Month: October 2012

Love Thy Self; Love Thy Shadow

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

By Sequoia Heartman

Love.  It’s what we are all here to give and receive.  When we think of love we immediately and instinctively think of something or someone outside our self.  A love of art, music, or country.  Or the love of a family member, a close friend, or intimate partner.  All outside the realm of our own being.  But what of the love we seldom hear about?  The love of our own heart, our own soul, our own self.

We have not been taught that this is where true love actually starts.  And by love of self, I do not refer to confidence or self-esteem.  These arise naturally and organically with authentic self-love.  Confidence and self-esteem feel more like false prop-ups to get us through the days, weeks, or months.  Please do not infer that I do not believe in building self-esteem.  Rather I suggest it is just a step in the direction of real self-worth and acceptance.  I encourage all to not stop there.  True self-love is recognizing our shadow, accepting that it is a part of us, and listening to what it has to say.

The conversation may be difficult and very hard to hear.  However, when you allow it space to speak its truth, you have given it something it never had been given before…love.  We hide our shadow.  We ignore it, medicate it, or sometimes hate it.  It has only wanted to be heard and felt.  It doesn’t exist to destroy.  It is actually there to create.  Create a You that you never knew existed.  It may not feel like it from their initial words to you, but over time you will find that it has loved you more than you ever thought anyone on this planet ever has.  It just hasn’t been able to express itself in a healthy way.  It didn’t have a You there to talk to.

Through my SoulFullHeart process I have been led to this shadow part of myself.  Through my arising authentic, sacred Self or SoulFullHeart Self, I have been able to hold space for it.  Listen to it and not be afraid of it.  It is through this work that I find myself in the midst of not only being aware of my own heart, but taking the time to feel it, listen to it, and love it as I would my own child.  The rewards are far greater than the price I paid to get here.  When you feel it for the first time, like I have, you wonder how you ever got along without it.

Sequoia Heartman is an apprentice facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more. 

Lessons From The Spawning Salmon: Surrendering To The Natural Cycles Of Change, Death And Rebirth

Published on by Jelelle Awen1 Comment

By Jillian Vriend

It is the sound that originally draws me during my daily beachfront walk. I am in Powell River, British Columbia, two ferry rides from the Vancouver area. I am drawn by the sound of flapping fins and rustling waters. And, there they are: dozens of large grey and pink fish swimming in a tiny stream flowing into the ocean; straining to move upstream against the current. My brain struggles to catch up with what I am seeing; it just feels so strange to see these near two to three feet long fish from the deepest ocean swimming in eight inches of water, clustered together in tight rows. The young part of me named Aurora finds the scene compelling at first, exclaiming inside my head, “Look, fishes! Huge fishes in the stream!” And she (along with my dog Koda) stand captivated for many moments watching them.

Then a young boy also watching the fish shouts, “That one is dead, mom. They are all gonna die, right?”

I feel Aurora wanting to protest, tell the rude boy to be quiet, and then we take in the whole scene. At the mouth of the stream and the ocean, dozens of seagulls are gathering, as if waiting for a feast to be served. The path the fish had taken across the beach to get where they are currently struggling to get upstream is impossible for them to go back down. Their trip is one way only. They are, indeed, all going to die.

I remember hearing about this phenomenon before, although being newer to Canada, hadn’t witnessed it yet. It was the annual salmon run where the fish return to their place of birth and spawn the next generation of their species before dying themselves. The instinct to return to their birth place is ingrained in them deeply, even going counter to their survival instincts as they can’t possibly make it through such a journey. While Aurora’s heart seems to break at this reality, I find myself moved and touched by the symbolism of the beautiful fishes instinct to sacrifice themselves in order to birth future generations.

This reminds me of the phoenix cycle, which in SoulFullHeart work is what we call the birth/death/mourning/rebirth process that is a natural part of the life cycle and, thus, is natural in our emotional and spiritual healing process as well. This death and rebirth process is the great equalizer and balancer. I have experienced personally that to the degree that we are open, proactive, and surrendered to undergoing in our own lives this process of transformation is the degree we can be in more surrender, less reaction and resistance, and in more flow with the changes that are happening in our world. Also, the more we feel our parts in reaction or in resistance to the process, the more we are able to arise from the ashes embodying our more authentic form. Just as the salmon are trusting that their surrender to the upstream climb will lead to the next life cycle, we offer to clients that when life brings them, or when they initiate the phoenix cycle in their own lives, it is the degree that they can trust this process that leads to deeper acceptance and transformation.

It can be a very painful process. However, we offer that the Divine would rather have us burn off something false and get it over with, then have us suffer in repeated loops of teased growth that doesn’t sustain or really change anything in our lives. In the SoulFullHeart process, you negotiate and navigate these transitions through ongoing dialogue with your parts, especially your more expressed ones such as your Daemon (soul guardian) or Prime Monarch (main personality part), so that it is at a rate that you and your parts can bear. These parts resist change and transformation as they would rather keep life safe, known, and constant for you.

The invitation to surrender to phoenix cycles continues all our lives, as it is the force of the natural world, yet the grace and acceptance at which we respond to it grows as we become more in touch with what is false in our lives, especially related to our relationships and career choices. This can be particularly painful when people in relationship with us, especially family and friends, are in different places and phases from us in terms of growth and transformation. It can be a challenging crucible to vulnerably advocate for what we most deeply want and who we are in these relationships, while at the same time inviting our loved ones to explore this new ground of healthier boundaries with previously suppressed feelings being invited to be expressed. It seems to be rare that this exploration finds alignment, which can lead to much hurt and misunderstanding. This too, though, is an aspect of the Phoenix Cycle. The Divine invites us to trust that, “only what is false can be lost.” Whatever the authentic connection is that we have with others or our authentic expression is in terms of our professional choices, it will sustain and grow through the crucible of the phoenix cycle, which naturally burns off what isn’t serving us any longer.

Wayne and I recently experienced an intense phoenix cycle related to money management and our relationship, which I write about here. We invite these movements into our lives, as we have experienced that change fueled by our authentic desire, responded to vulnerably and with willingness to feel our reactions, always leads to growth, more nourishment, and deeper intimacy with ourselves, each other, and the Divine.

This week as I walk by the salmon, who are actively in the process of dying yet are also, at the same time, birthing their next generation, I feel both sadness and hope. The sadness comes from the loss of their current forms and the hope comes from what is possible in the offspring that arises from their death. This is the same bittersweet feelings I have about the intimate changes I feel happening and am holding with our SoulFullHeart clients and in the global phoenix cycle that we are all connected to and impacted by that is playing out in the looming changes that are coming, whether we invite them into our lives or not.

Visit SoulFullHeart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart Healing Process.

Love and Money: Feeling How Parts Of Us Relate To Money In Relationships

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

By Jillian Vriend

I could hear the tone in my rising, my heart racing, my fists clenching. Part of me was reacting deeply, felt the need to defend itself, to make its’ case. Wayne challenged me back and we both could feel the clashing of parts inside of ourselves; the ones who held the tension that built up over the years around this charged issue. Money.

For most of our relationship, I had been managing our personal finances and performing bookkeeping for our painting company and for our healing offering. In the beginning, this was relieving to Wayne as he had been running the business and managing the finances for many years by himself before our marriage. Because of my previous business coach training, I would come up with budget systems and bookkeeping systems, yet the energy and desire to truly collaborate around it didn’t arise between us. We were highly collaborative in other areas, especially in alchemizing our healing offering, making major life decisions, and in working together in painting.

We knew (or our SFH selves knew anyway) that this compartmentalization around money wasn’t ideal nor was it reflective of our sense of a holistic response to life where no area is more sacred than any other. However, we also feel, as we hold with clients, that things are ready to move when they are and this domain of money was one that seemed to reflect a deeper struggle for parts of us.

It is said that money and managing finances is the number one area that causes conflicts in a romantic relationship or marriage. So, why is that, especially over something that isn’t even real?

My experience has been, working with both small business clients and SoulFullHeart clients, that money represents love to parts of us. We experience the same push-pull desires and resistance toward money that we do about letting in and transacting love. Parts of us can feel a sense of abundance or scarcity around money that is also connected to how they have experienced either an overflow or its opposite, the non availability of love, or something in between. Also, we receive a strong imprint from our cultural conditioning and our parents around how they relate to money and what roles parts of them played around it. This conditioning can be very strong and seems to be largely subconscious to us, so it can be difficult to identify and heal. Most likely very few of us received a truly healthy model for navigating money issues in an emotionally conscious way that allowed both partners to contribute and each individual to feel what was actually going on in their reactions about it.

Truly allowing a non-comparmentalized flow around money in your life, whether in a relationship or not, is about negotiating with parts of you around what their relationship to it is. For part of me named Carolyn, managing the money represented an area that she could control and also feel important around when she was feeling insecure about not holding a full-time job like we used when we were single. It was Carolyn who had a difficult time with the recent changes and what felt like Wayne’s sudden involvement and opinions about how to do things when she felt he had previously abdicated the money management to her.

I was able to hold her around this reactions, give her space when needed, and also to feel how earning independent money had been part of my conditioning in childhood as I received a strong template about this from my mom. My parents always maintained separate checking accounts and earned separate incomes. I received no modeling around how to collaborate in money earning and money management with a mate, which is why it felt so unknown to parts of me.

Wayne had a big movement around this as well with part of him and we were able to come together and share vulnerably after the initial blowups. We navigated through it because our parts had been felt by us, no longer demanding the other person feel and get what they were feeling. This is an example of focusing vertically (inside you) rather than just horizontally (on the partner only) when a conflict comes up, which I feel many relationships would benefit from, especially in this vulnerable area of money generation and management. We also held a boundary around not letting our parts get petty, mean, or be in ill will with each other as that just collapses the transactability between the partners making vulnerable sharing impossible.

Ultimately, moving through this difficult area for us has led to deepening intimacy and connection between us. I feel relief and goodness in Wayne’s increased involvement and leadership in this area. It now feels much more like the goodness of our “usness” (the third energy that is created when two people come together in a relationship) is leading the finances. Also, we are creatively coming up with new solutions and renewed alchemy, every day seeming to lead to new opportunities around money. Love is flowing freely in this area now and, with that, regardless of what the bank balance is, this area of my life now feels abundant.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart healing process. Go here for more articles by Jillian Vriend.

What The Legacy of Amanda Todd Invites Us To Feel About Ourselves

Published on by Kasha RosaLeave a comment

By Kathleen Calder

There have been many articles circulating around Amanda Todd’s suicide – a catastrophic (and very catalytic) incident that recently received lots of media attention.

To summarize, the story of Amanda Todd is about a teenage girl who was bullied by both men and women, to the point where she could no longer bare it all and in one last outcry for help, posted a video of herself. Here’s the link, if you wish to see it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej7afkypUsc

I just watched it for the first time and to say that my heart broke for her is a tragic understatement. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold her hand…not try to give her advice or tell her everything would be ok, but to just hold her and let her cry, or scream, or any outburst she needed in the moment. I would have sat with her for hours. I would have turned off my cell phone and bring every part of myself forward to meet her. To coax her own parts out to be felt. To just be with her.

It makes me wonder if she had anybody at all who could have done that for her. It feels as if no one around her knew how to offer her that. Or even worse…that they were afraid to even try.

On a personal note, Amanda’s situation could have easily happened to myself or any of my friends that I had in my pre-teen and teen years. Even when I was in university it could have happened to me. As women we sometimes become so fused with a part(s) of ourselves when a man showers us with “you’re beautiful”-s that the voice and feeling of our real, authentic, self-loving hearts becomes drowned out. Many a compromising situation could be avoided if we didn’t pounce on any ounce of male approval that comes our way.

I’m still working through this, namely with two of my emerged parts, Maria and Karrie. Maria was once known as my “seductress” part, while Karrie represents aspects of my teenaged self. They both have their own ideas and feelings around romance and attraction – how to attract and what they want to attract. I was never taught how to properly be loved by a man and what to look for. My parents themselves did not have a very loving relationship and I can actually count on one hand the number of times I heard “I love you” from my own father. My older sister never had relationships that could model for me either, but how could she when we were both raised with the same relationship model in place?

I feel this may be the root of Amanda’s own parts having caused so many issues with men and making so many poor decisions. Her real, Sovereign (aka SFH) self got lost in the shuffle while her parts called the shots based on what they themselves had been taught. I feel she may have experienced a similar past life to the one I recalled a week ago today, about having been persecuted as a witch a few centuries ago. It seems she may have unconsciously set herself up for similar persecution in this life…and when no one would do the killing for her, she did it herself…still attached to any guilt she may have had in that previous life around her gifts, feeling as if it really was all her fault that things turned out the way they did.

Amanda Todd’s suicide has caused a tidal wave of emotion and a resurgence of “anti-bullying” messages. Her story pushes beyond bullying and enters well into the realm of the relationship between men and women. The story of the “Burning Times”, as the witch-hunts are called, is one that is still present today, though I would argue that it it’s remnants are felt not so much in a literal sense as they are embedded in the female psyche. The majority, if not all of us, were so barbarically persecuted that it left a branding on our souls forever. We unconsciously fear being hunted again and feel guilt for putting our sexuality and our gifts out into the world, reclaiming what is ours, feeling as if it is our own fault if we are persecuted for doing so and we have brought it all on ourselves.

History, even long-buried, will repeat itself again and again until it has been felt through those parts of ours that it remains with. If only Amanda had been given this gift…but you know what? Despite her tragic and heartbreaking story, she has given woman-kind a huge gift herself. She has highlighted the need to repair our relationship with men once and for all.

A pattern must be brought forward and healed. And I for one am jumping on board with all my heart.

Thank you, Amanda.

May you rest and find healing in the arms of the Divine.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart healing process. Go here for more articles by Kathleen Calder.

Playing Pretend In The Shadow Of Our Truth

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

By Chris Tydeman

(Note: This was written by me through the heart of a young part of mine. He
is going through a difficult stage and he has become aware of the necessity of
having caring and truly compassionate (understanding) people in his life such as
Jillian, Wayne, and Katie of SoulFullHeart.)

Truth. It can be our worst enemy and our best friend all in the same
moment. We run from it fiercely, yet it is always by our side. We try to sever its
connection to us by any means possible, but it reminds us in a multitude of ways
that it is impossible to do so. Wherever you are, there it is.

In the course of my life, I have avoided even the softest of truths. I didn’t
want to seem ignorant. I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. I didn’t want to
cause conflict. I have been the master of the “white” lie. Yet for each one told, it
was like the silk thread of a spider’s web. Eventually, you get stuck. Then comes
guilt, shame, or anger, either expressed or repressed.

These lies had a purpose for me. They gave me the cover of being
acceptable, maybe even wonderful. The rewards were greater that the risks, or
so I thought. I was given praise, admiration, and self-gratification. But never the
one thing I was truly looking for. Love.

I don’t mean the “love” we have all come to accept as love. That “love”
comes from doing the “right” things, making the “right” choices, or saying
the “right” words to make everyone feel better about themselves.

The Love I refer to is the one you get for being honest, for being real, and
for advocating for your well-being. That Love has only come in drips or crumbs.
So much so, that when it really does come, you are leery of it or even frightened
by it. It has been a stranger the minute we landed here.

This is the Love that is needed to face the hard truths. The ones buried
deep inside. The ones that we dare not speak of, for they cast a light on our darkest fears, our biggest despair. These truths are the ones that can bring us peace through hardship, awareness through humility, heaven through hell.

Unfortunately, we feel nailed down, caged in, and tied up by the very thing that
can set us free.

This cannot be done alone. We need friends in Heart and in Love to hear
us, hold us, and honor us through this most difficult act of bravery. When you get
down to it, we are all still young children playing pretend in the shadow of our
Truth.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart healing process.

What does your real power and bigness look like?

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

By Wayne Vriend

Have you ever felt that a smaller or lesser version of you is living your life? (By smaller or lesser, I don’t mean bad or wrong, but rather lacking in your power and bigness.)

Why can’t you find friends to whom you don’t feel so invisible around?

Why does your family culture seem so impenetrable to your changing values?

Why do you remain in relationships that you know have a high degree of toxicity?

Why have you been unable to find a more fulfilling way to earn money in the world?

If the above questions don’t feel like the ones you ask about your life, then you have either found and healed your way to a really rare healthy life configuration, or it’s a smaller version of you who is doing the assessing.

A smaller version of you, made up of specific parts of you, are what does life until a you arises to alleviate them of the strategized way of doing your life that they have learned to do, in your absence. Up till now.

This smaller version of you is looking for a good enough status quo kind of equilibrium with which to survive, and especially to avoid rejection and pain. This applies if you are outwardly struggling in life or considered successful and well adapted. This smaller version of you is very predisposed to only taking the safest of risks, which are hardly risks at all, and has become expert in living out of preapproved cultural norms. This you won’t allow you to show up in your real and vulnerable feelings for fear that if that you gets rejected, there is no stand in double to take it’s place. Even your expressions that you consider authentic and real are channelled through this managed bureaucracy of you to significantly tone down the risks, and to strategize the ‘realness.’

The smaller version of you is run by what we call the Prime Monarch part of you, (ultimately motivated by love, but compromised by life’s hardening experiences) and it is in charge of the parts of you who had to be suppressed inside of you for your intact functioning. The vulnerable and afraid you; the magical you; the you who still only knows how to truly play; all had to be suppressed as you grew ‘up.’

And given the territory; and given the lack of a present you who could relieve this smaller version of you; this you is to be honored and thanked. It found a way. It showed up.

The difficulty though is this new you arising with these deeper assessment questions that you maybe didn’t even notice on your radar much before are now growing in your awareness. This new you begins with emerging desire, honesty, needs, advocacy, dissatisfaction, and self love to become a presence in your ‘you’ stream.

What would your real power and bigness look like if it manifested in your life and relationships and decisions? You might be able to get whiffs of it, but you don’t really know, do you?

Of course you don’t. You haven’t lived your way there, which is the only way to ever arrive and keep arriving there. There is no one size fits all template of what bigness looks and feels like. There are some very refreshing common earmarks, but the way they show up and express in your life are as diverse as fingerprints and snowflakes.

So the real question then is something like this: ‘How could the life I’m living, the one I find myself in, actually lead me to more and more of my real self, instead of fortifying my false self?’

That question in itself is only one that an emerging real self could ask. The smaller version of you simply can’t entertain such a question. It can embrace self improvement, and fixing problems, but not the task of emotional authentication.

I feel the smaller part of myself right now, as I write this, wondering if it’s OK to be this big, to be this authoritative sounding, to say we have solutions, and also wondering where this will lead, away from my own current familiar. ‘Who’s going to look after me?’ he asks. The small part of ourselves is not bad, or a drag. They feel insecure because their needs and vulnerability is real, and they need a larger us, who is willing to feel them and respond, rather than suppress and power through.

Soulfullheart, as a process (not to be mistaken with a therapy), was created for people who are at this stage of awareness, and desire, and frustration – all necessary ingredients to making the choice to find and discover and heal your way to your real you. The SFH process derives its’ value from people like you who feel called to themselves to undertake it.

If this article resonates inside of you as speaking your truth, I promise you, that your real you is waiting and longing for you to take the next step into your bigness, and begin your Soulfullheart process.

Please contact me, Wayne or my wife Jillian for a free intro into where you could go from here.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart healing process.