Category: SoulFullHeart Healing Process

Heart-To-Heart Knowing

Published on by Kasha Rosa2 Comments

By Katie Calder

I invite you to take a moment and think about this: when was the last time that you managed to sit across from someone and feel into knowing them, to know their heart and how it operates, maybe even how and why it resonates with yours?

We assume we know someone because we grew up with them in our family or they’ve been our friend for years…but how often have we said once emotions are heightened, “wow, I don’t actually know this person at all”. I offer from my own heart-centered feelings that we go through our lives only thinking that we know someone. If we lived in our hearts we would feel the need to feel their hearts on a deeper level that transcends simply knowing facts or stories about those in our lives.

The majority of my family only knows stories about me. The key word is “know”…not “feel”. I imagine that if they allowed themselves to “feel” stories about me instead they would receive a lot more information about who I am than they have up until now. I do not fault them for their error for I’ve done the same to them. There are a lot of wounds that I still feel within my relationship to them that keep parts of me from wanting to reach out and offer this new way of being together and getting to know each other all over again on a much deeper level. A part of me feels that she does want me to waste any energy on them, for they wouldn’t try to do the same for me. There is a lot of assumption that they won’t “get it” and unfortunately I do feel that she is right…at least for now.

When I lost my father in January of 2011, it sent a huge ripple through my family and therefore through my life. It was my first year living in Vancouver and I had to promptly return to Ontario for a couple of weeks to be with my family. Thinking back on it now, the best and worst moments I had, happened when I could sit and cry and curse as loudly as I wished to a loving cousin who seems to “get me” the most. Being allowed to be fully in an emotion, no matter what the cause is a huge gift and one that we do not offer each other often enough…and seldom ever outside of crisis situations like the loss of a friend or family member.  What I realize now that I have been on my own SFH journey, is that one of the greatest gifts we could ever give another human being is to sit and be with them in vulnerability and emotion, no matter how raw the experience. If only I had been doing this “parts” work by then, I would have taken the time to mourn with each of my realized parts and helped them through it while no one else in my family could. Perhaps I still need to do that. In fact, I feel I should. There are many unresolved and unhealed aspects of my relationship with my father and they all shake and quiver in response to that in their own way.

The truth is, not allowing each other to live heart-centred and feeling-based lives robs each of us of a huge gift – truth and authenticity. I feel it is virtually impossible to step into your best, fully-realized self unless your feelings are felt out by those who love you. How can one grow into the magnificent human being they are meant to become if they are constantly emotionally neglected? It is like ignoring a child for most of their child-years and expecting them to still grow into fully-functioning adults with no major social or self-esteem issues. We need to stop telling people who are “depressed” that they need to medicate in order to feel better. We need to stop telling people that reframing their thinking and becoming more “positive” is the answer. Positivity will come and depression will be relieved with love, care and empathy. Unfortunately it seems that in a society that doesn’t believe in processes and allowing things to take time in order to grow and change properly, we will always be looking for a the “quick fixes” like meds and turning your thoughts around, even at the protestation of your parts that need to be held and felt before they can feel better.

The idea of leading with vulnerability is a daunting one and I can tell you from personal experience that it is one of the most difficult things to do. I’m still getting the hang of it and it’s definitely not something we are meant to one day do perfectly, of course. Or could it be that this is one of those many instances where it’s appropriate to say that  doing it imperfectly in fact means that you are doing it perfectly after all? I like that idea.

In love, vulnerability and support for your own SFH journey,

~ Katie

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

In My Own Way

Published on by Gabriel Heartman2 Comments
Photo Taken By Chris on Goat Rock Beach, CA

By Chris Tydeman

(Note from Chris: As I have been moving through the SFH process, I have been experiencing my parts in relation to other people and daily activities. This piece comes as a part of me is recognizing and letting go of those things that he once held dear and defined himself through.)

I have walked the halls of this life

By feeling the walls and ground along the way

Never truly seeing where I have been going

Just following the thoughts that surround me

For they are all I have ever known.

When I cannot feel them, I panic.

Where am I? Where am I supposed to go?

I flail, feeling for something solid

Something to hold on to

Anything to help me feel like I am somewhere,

That I am someone.

The floor collapses and I fall

Unsupported by what used to hold me in place.

I am in a vacuum

In terror, I try to rebuild the hall with anything I can remember

But every time I try, it lasts for only a short while

And I am back again

Alone, empty, unknown

A voice from within whispers, but I cannot hear.

I call out for it, but only echoes of solitude come back to haunt me.

In this hell, I begin to weep

And the dam of my heart breaks open in a deluge.

A piercing pain overwhelms me

A fire begins to rage

Then I hear that voice once more.

The softness and clarity are unlike anything I have ever felt.

Her voice wraps me like a blanket

I continue to burn, but no longer in pain

“You are never alone my son. My love will always be here to support you and guide you. You are more than you can possibly imagine. You no longer need to be defined by that which you are not. Instead, surrender to that which you are.”

With those final words, a faint light begins to appear.

As it brightens, a new world appears before me.

A world that I could only have imagined

For I did not have the eyes to see

This time there is a vastness in front of me

This time I still may not know where I am going

But this time I will do it my own way.

​

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

Suffering From SPD (Single Personality Disorder)?

Published on by Raphael Awen2 Comments

By Raphael Awen

(Raphael’s note: I’m letting my inner teenage part express in this blog entry. His name is Marvin, and he seeks aliveness and meaning with others, especially around creative expression.)

“Hey Hon, do you wanna do that hike today?” she asked.

“ah…I don’t know….,” He said flatly.

“Or is today better to do that gardening? We got all the stuff for it?” She offered, looking at himfor connection.

“hmmm,” he toned back non-committally.

“Is there anything you’d like to do today, we haven’t had much time together for a while?”

He shrugged back with a facial grimace.

——  —–  —–

Have you ever been in a conversation that goes something like that? Sure, you have right? On both sides of the conversation probably.

But, have you ever been in a conversation where you or the person you are speaking with instead of being flat, replies to an offer with a thoughtful pause and says open-endedly, “Well,…. part of me does, ……and part of me doesn’t.”

Isn’t that way more refreshing, and honest? You can go somewhere with that response. It acknowledges that we all experience a push pull inside of ourselves.

—–  —–  —–

‘Single Personality Disorder (SPD):’ The resulting compounding stress in one’s life from the delusion that everything they think, say and feel comes from one personality source inside of them.

‘Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD):’ The stress of knowing and experiencing that you are more than one, but that there isn’t a healthy you at home who can hold, love, and reparent the various parts of you.

Seeing ourselves as made up of parts or subpersonalities, as it has been called, breathes so much relief. I can genuinely be drawn to something inside of myself and have a repulsion to it at the same time. I can like you and hate things about you at the same time. I can be majorly motivated towards something and lose the motivation in a heartbeat?

Part of me may definitely dislike the roller coaster effect of one part feeling something while another (or many others) feel something else. This is the part who seeks to appear “put together” to others who seem to be quite put together, while another part of me would so prefer to just check out from it all.

I’m curious, does that feel true for you too?

Soulfullheart offers a process where you can both get to know the various parts of you as well as be the kind and loving parent that your parts need to heal.

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

Challenging The Part of You That Argues For Your Limitations

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours,”  Richard Bach

By Jillian Vriend

After more than ten years of serving people in various capacities and settings, I’ve heard many self-limiting arguments from a client when part of them is resisting a challenging growth phase in their process. Whether the challenge is coming from life in the form of a crisis or is self created by the choices they are making or is coming from an intuition or guidance offered by me; it can be very difficult for parts of us to allow us to move to our next tier of growth, even if we say initially that we really want to heal, change, and transform.

As a SoulFullHeart Guide, when I hear a justification from a SFH client for not doing journaling or for letting weeks go before scheduling the next session or for continuing medications and self defeating patterns and suffering loops that they’ve previously felt they needed to end, I think of the quote, “Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they’re yours.” From a soulfullheart perspective, I would change this to: “Become the part of you who argues for our limitations and, sure enough, that’s all you are.”

If you were working with us as a SFH Client and found yourself in a challenging phase, rather than trying to just shift or reframe your thinking or encourage you to modify your behavior, we would advocate that you identify the part of you that holds the resistance and is the “arguer for the limitations”. We’d have you ask this arguer part what they are afraid of if you continue to commit to your process; encourage you to negotiate with them by offering that even though you feel this part of you is resistant that you desire to heal and grow; and feel with this part how you can agree on a pace and timing that honors their feelings while still allowing movement forward.

You would feel how this part of you received arguments of limitations from your parents, family, and social conditioning. This negotiation through a dialogue with you (as your growing SoulFullHeart Self)  is what allows you space from the parts of you that are feeling shut down, overwhelmed, kicking out, and resistive. This also allows for space from possible unfelt mother and father projections that may be going on towards life, God, or your SFH Guide. If this previously resistive part is able to respond to the challenge, deeper levels of trust, respect, and leaning in are created from that part towards you, the new parent in the “house”, and future negotiations through difficult phases should be easier.

Basically, SFH offers that you need to show up to challenge yourself and parts of you about the limiting truths they hold about time constraints, lack of resources, inability to give up a medication or toxic relationship, etc. or you cannot move beyond their reality to experience the life that you most desire. A life where time and resources feel abundant; where what you previously related to as a medication no longer is being used to suppress your feelings, and where what previously felt daunting becomes an opportunity for growth and healing.

These movements can be supported by a SFH Guide challenging the arguments and justifications that you give and inviting you to connect with the part of you that is offering them in the way I’ve previously described. If the client cannot go there, then we trust that this just isn’t the time for them to go deeper into their process as their reality of not being available for it has become their only reality. It would be invasive for us to push deeper if there isn’t a “them” there, a growing centered and more mature version of themselves, to respond to the challenge.

Ultimately, what we most desire for people is a growing experience that they can challenge parts of themselves in a loving way that holds accountability while making the commitment of time, money, and energy to their process because it feels most self loving and nourishing to them to do so for their own growth and healing. When this is the ground of the exchange, they get to experience the possibilities that open up and the healing that happens when they become more emotionally conscious about the parts inside of them and how their undigested and unfelt reactions to life limit them from becoming who they were meant to be and living the life they really want.

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

Moving Beyond Compartments And Into The Flow

Published on by Jelelle Awen2 Comments

By Jillian Vriend

We are being offered an invitation to move beyond compartmentalization in our lives. The defensive aspects of our persona create compartments (both energetically and emotionally) to hold back love and desire from flowing into all areas of our lives. We may also compartmentalize our “work self” from the person that we are at home; or our public service persona from who we are in private; or our spiritual seeker from our practical side. I feel this is also what happens when people attend weekend or week long spiritual seminars, have a “peak experience”, and yet have difficulty integrating it into their daily lives long term. The experience and our authentic response to it has been put in a compartment by our defenses, waiting a time when it will feel safe to express this way again. In all of this compartmentalizing, we are essentially resistant to letting our natural essence arise and flow through every moment and in response to every situation in our lives.

The invitation from the Divine is that we can flow into life from our natural essence, on the current of love, and in every arising moment. This invitation is offered to us now….and now…..and now. It is our minds, our conditioning, our conforming to a linear-based culture, and, most of all, our fear of not having love and not being liked, that keeps us in these compartments. It is much easier to be rejected and feel shut out by people if we are only actually bringing a portion of ourselves (and a highly formed version) rather than our whole authentic and unpredictable selves!

An example of this from my past was when I worked as a business coach and manager during the work week and engaged in my spiritual/emotional passion calling on weekends and “off work times.” My authentic expression and true passion was reserved by my defenses to come out only when it felt safe for it to, when I was in group circles where everyone else was being this way, in an individual facilitation session, or when I was alone with my parts.

In the beginning, this compartmentalization was comfortable and actually not even conscious to me. I also compartmentalized my romantic relationship away from my spiritual/emotional work as my mate at the time didn’t accept and understand what I was engaged with. It felt easier to keep that side of myself contained off from him because whenever I brought it up we would fight and have conflict about it.

Yet, the more I opened my heart, my soul, and myself through the work that I was engaging in, the harder it became to just go to work in the office and separate that from my “personal life.” And also it became more painful and difficult to separate my romance from my deepening relationship with the Divine and the one with myself and my parts. Eventually, the love and desire were in overflow enough that it became possible to make the changes that I needed to in order to end the compartmentalization. This meant the end of the relationship, although it didn’t necessarily have to be that way if he had felt drawn to engage in the same healing process that I did (which he didn’t.) And, this also meant the eventual moving on to a full time focus on offering my spiritual and emotional healing gifts to others and out of business coaching.

These changes took tremendous courage and also lots of breathing space, time, love, and negotiating with and feeling of my defenses. As the compartments became fewer and fewer, the dam holding back my natural essence and love collapsed and an overflow of love, desire, passion, flooded into my life. This flood continues in this moment as a tendency to compartmentalize my life is moved through with a fresh flow of love from the Divine or in connection with Wayne or in an offering during a SoulFullHeart session where I am learning and growing, even as I am offering to others a way to respond to life and love.

My current guidance is to feel the painting contracting work that I am doing is as sacred as the healing work that I am offering. That the Jillian who holds a paint brush is the same as the one who is holding someone’s heart desires and fears.

And, I feel in embracing this offering that there is less resistance to working, more sweetness and enjoyment of it, and a sense of honoring and service that just is no matter what I am doing or engaged with. There is more surrender to trust love will flow and find its way, even through conflict and difficulty. There is more trust that the container of love that has no boundaries, limitations, or compartments!

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

Dying in Submission or Thriving in Surrender?

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

By Wayne

Here’s an important question when it comes to relating to a any group or leader, or religious organization: Are they asking for my submission or my surrender?

If you come to a mentor, or a leader, or a group, whether it’s in the realm of spirituality, business or even family, for support, guidance or direction; putting this question on your radar can make or break your allegiance, as it should.

This question has been a guiding light for me over many years even when it was more subconscious than it was something I could put more words around as I will attempt now. 🙂

When a client comes to work with us in Soulfullheart work, we need them to lean into us, to see us as able to help, to see us a resource. This is true whether you are going to a dentist, an auto mechanic or a priest or pastor, or joining a group of any kind.

But how we, and they, relate to that ‘leaning in’ makes all difference in the world.

A leader who says that they have the truth; energizes that they have deeper knowledge; the path to your truest growth; and that if you lose sight of that, you will have to live with the penalties of being on the outside of their blessing, is using fear to bring and keep you under control and is asking for your submission.

A leader who offers what they have to offer, who even makes a bold claim as to what it can do to help; and invites you to consider it for yourself; who acknowledges that you are a sovereign being; who acknowledges that the healing gifts he or she offers don’t get to go anywhere without the participation of the client or seeker; who energizes no disdain for your choice to say ‘no,’ is asking and waiting patiently for your surrender.

One suppresses your power, the other enlivens it. One is afraid of your bigness, the other welcomes it. One sees your strength as a threat, the other sees it as an asset.

The difference here though is usually not so obvious, or we wouldn’t keep stubbing our toes or breaking our hearts over this question. Here are a few ways to look deeper and ascertain for yourself if the frequencies the group or leader are emitting are more about seeking submission or surrender:

How does the group or leader relate to those who are no longer a part of it? Does it hold more respect or more disdain? This is an important question because ultimately we end up leaving every group we join. And this question you can easily find the answer to before you join.

The other big one is how does the group feel on a transparency level? Most of us are now suspect that the politeness of politicians is a cover for lack of transparency and designed to gain and keep power. This way of being in the world is of course nearing it’s end as more and more of us can see through that for what it is.

Does the group come off as having more of the proud answers to life or instead the humble questions? Are they in the realm of knowing all the time or can they breathe in not knowing?

But let’s say, you’re already in deeper, have been for a good while, with many parts of your family and social and even possibly your financial life tied in in deep ways, and you are increasingly chafing at what feels like leaders being controlling and working to maintain your submission, and even masking that as asking for your surrender. What do you do with that? You might already know that there is no space within the group to openly question the leader without being labeled as disloyal or having a bad spirit, or just not ‘getting it.’ If that’s the case, the question for you isn’t whether the group is healthy or not, but more about how to find the courage to leave.

And that’s the kicker, because the time spent in submission is designed to erode the spine you would need to leave and say ‘no more.’ Alternatively, the time spent in healthy surrender is designed for you to see and determine when the growth you came for is achieved and that you are being called to move on, that you are ready to move on, with some sadness, sure, but not with any implanted fear of failure, lingering trauma, or feeling of being destitute.

Submission erodes your power and takes it from you. Surrender awakens you to your power and enhances your relationship to your own power. Surrender can never be demanded, it can only be freely and powerfully given. Surrender breeds powerful equals, submission breeds underlings.

Soulfullheart would take this question a step farther by asking a couple more questions that look at this same issue as it relates to our relationship with ourselves as well as our relationship to the divine:

“How has a more controlling part of me demanded the submission of the more vulnerable parts of myself?” and a second part to that question: “how has that process enabled me to stagnate in groups that no longer serve me?”

and:

“How has a controlling submission picture inside of me to the divine affected me with allegiance to a false god or an atheistic ‘f-you’ to the divine?”

We create in our outer life what is true in our inner life, and then our inner life moves, and our outer life follows.

If You’re Miserable In Paradise…

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

“Wherever you go, there you are” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn

By Jillian

I’m feeling blessed to be in a natural paradise on a warmish, sunny day in May. I’m on Gabriola Island, a remote feeling island off the coast of British Columbia, Canada that is only a 30 minute ferry ride from Vancouver Island yet feels like a world away from the hustle bustle of the lower mainland. In March, Wayne and I decided to rent a cottage here and divide our time between being here and our condo in North Vancouver.

It was a decision based on desire, not practicality, although we trusted that the financial means and the lifestyle changes would work themselves out if we followed our hearts. It was a decision from our souls with both of our daemons urging us to claim this piece of “paradise” where they could unplug from the frenzied and full grids of a metropolitan area and breathe in the quiet, natural beauty, and lighter population base.

We were following our growing desire and clarity to offer our SoulFullHeart work and felt that being away from it all would inspire our creativity, alchemy, and codification of this work. Oh, and it has! While being here, I’ve designed most of our website soulfullheart.com, received the name SoulFullHeart and our slogan, “Become Who You Were Meant To Be”, have placed an ad for SFH in the local paper, and we both find that writing comes fluidly and easily here. Wayne and I have both felt significant movements with our daemons here- feeling the transition for us to offering SoulFullHeart as our main source of income and passion work. We’ve also been synchronistically blessed to be offering our SoulFullHeart work to the couple we rent the cottage from here on Gabriola.

So, for us, this place is paradise.

Yet, for many people who live in places such as this one, it doesn’t feel like they live in paradise; instead it feels like they live in hell. If they are unhappy, struggling, and miserable in their lives, the physical location doesn’t impact this emotional reality. This is the wisdom inherent in the saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Although you might feel temporarily relieved and even inspired by a beautiful outdoor surrounding, the deeper feelings that you’ve subconsciously buried will bubble up and express eventually. Also, many of the parts of you that are in pain and suffering aren’t in this physical reality and time anyway. They are stuck in a time and place that captures their deepest cause of wounding and don’t feel much improvement or relief from settings or environments, even if they have favorite places to be. There are definitely environments that can help you feel yourself more; that are free from toxicity and negative associations. However, the environment alone can’t offer healing at the deeper subconscious levels where the source of your pain lives.

This is why unhappy couples on vacation may only temporarily relieve the state of discontent and resentment between them before it explodes into fighting, contention, and disagreement. As much as they would like the trip to paradise to alleviate and dissipate all their issues, the truth is that the reprieve is temporary at best and their issues merely follow them there.

Similarly, this is why you can go to a place to attend a “healing retreat” for a brief period of time and feel temporary movement from it. Yet, long lasting transformation may not accompany such a sojourn away from your daily routine. True transformation happens when it becomes your daily life, when your sense of yourself comes from within, and when parts of you have been felt in the realities where they emotionally live. It can be confusing, baffling, and even shameful to feel that you’re miserable in paradise. Yet, this is a reflection of your emotional reality and it’s difficult to deny or escape from for long.

Any physical place can feel like paradise when your sense of paradise comes from within yourself and then is reflected outward. When you truly and deeply love yourself from the worthiness place that arises through feeling these wounded parts inside you, you’ll be more naturally drawn to gorgeous places, yet you don’t need them in order to feel life is good, blessed, and beautiful.

The Cost Of Finding You

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

Image

By Wayne

If you already know that much of your true and deeper self as well as your soul’s purpose for being here is threatened to remain unfulfilled this life, and you’ve felt how the conspiracy to keep it that way starts inside of you, and only secondarily and at your authorization is that conspiracy’s power held by others over you, then you know that changing it will require choice and action on your part. Right?

But this awareness in you didn’t start just last week, it goes back a long way. You can probably recall and share stories about this awareness arising in you and the choices that followed. The teachers you embraced; the groups you joined and left. But the ache comes back to you to live inside of a bigger context, and in deeper meaning, and in greater joy and depth in your daily experience. Which is surprising really, given that much of your previously esteemed paths are not so valuable to you now.

This creates a push-pull in the spiritual seeker. These paths held you for a time, and were even a part of your sacred journey, but something you expected them to deliver, didn’t happen, or you’d still be there, right?

What are the one or two things, if you found them in a spiritual group or leader, that would reawaken your soul journey and compel you to come back on board? Conversely, what are the negative things, if you found it below the surface in a spiritual group, that would be a deal breaker for you? Do you know? Knowing what you’re looking for will save you from unexpectedly being taken again by the next shiny object in the form of a spiritual group or teacher.

You may want to pause before reading the next paragraph where I mention what mine are, so you can ask yourself what yours are before having mine in your head.

For Jillian and I, the big ones are about how far does the respect for individual sovereignty go. Or said in reverse ‘how much pressure is there for you to come under subtle forms of control?’

Any offering that purports to help you find you by putting you under control has obvious integrity gaps, just not so obvious to you and I while we were invested in them. Falling back into conformity is so understandable given our need for love and to hold an identity, but what we conformed to obtain is diminished by the inauthentic way we obtained it.

I think the reason you are taken like me with these questions is that you know something about you. You know that you expended a lot of time energy and money in the past seeking this deeper you. You know that given the right conditions, you are likely to do it again, even as you are feeling your reluctance to do just that.

I want to offer you a new path that promises to find your sovereign self in a deepening way, and let’s you self-validate the results.

And, what’s the cost of that?

The cost is the willingness to let go of what you find to be not you.

How far would your current group or spiritual teacher support you to truly live that?