga Nepal. We were packed in like sardines, certain death was 2 mm away. As our feet left the floor, I was suspended body to body in a free floating nebulus of humanity. The peace I felt in that moment, knowing that if we died, we died together was indescribable. That’s what it feels like to live life suspended on a razor’s edge. The humility that floods in when you realize your life is not your own is breathtaking.
I have seen God in the alleyways and the temples of this world.
I have found God in the gutters of Bangkok and the eyes of orphans in Cambodia.
And so when I prayed, I prayed to the amalgamation of all of these Gods. In time, I came to think of God as Mother Earth manifest in countless and infinite forms. I see her beyond human morality. She gives and takes in ways that our little human minds fail to understand.
I would love to share the miracles I have experienced in my life since I started praying to Mother Earth. I would love to share all the tools I have learned and practices that have brought transformation to my life. But that would likely become a novel. Simply put, I have received everything I’ve asked for. Though it rarely comes in the way I think it will, it comes no less. The most miraculous change of all has come through releasing the seemingly infinite barriers to love. In discovering trust and surrender, I have yielded to love like a river bends to absorb a mountain.
This is not intended to be a novel.
So I will leave you with a simple prayer and practice to invite the powers of transformation to guide your life.
Practice and Prayer
Go to nature. Sit down in a comfortable place, ideally, near water. Find safety in the fact that you are utterly alone and completely connected all at once.
Close your eyes and visualize your root anchoring deep into the earth. Visualize the depths of the earth, notice the multi-faceted layers of time’s emblazoned memories.
Notice the carcasses of countless creatures that lived before you, silently informing your roots.
Thank them. Thank the earth for offering you everything you have and will ever have and ever know in this life. Remember, the earth is your mother. Take peace in this. Remember she is always here to listen, to hold you, and to offer her endless support.
Allow this peace to reach all the cells in your body. Invite your cells to reprogram themselves with support and safety. Allow yourself to feel trust in the magnitude and sturdiness of the earth beneath, around, and above you. Remember how small you are compared to all that is. Take peace in this.
When your heart swells with love, listen. If you have a question, ask it. Trust that your message is true. In time, as you practice acting on the messages you receive, your connection will grow stronger.
PS- Remember, trust is a very tricky thing for many of us. Trauma loops can easily sabotage all of us. Learn the difference in the way it feels when you make a trauma informed decision and when you make a courageous decision rooted in trust.
Cowards judge, criticize, and shame others from a hole in their heart.
Trust is always present when you are acting courageously with your whole heart.
As always, I am here to witness women in their transformative journey. I have witnessed hundreds of women in this journey as they reclaim their bodies, hearts, and minds from the poisonous fearful lies of others. Msg me if you’re ready to release the clay and cry sovereignty.
I’ve been witnessing women on film lately and I couldn’t be happier with the way the ineffable translates through an analog expression.
I am open to offering support to others who are going through transformation and seeking support on their journey. If you would like support in excavating your heart from the clay of society, send me a message.
10% of profits support our OG Mother Earth.
PPS- if you haven’t yet signed up for my Substack, I’d recommend doing so. It’s for the soul seekers who are walking the poetic pilgrimage of transformation.
