Message From Kuan Yin: Be In Stillness and Open Your Heart To Compassion

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

kuan yinsmall

By Jelelle Awen

Over the next several days, I am going to be sharing messages I received from the four faces of the Divine Mother that I experience connection with: Kuan Yin, Dark Mother-Kali, Magdalene, and Mother Mary. My main way of communicating with them has been through visualization visits, which I feel we are all able to experience and engage with if our hearts are in need, we vulnerably ask for it, and our motives are pure. In SoulFullHeart, the connection you develop with your daemon or soul guardian allows for the frequencies of communication to come through clearer and with less resistance. Through the SoulFullHeart way of life, you heal emotional and spiritual wounds through getting to know aspects of yourself and your Daemon which clear congestions that may block you from hearing and experiencing the Divine for yourself. We offer in SoulFullHeart that we are all sacred human children of the Divine meant to experience, especially the Divine Mother, in a direct, personal, and intimate way that requires no middleman, guru, or priest.

Here is a recent message I received from Kuan Yin about 2013 and the state of the world:

Hear me in the stream. Hear me in the water flow. Hear me in the flute. Hear me in the chimes. Or don’t hear me. Just be with me.

This is difficult now. As always. Such a busy world. Busy back and forth. Busy buying and selling. Busying birthing and killing. Busy with things that do not matter. Busy with things that do. Busy with content and not enough context. Busy with superficial and not enough depth.

In all your busy, you do not see or hear or feel or be enough. You are not still enough. If you could be more still, you would feel your own desires. You would feel your blood rushing through. You would hear the beating of your heart. You would remember that you are both real and not real.

In all your busy, you attach to things that are false. Things like time and money. Things like attainment and performance. In your language, things like mortgages, salary raises, investments, and on and on. In any language, these are things that are false and do not exist. Time and money are the biggest falsities and your attachment to their importance holds you captive to them.

To be free is to feel how time is an illusion.

To be free is to feel how money is an illusion.

In all your busy, you attach to your mind and understanding and mental attainment. Your schools and educational systems are little factories for this. The mind is but one filter, and not even the most important one. No, they are all important! But the mind has been made too important. If you can forget the mind in moments, even just for a brief moment, you are free.

In all your busy, you do things that are completely lacking in compassion. You commit acts against each other that are cruel and abusive. You become stuck in apathy and so can’t feel the cries of the world. If you feel the cries of the world, you could weep every second of every day for the state of the world and those suffering within it. Your tears would flow always, as do mine, for all the creatures that suffer in the world with not enough food, not enough water, not enough shelter, not enough respect, not enough safety. With not enough love.

This year is the same as other years, which also do not actually exist. You attach to the beginning of years; you make your resolutions and promises to yourself about your fresh starts. Resolutions are not real, only the desires that are at their roots. Resolutions become more ways to stay busy and then punish yourself when you don’t stay busy enough.

Instead, hear me. Be with me. Be still with me. And see what comes and arises from that. Arise and dissipate with that.

And then, we will see.

We will be. Won’t we?

Jelelle Awen is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart Way Of Experiencing Life. 

A Son’s Ending, A Man’s Beginning

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Male By Birth; Men By Journey

By Wayne Vriend

I originally wrote the following piece in March, 2010, and published it on a previous blog. I wanted to share it again as healing the wounds between men and their fathers (whether possible in person or in spirit) is so foundational and critical to our healing into authentic male expression.

***

It had been over two and half years and I had not been back since the day of the funeral, until today.

I took myself, my backpack, my umbrella and a piece of plastic to sit on and set myself down, right on top of the grave. I was reminded of the times I was too young to remember of sitting on Dad’s stomach. I felt welcome and belonging here now. I snugged my umbrella over me as the rain was lightly falling.

I unloaded the green stemmed purple crocus potted plant with the fuchsia wrapping, that I had purchased on the way out, in front of the headstone. The light rain was opening their blooms. The colors of it all fit well with the maroon color of the headstone, which I took in for the first time. The front read simply ‘VRIEND,’ and on top ‘Jim Vriend 1934-2007,’ and ‘safe now in the arms of Jesus,’ and ‘Loving husband, father and grandfather.’

I looked at the photo of my dad in his early seventies attached to the wrought iron prop. He had bright blue eyes and a boyish alive playful happiness. Here is where we rested his body, committed it back to the earth, in solemnity, in ritual, with hymns of the church and a homily of remembrance. We all stood that day. Today, I sat down, on the earth, and remained there for the better part of two hours.

My father had attended church every week of his life, and felt a palpable connection to God, and remained his entire life not too far from the safety and comfort of his family upbringing. I’d often chafed with him in my desire and decision to explore beyond the bounds of safety. I’d often tried to be nice and not so antagonistic and hoped in exchange that he’d see my soul for who I am, in the hope I could see more of myself. I always felt crazy for not being able to overcome the wall between us.

Today, however, I felt the wall was dissolved between us, like it had simply never been.

I breathed in and out the incense I had lit that was wafting in my face. I read aloud the words again before me: ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus.’  I said, “Dad, how I longed to feel safe in your arms.”  His pained eyes felt my pain, and bouncing shoulder sobs shook me. My pain mingled with his pain for the joy he missed in not knowing me in this way, and for his not being known by his father in this way.

For the first time, the anguish became ours.

I shared with him a piece of treasured driftwood I brought and a jade stone, both of which reminded me of his love and familiarity for the earth. He accepted them with an ocean of gratitude, and we shared eye to eye tears over the gifts we had not up until now been permitted to give and receive.

The rain subsided along with my tears and I set aside my umbrella and jacket.  I said to the spirit of my father, “Dad, so much of my life, even to this day, has been shaped by the attempt at trying to feel your deep approval, your love, and admiration.”

He paused, and then replied in a cadence and tone that contained the world, “Son, I can tell you with everything that I am now, I have never ever met a man that I esteem higher than you, in fact you are truly my hero.” The genuineness of his heart and words I ingested easily, and my tears now were of deep gratitude.

The differences in our beliefs and choices in so many areas of life did not even require a debriefing here in the domain of heart and spirit where beliefs often only serve as a wall of protection and alienation.

I paused to drink some of the coffee and eat the bar I had brought with me, not wanting the host in him to fuss.

Eventually I said, through tears, “Dad, I’ll be 49 this year. I’m again embracing more change, and letting go of securities. I know I need to keep food on the table, but living for a job, and a mortgage is not what I am here for. I need to find new courage and I want to ask your help. Dad, will you help me?’

I waited until I felt his response and then let my voice carry his voice through mine, “Son, I would be so honored, and I will do everything in my power to show you, to guide you, to cheer you on in the choices you make.” In the tears that wouldn’t stop, I was able to feel some of the reason we’d been so unable to connect in this life and to give way to the connection I’d need with him now.

The coffee was moving through me, and I didn’t think the cemetery workers across the way would have an issue with me taking a side trip to the bushes. I relieved myself and returned and sat down again, digesting all that had moved in a matter of minutes.

My last visit with my father had been in the hospital, with warm smiles, small talk that differed little from any other visit, and no mention of his soon passing. I felt his true joy at seeing me. The young boy in me was struck by the weakness in his body and the bruising on his arms and legs, a sad contrast from the man I had always admired for his strength. Then his tone and focus changed, sitting up in his bed and with fore finger tapping the hospital table like a pulpit, he exclaimed, “I’m not the one who instituted the family,” reminding me what the Bible teaches about family, and referring to my recent distance from family. I knew he meant well, but I felt the gulf between us and our values (since I had left Christianity a few years earlier along with my marriage) as uncrossable. I kept the visit short and we exchanged back tapping hugs, “I love you,” and “I love you too.” And, I left, aching for so much more.

Here though, perched on his grave, there was no awkwardness, no taboo subjects, no inabilities to simply ask for what we wanted from each other, no fear of our angst, no withholding of our forgiveness and our apologies. There was just love that filled the space that gave rise and fall to words to assist the love.

It was evident we had both taken in all we could.

I remembered singing his favorite hymn “Amazing Grace” at the funeral. I sang a few lines now as I gathered up my things and got up. As I took in the scene and caught my breath, I realized that my dad and I had just met for the first time. I said to him, “Yeah, Dad, grace really is amazing.’

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart Way Of Experiencing Life.

A SoulFullHeart Birthday

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

By Cristian Tydeman

When I was a kid, my birthday was a day in which, for one 24 hour period, I was the star.  I took center stage and everyone else was my supporting cast.  It felt good to be recognized and acknowledged for just being me.  So much so, that I remember telling people it was my birthday, just to receive those accolades.  A cheesy grin would be painted on my face.  “If it could only be like that every day, for everyone,” says my young Christopher part.  Words of angelic desire, from the lips of a child.

As I got older, the feeling around my birthday was that it was “just another day”.  I appreciated the phone calls, the cards, and the gifts, but somehow the magic just wasn’t there anymore.  Or I just couldn’t let it in.  The focus of the birthday became the number and not the pats on the back and the sweet cards from my daughter.  Somewhere along the way, I didn’t feel I was worth it.  Or at least a part of me didn’t.

This is hitting me pretty hard in the moment.  This feeling that, out of all the days during my life, a part of me couldn’t let in love for that ONE day.  A part of me couldn’t enjoy the beauty and joy around him.  The same letting in that I allowed as a child.  I had become desensitized to my own heart.

But this birthday was different than any other.  Today I let in the love from those that I love the most.  So much so, I found myself crying in the middle of my classroom as I read emails from my new SoulFullHeart family.  My young Christopher, wanting so desperately to be with them and eat cake and ice cream and be sung to.  “No gifts, Cristian, just love, please,” is the only thing he can say with tears in his eyes.

The tears are of longing and ache to be there with them, but also of letting go.  Letting go of the family he used to spend his birthdays with.  The birth family where the birthday memories began.  Yeah, we got cards and a gift from them.  There is love behind them that we acknowledge and are grateful for.  But it is not the “love” that neither I nor he desire.  It is a “love” for an old me.  The sentiment being sent was that “no matter who you are we still love you.”  It seems like a sweet gesture, but that is not good enough anymore.  I am not swayed by guilt anymore.  I want a family who will feel me AND my parts. I want a family who will shower my young Christopher with love and praise.  I want a family who will lovingly challenge us without the bite of criticism, judgment, or faithlessness.  I want a family who I have a common ground with.  A family we can learn from and respect by their own example.  I choose a SoulFullHeart family.

I am grateful for all my birth family provided for me.  They are why I am here, becoming who I am.  I drew them for a reason, and my time with them has been completed, at least for the short term.  If they so choose to go into their own hearts, and heal their own shadow, I would be there greeting them with open arms.  Until then, this may be my last birthday in contact with them.  Hence, the tears.

On the flip side, there is newness.  A re-birth, if you will.  The uncovering and discovering of the REAL me.  The ME that has been repressed and suppressed for far too long.  The ME that is the head of this household I call my SFH Self.  The ME that is the space-holder and lover of all my parts, especially my dearest Christopher.  They have a new father to lean into.  A new family to be supported and guided by.  As for me, I have a new love blossoming and a new NOW to create with her.  I have a rekindled love affair with the Divine in all Her beauty and grace.

Hello everyone.  Today is my first birthday and my name is Cristian.

Note from Jillian: I made this photo collage for Cristian to celebrate the day of his birth and his emerging birth into himself. Seemed appropriate for this post.:)

Cristianbirthday2

Entering and Leaving: In The Birth Canal

Published on by Raphael Awen2 Comments
Photo By Wayne Vriend
Photo By Wayne Vriend

By Wayne Vriend

Mike, whose energy reminded me of a slick Amway promoter, was the recently hired Western Canada Regional Manager for a company boasting to be the largest of its kind in Canada. While driving home, I reluctantly picked up his call after having just pulled up stakes mid way through on a paint job for this company. This is something that I had never even thought of doing in my previous 23 years long subcontracting relationship with the company.

Earlier in the day, I had decided and informed the company that I would not complete a big deadline job unless some reasonable payment was made. I also made this decision after hearing that many other subcontractors and even material suppliers were getting paid very late. Due to this, the job was poorly coordinated, running behind, and contained an energy of chaos, anxiety, and disconnect.

“Hi Wayne, it’s Mike. I also have Darren on the line,” he said, in a voice too loud, too smooth, and too enthusiastic for the situation.  “I said to Darren, let’s get Wayne on the line and see if we can clear this up. I think your invoices just have some dates confused in our system and that should take care of things.”

I sighed inwardly at his assumption. “No, Mike, I checked all of our invoices over carefully with your accounting department months ago. They are correct in your system and they do, in fact, go back over 4 months”

Then, he changed his tack. Softening his voice a little, he said, “Wayne, I’m going to see if I can get you all of this money from our treasury department right away. It may take me a few days though. Would you be willing in the meantime, in good faith in our company, to continue so we can get these people moved back into their home?”

It wasn’t so easy to find my words inside of this barrage of tones and words: a promise to go and get my money from the difficult and elusive treasury department; an appeal to my sense of good faith; and care for others: getting the homeowners moved back into their home.

I managed to find my response after fumbling at first around with my words. “No, MIke, I’m not comfortable with that and it just doesn’t feel self loving to do that. It’s been several broken promises.”

The job was going sideways fast anyway. Material suppliers, subcontractors and employees alike waiting on the sidelines for a corporate nation-wide general contracting company and it’s opaque layers of management and hedge fund ownership to find some heart and soul, and actually lead, or actually care.

When the Titanic hit the iceberg a 101 years ago, there were two precious hours of choice and action time before it finally sunk to the bottom of the ocean. The gravitational pull of denial, and buying into the status quo answer of ‘this ship is unsinkable’, were in fact what caused a much greater loss of life. Those who came to their senses early in the first hour made all the difference, for themselves and for others.

We are in such a time. It is evident wherever you look. My story from this week is not unique.

Our grand capitalist systems; our social systems; our religious and spiritual systems: these that are so dear to our false selves and have enjoyed such huge buy ins from so many, for so long; all these have struck an iceberg. These systems, that once felt so much like home, that animated us, are now in slow motion collapse. Make no mistake, as Captain Smith said so plainly in the movie in response to Rose’s inquiry about their fate; ‘The ship will sink.’

It gets real clear, on a sinking ship, once you’ve accepted what moments ago felt unbelievable even to you, that your first responsibility is to save lives, including your own. What are you choosing today? What are you trusting in today? How do you propose to care for anyone else while denying your first responsibility; to truly care for yourself?

The iceberg is not the problem. The poor design is not the problem. It is all a huge and unexpected gift to us, if we can only surrender to the point of the collapse: being prepared by the circumstance itself to enter our next phase of life.

Our most authentic self is mid stream in the birth canal, between the collapsing story and the rise of a new story, waiting to be born. In order for that to happen, we are being invited to leave the false self systems that we once held so dear and enter into an arising birthing process.  We can’t know what our new self will look like, we can only trust that what we were previously invested in is now complete in it’s purpose to bring us to a deeper choice point and truer reflection of who we were meant to be.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart Way of Life.

What Our Food Cravings Are Inviting Us To Feel

Published on by Kasha Rosa1 Comment

Abundance-Food

By Kathleen Calder

Yesterday I came across yet another sign advertising “guilt-free” food options at a local fast-food restaurant. For a moment I felt into the feeling of relief that comes from knowing you’ve just eaten something that was “good for you” instead of what you really wanted to eat. Then, I felt into how cravings can be attributed to our parts and how we can make much better strides to eat in better moderation and portions if we negotiate with them first. That being said, I feel that “guilt-free” eating is actually impossible. Some part of you that was asking for the fries instead of the salad may feel guilty that they even asked for the fries in the first place and will think something is wrong with them since their request was ignored for not being “good enough”.

I’m not saying or even feeling that we should necessarily just give in and have the fries, but I do feel the need to look for another option to satisfy their craving or negotiate with it. You could offer to share fries with your friend or even offer that you will make healthier ones that are just as tasty at home later. Sometimes you do just need to give in though, which could also trigger guilt for the part that asked for the fries when another part comes in to punish it for doing so (it can get quite emotionally violent in there!).

It feels to me that cravings are clues and hold just as much valuable data for getting to know a part as an emotional trigger or reaction from them. For instance a desire for certain foods may come from a desire to feel “loved” and eating that particular food holds that vibration for them somehow, which is definitely something you can work with them to get to the bottom of.

This practice of conscious eating with parts is something I’m working on even as I write this. Both of my young parts know full-well that there is part of a yummy chocolate bar in my desk drawer, just beneath where I am typing this! They know, because I have told them, that we may enjoy a small piece of it after supper as a treat at the end of the day. This makes it a bit easier to ignore the chocolate… for now at least!

The thing that I feel I want to impress on you as an overarching concept here, is that any type of urge or craving, be it for sex, alcohol, shopping or food, need not be quelled with a fear of feeling guilty for indulging, but instead needs to be held, loved and cherished for the clues it holds for getting to know and LOVE yourself on a deeper level. Making a craving or urge “bad” does anything but help us stop doing it. Chances are that even if you do manage to give up a habit, dependency, or “addiction” you will not be able to for long without digging deeply enough to find the reason (and it’s bound to be a very good, very valid one at that) for the “medicine” to have been self -prescribed in the first place.

Also, in SoulFullHeart, we look at the relationship that our parts have to the substance, thing, or person that they’ve been using in a medicative way to numb out or suppress their feelings. In that way, no substance is bad or evil- except maybe toxic or self punishing drugs or food- just that it can be used in an unhealthy way by parts of us.

To our ever-growing love and understanding for ourselves!

Love,

Kathleen

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart Way Of Experiencing Life.

Convicted: Heart, Body, And Soul

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

Heart, Body, Soul

By Cristian Tydeman

I spent some time looking up the word “convicted”.  Obviously, the first thing that comes up is “being found guilty”.  In biblical terms (and may I preface that I am not nor have ever have been a Christian this life), it seems “convicted” is to realize through the Word of God that the life we had been living was “wrong”.  In either case, both definitions connote judgment.  In my new awareness, conviction is a state of loving embrace.  That is how it feels to me.  I could have easily chosen another word, but somehow this one really resonates with the heart of what I am.

I have recently returned from another Soulfullheart experience in Vancouver.  This time for two weeks.  While the group only met for two days, my process was running on 8 cylinders the whole time.  The compartments that I used to walk in and out of were melting away.  For the first time since I began this journey I was feeling more whole.  More at peace with who I am, not what others “think” I should be.  I brought more of my SFH self this time around and the alchemy of sacred space brought me to this state of conviction in heart, in body, and in soul.

Heart

I am in love.  In love with who I am becoming, in love with a beautiful woman, and in love with the Divine.  During my stay I found myself in an emerging relationship with all of the above.  With my Soulfullheart companion, Kathleen, I had to “show up” and be the man I know I am or risk losing something magical.  We both had to learn to be vulnerable and feel the fear of our parts in any given moment.  Through this sometimes difficult process, there arose a bond I have not experienced in decades.

As a result, I began to experience myself in a whole new way.  I feel more King-like, more open, and more real.  This is what I have been aching to feel my entire lifetime.  It has been worth all the challenges and tears.  The chrysalis is shedding and the wings are unfurling.  I am here…now.  With this new consciousness comes a new name…Cristian.

Body

Another manifestation from my Vancouver stay was the relationship to my body.  Jillian and Wayne have led me to a new respect for what I put into my body and how I maintain and strengthen it.  Though I am just beginning this new phase of my SFH experience, the initial feelings are positive and hopeful.  I went on a shopping trip recently and purchased more fruits and vegetables than I ever have.  Being around health just inspires me to be healthy.  As this unfolds, I will keep you posted on my body-based journey.

Soul

The last, but certainly not least, is my strengthened relationship to the Divine Mother.  From the minute I left my home some two weeks ago, situations occurred that were beyond mere circumstance.  People I sat next to on the plane, unfolding of seemingly unrelated events to lead me to one place or another, and the soft, tender voice that follows me wherever I go.  My daemon, Raybone, went through his own transformation with a new name and thus reestablished a long hiatus from Divine Love.  He has constructed an altar to Her Presence in our life.  All of which was inspired by music gifted to us by Jillian.  He has begun remembering our purpose here on this planet.

I have committed myself to moving toward Vancouver.  I have cleared my heart of any doubt that this is right for me.  I am unshakeable in my desire, unmovable in my faith.  I will be there.  I am there, now, in heart and in love.  The Divine tells me to follow my love and a path will be laid.  There will be challenges and fear along the way, but with Her Love, Kathleen’s love, and the love of my Soulfullheart family of Jillian, Wayne, and my daughter, there is nothing that will stop me.   I am. . . Convicted.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more articles and information about the SoulFullHeart Way Of Experiencing Life.

Discovering ‘Social Softness’

Published on by Kasha Rosa1 Comment

socialsoft

By Marge in Kathleen Calder

Kathleen hasn`t yet written directly from any of her parts. I am happy to be the first.

My name is Marge and I am one of Kathleen’s more obvious parts in this phase that she’s in. I am also known as Kathleen’s “mom” part. In other words, I am the part that best represents and embodies the voice of Kathleen’s mom, much to the dismay and yet sometimes comfort of her younger parts. We are working together to heal this dynamic and bring Kathleen more compassion towards her mom despite their necessary separation during this phase of both their lives.

This weekend at group I was “outted”, as we call it in SoulFullHeart, for playing my usual hiding tricks. I hide my true feelings behind Kathleen’s ability to intellectualize any conversation, even if the conversation is about or during her process. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hide for long, but when Jillian called me out of hiding I felt very embarrassed. Weren’t we still getting the answer right even if I wasn’t connected with my feelings at the time? The simple answer is “not exactly”. It has taken a lot for me to let go of the way in which I answer questions or hold conversations in a group setting. Kathleen wasn’t aware of my tactical way of socializing through her until this weekend. She thought it was all normal…key word being “thought”. I “thought” it was it the way humans were meant to socialize. This whole idea of being in your heart and communicating what you are discerning through your emotions and feelings instead of using your head to discern and disseminate has been so foreign to me.

Until this past weekend, I never realized just how conditioned I was. Suddenly I had memories of being embarrassed for the opposite reason…for trying to communicate my feelings, only to have them invalidated by those who “loved” me.

Now I’m being taught that I am allowed to feel again. Yesterday when we were in the company of Wayne, Jillian and Christian, we were felt to be “softer”. Indeed, both Kathleen and I felt an emerging “social softness”, as it were. Ah, it felt so much nicer to choose stillness instead of words! Stillness allowed me to access my feelings and for Kathleen and I to speak directly from them for a change. Discovering the virtue in being this way in a social environment has helped me to feel what I truly feel about relationships that Kathleen has, including her relationship to social media. Together, she and I can move through life with a genuine and useful method of discernment about, well, everything. I no longer wish for us to simply exist and find ways to “get by”. I now desire for us to work together and find ways to LIVE.

With love and gratitude for you allowing me in through this writing,

Marge

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

Most Viewed SFH Blog Posts For 2012

Published on by Jelelle Awen
Goat Rock Beach Photo Taken By Chris Tydeman
Goat Rock Beach Photo Taken By Chris Tydeman

Our blog began in October, 2011 with Wayne and Jillian posting a couple of times a month, mostly about economic and environmental shifts. In April 2012, we started offering SoulFullHeart as a way of life and healing process for clients and through writing on this blog and our website. We invited any of our clients to contribute to the SFH blog as a means of creative expression and sharing about their process. In July, Chris posted his first writing, which was about emotionally conscious education and Kathleen offered her first writing on the SFH blog in August (posted below.)

We are excited about the catalytic year coming of what feels like growth and seeding for SoulFullHeart, with a desire to draw more like-hearted and minded souls to join us for individual sessions over the phone and in person and during our monthly group weekends. We’ll be offering introductory talks about the process, both in the lower mainland area, BC, and through a conference call over the phone. Our book about the SoulFullHeart Process, which includes three sections about intimacy with self, others, and the Divine, is in collaborative process between us with an offering date for the Spring 2013.

It feels as if 2013 is inviting us to move into the personal changes that are already happening globally – and need to happen- on so many levels. SoulFullHeart offers a way to move into and through these changes in a way that creates a radically different, magical, and healing sense of experiencing life. If you’ve been reading our writing regularly, maybe you are ready to experience this for yourself in a personal way? If so, contact us soulfullhearts@gmail.com.

We look forward to connecting with those of you who feel a desire to deepen your experience of life through SoulFullHeart’s way of feeling and living it.

Thank you for reading our words and taking them into your heart and soul,

Wayne and Jillian Vriend

Below are the posts on the SFH Blog most viewed for 2012:

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

Heart-To-Heart Knowing

Superheroes As Representation Of Our Idolized False Self

Feeling Blessed On A Birthday

A Call For Heart-Based Leadership: Less Game Playing, More Vulnerability

Love Thy Self; Love Thy Shadow

A Changed Heart Can Change The World

Invitation For 2013 And Beyond: The Urgent Need To Awaken Our Emotional Consciousness

Suffering From SPD (Single Personality Disorder)?

What Does Your Real Power And Bigness Look Like?

Crisis Of The Modern Male: Urgency For Kings

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment
Photo Taken by Michael Rowley
Photo Taken by Michael Rowley

By Wayne Vriend

What does manhood look like now, in these modern times?

What is it? How does it express? What does a deep and genuine self worth look like in a male expression?

Men aren’t generally given to asking such questions. It isn’t part of the current male persona. I want to ask the men I encounter: ‘Are you too busy subscribing to others’ ideas of maleness that you don’t have the time, energy, desire, or imagination to find your own?’

It is only our false selves who fear inquiring about whether our masculine expression is real or not. To ask the question is to be open to finding something lacking or missing and false selves have a hard time with that, given as they are to making do and finding a way. Our authentic self however, has no such judgments, or fears of finding something lacking or missing, but rather welcomes it as part of self loving discovery and change. The authentic self accepts how we were in life up until present time as part of our sacred process and journey.

In past times and cultures, one of the treasured male stories was to die in battle. Dying while fighting for a just cause was the ultimate bestowal of honor. A current honor story for men in the western world is career and home ownership. Men have always been afraid of being without a male story to live into and attempt to embody.

We are in a time of the ‘changing of the story,’ where our old stories are losing their appeal and coming apart at the seams, and new stories are forming, but not solidly here yet. Soulfullheart desires to be a conscious part of that coalescing into people’s lives.

Stand in front of a magazine stand and see for yourself. Fitness, photography, news, sailing, sports, technology, travel, architecture, cars, with sex sprinkled throughout, and porn at the back. All of it is an appeal to the ache in men to find male expression, male power, male passion, male-ness, and a stiff cock. It wouldn’t sell if there wasn’t a need.

Every man walking around has a boy part inside seeking his way home, to himself, to truly becoming a man. The ones who can admit that are actually our deepest current leaders of true masculine expression.

We ache for it, but our false selves also deeply fear what happens when just one man actually openly admits he’s looking for it, let alone finds some of it. The world doesn’t remain the same and it freaks out the powers that be in his world. He isn’t so predictable any more. He surely is far less controllable, way less nice, and things may in fact get messy before they get better.

And none of us can do this in a vacuum, without something to press against, without some story to affect, without something at stake. It is why you are here. Your world will change. Relationships will change. You will change.

In the archetypal movie Braveheart, William Wallace fires up his troops at the edge of the battle, with the choice between their lives or their freedom; both of which were at stake; both of which provided a deep sense of meaning to fight for. What is different today is that we have been lulled to sleep awash in freedoms and with no immediate threat to our lives.

Where’s the meaningful fight now?

What have you out of fear given up on? What power have you left laying around for manipulative and insecure men to gather up and use against you? What is it that you really want, standing in front of that magazine rack, attending that church, being in that corporate setting, bellied up to that bar, attending that family gathering? Could you say what you are feeling to those around you, and see where it takes you?

What is being asked for by the universe, by the Divine, in men is to cease from joining and giving allegiance to anything, be it an army, a church, a country, a family – any cult-ure where you are required to give over your power and autonomy to prop up someone else’s picture of manhood. You will only ensure that you will never find your own. For many men, that is the point. They are afraid of finding their own manhood. They are afraid to admit it. They’re afraid of of the journey it will take. They are afraid of themselves, and for good reason. They are truly powerful!

You already are a man. You are just still searching for what that means. Giving your authority away to an outside-of-you group, in exchange for some reflected pittance of your own power is fast becoming a done deal. The more we attempt to energize this gasping for breath story, the faster will be its demise.

For the moment, the new emerging story has more to do with letting go of that which we know isn’t us in order to make room to discover what it is. We will naturally go on to embody these new stories, but for now, we will need to find a grace to be with a feeling of vacancy. This however is not a vacuum at all, but a pregnant alchemy of something new seeking a critical mass in our collective consciousness.

SoulFullHeart Men’s Circle is a group of men called together by me, Wayne Vriend, to be a new exploration of what it means to be male, to be alive, and to be expressing that in the world. If this calls out to you, I invite you to join us. And, if you know men who would resonate with this message, please forward this blog to them.

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

December 21, 2012: Love-Based Beginning, Not Fear-Based Ending

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

lotus_on_water_0By Jillian Vriend

Today, December 21st, 2012, is a significant day. It’s significant for different reasons, depending on who you are asking about it. Some see it as the end, some see it as the beginning. There have been a growing number of people who felt that today was literally going to be the end of the world as we’ve known it. They have been predicting this primarily due to astronomical factors – including a planet that is supposedly four times the size of Earth entering our atmosphere, a sudden planetary alignment, solar flares, and the earth’s axis shifting around – leading to devastating earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods,

These people connect their reasoning (although it seems that there is no scientific evidence to support them) and intuitions to the completion of the long-count Mayan calendar, although many others now suggest that the calendar completing was not about a literal ending, but symbolizes one cycle or phase ending and a new one beginning. People from around the world are visiting areas in Mexico during this time, especially the Yucatan city of Merida, which is close to the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, to celebrate this shift into a new era. They are honoring the ushering in of a more enlightened and conscious phase of human evolution, rather than expecting that the end of an old way of being will bring literal death and destruction.

December 21st is also the first day of winter, the winter solstice, and, most notoriously, the shortest day of the year and the official beginning of the winter season. To me, December 21st begins the seasonal influence of Kuan Yin, one of the four faces of the Divine Mother that we feel offer a powerful healing when connected to in an intimate and personal way. The other faces are the Dark Mother or Kali (springtime); Magdalene (summertime); and Mother Mary (Autumn).

Kuan Yin offers an invitation to stillness, reflection, and meditation in whatever forms your soul (through your Daemon) is most comfortable with. I’ve found the deepest connection with Kuan Yin through taking himalayan salt baths, contemplative prayer, conversation, and SoulFullHeart energy healing offered to myself and others. Kuan Yin invites us to embrace a non-violent means of relating to each other, eating vegetarian (or at least feeling where and how the meat you eat has been treated), merciful compassion with boundaries, and straightforward directness with care. We are all in each moment arising and dissipating, so Kuan Yin also teaches us non-attachment to things which do not matter.

I feel that Her energetic presence is particularly strong and available to us right now because of Her commitment to, as her name represents, to “hear the cries of the world.” In Her deep embodiment of compassion for the needy, we are given a template for the force of care and compassion that is needed to move us out of the dark place we are in as a human species in which so much of our kind is in need and suffering. She reminds us of our connection to each other, in an infinite place of Oneness where individual personality is transcended and the spark of divine humanity that lives in us all is palpable, experiential, and deeply remembered.

So, on this significant day, I choose to celebrate with love, as is offered to me by Kuan Yin and the other faces of the Mother, rather than in a place of feeling fear of eventual devastation and destruction. I do feel that we are in a global phoenix cycle, yet that the changes necessary will come at a rate and pace that we can bear and respond to. In the arms of the Mother, we find comfort, mercy, growth, and care. In Her arms, we experience our most profound essence as sacred human reflections of the Divine.

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