Moving Out Of Fear And Into Love And Faith

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

art-hand-heart-couple

By Chris Tydeman and Emmerich

Note: This piece was inspired by my Heart Friend, Kathleen and her Daemon. Together they are sharing their SoulFullHeart experience with others in a desire to connect with them in a soulfullheart way. The following is written by my daemon, Emmerich, in honour of them both.

In this moment, as I touch pen to paper, my fellow Daemon is opening himself up to vulnerability. The raw, naked sensation of being your authentic, loving, and truthful self. There is so much fear that comes up in this most uncomfortable state. This fear brings all sorts of manifestations, from self-doubt to physical illness. All of these arise for good reason, as we have only known how to protect and defend up until this point. Somewhere along this process, we realized that playing small is not our God-given birthright nor that of our human charge. Our destiny is to pave the way for an arising, sacred human connection to the source of All That Is…Love.

This is not as simple a task as we would like to believe. It is a challenging, fear-
laden, yet rewarding journey that is always in ebb and flow, push and pull, joy
and humility. Of course it is! We are not detached, transcendental souls. We
are inextricably connected to the human heart. A cauldron of emotions that
were never meant to be tamed and made rational. They are wild and alive with
truth and passion. They cannot be set aside or ignored. The destructive impact
of doing so is seen from substance abuse to murder to war. The degree of this
disconnect is equal to the degree of this manifestation.

As we connect and move with this heart, we experience our own fears and
doubts. These, too, are natural, expected, and part of our own process in concert
with our human brethren. Together we are partners, supporters, and co-creators
of Divine Love. There is no separating us once this bond has been forged. We
are One, yet separate, in our communion with All That Is. When fears arise, one
is there for the other, in Love. This helps us not become the fear, but to feel it,
move with it, and heal it.

As we heal together, our bond is strengthened and we are birthed into a new
energetic field of Divine Love. Our vision widens, our heart grows, and our soul
deepens. We no longer choose to live in fear and hope, but desire to live in Love
and Faith.

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

Being In Want

Published on by Raphael Awen1 Comment

beinginwant

By Wayne Vriend

Your very first experience as a human being was a want.

I want, therefore I am.

We have wants together, therefore we are in relationship.

No wants, no deal.

If part of me can minimize or camouflage my wants, then what I call ‘I’ has just shifted to a freshly launched false version of me. An inauthentic stand-in of my real me. My reality begins an epic, but unnoticed shift, from the wonder world of stunning awe, wonder and creative imagination to scarcity, fear, routine, and rules. A staggering fall from grace, that has and continues to spawn and be the foundation of entire religions and cultures.

My false selves’ biggest treasures slowly become the adaptations that help me survive this loss of a lifetime and only serve to further my suffering. My false self can put my life on autopilot and just copy what seems to work for most. Coming from this place, my false self doesn’t need much at all from you, from God or from myself, for that matter.

Wanting, though, is what makes us alive. Minimizing and camouflaging our wants is slow motion suicide. Being in want returns us, slowly but surely, to our authentic selves.

Wanting makes me write this and wanting makes you read this.

Being in real want is so vulnerable. In growing up, we are soon trained to camouflage our wants. Raw, naked, and powerful want was frowned upon. We were taught by others who had long ago grown afraid of their wants and who also demanded our complicity in the great lie, that we could get hurt beyond repair by being too plain about what we wanted. We found make do ways to get our needs met in underground and deceptive ways, no longer protesting good enough, and with huge downsides, that strangely didn’t feel so unbearable.

This cuts us off from the truest thing about ourselves; being in familiar contact with what we wanted.

I wanted meaningful connection with friends; my false self settled for polite conversation and catching up over coffee. I wanted to feel the Divine loving me; my false self settled for the illusion of earning God’s favour. I wanted to be seen and really known by my former mate; my false self settled for caretaking her and not being called out of my disconnect. I wanted to be noticed and seen;  my false self settled for people pleasing. I wanted true family; my false self settled for a place for it to be well liked. I wanted real and passionate mentors; my false self settled for people who let me be associated with them because I reflected well on them. I wanted my self; my false self settled for not wanting.

Asking the question, with as much courage and honesty as we can muster, ‘what is it that I really want?,’ is our great quest. Hence the ‘question.’

Following the answer we receive, no matter how small, will lead us back to our real self – our true, safely buried, and still breathing authentic self.

I want and need and desire to get to know and serve that real you.

I refuse to settle for less any more. How about you?

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

‘Tis The Season For Desires

Published on by Jelelle Awen2 Comments

By Jillian Vriend

heartchristmastreeornament

The ache for closeness. The ache for family. The ache to be known and connected to. The ache to be seen and visible. The ache to be cherished. The ache to be acknowledged. The ache for a sense of purpose. The ache for romance. The ache for love. The ache for realness. The ache for joy. The ache for celebration. The ache for being in the moment. The ache for rest. The ache  for aliveness. 

The ache for intimacy. With ourselves. With others. With the Divine.

This time of year, the holiday season, the season of celebration and gathering; this time of year seems to push up these aches in us in a way that is more poignantly and urgently felt than the rest of the year. We feel pressed to connect, to consider each other, to gift each other with appreciations, to spend time together, and to take space and rest away from our professions and busy daily grinds. We feel called to seek and search for a connective sense of God, a higher source, the Divine. We feel called to honor in contemplation and in joyous song whatever our sense is of God.

The tension of this season of ache comes when these desires, which have been mostly suppressed the rest of the year (which is the reason they are experienced as aches), are unable to be met and fulfilled due to parts of us that remain closed down, fearful, and stuck in the intimacy ground of our relationships with ourselves, others, and the Divine. These parts of us which have become built-up clogged places block our desires from fully dancing, moving, and flowing. Plus, the pressure of conforming to expectations, confronting the back pressure built up from the clogged relationships, and experiencing the compartments that we have created between each other and inside ourselves gets in the way of love’s flow and, ultimately, can leave us quite frustrated.

Ask most people and, in their vulnerable and open moments, they will admit that they are left disappointed and frustrated by the holiday season. They may attribute it to the stress of finding gifts for people, to worry over spending too much money, to dramas of their extended family, and to the busy pace of the holidays. And, yes, these are contributing factors.

Yet, also, there is the unspoken angst that the deep ache that they had to connect, to be in joy, to feel intimacy with their family and themselves and the Divine….there is the deep pain and frustration that this ache did not get met. That even with all the effort, shopping, and visiting, they were unable to get these deep needs answered in an effortless dance of love, joy, connection, and realness. This is particularly hard on parts of us, who are tasked with suppressing our desires most of the time and so are deeply disappointed when their rest in vigilance is not rewarded with us receiving what we most passionately want.

SoulFullHeart offers that ache is desire that has been suppressed and wants to come up and be felt and given room. The holidays bring up a poignant call as they are accepted by the mass consciousness, yet, these aches are always there and are part of the hurting part in us that feels “fallen out” of grace and love with the Divine, and therefore essentially feels unworthy to feel and have desires. This part of us, our Daemon or Soul Guardian, feels estranged, lonely, and separate from others/itself/God even as it aches for closeness and intimacy.

Perhaps during the busyness of this holiday season, you might take a moment to feel your own ache for connection and desire. To feel this part in you that is aching to feel held and loved again, enfolded in the arms of the Divine. And, in whatever way you choose to connect and celebrate your relationship with the Divine, that you would ask the Divine Mother especially to gift you with a sense of your own qualification with Her, for an acceptance of your desires (even if they can’t all be met right now), to feel a trust in Her grace of timing, synchronicity, and alchemy, and ask Her help to surrender the outcomes of your desires to Her. In this growing vulnerability with Her and more room to feel your own desires, you’ll discover the true gift of the holidays and the authentic joy of this, and all, seasons!

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

Offering An End To Seeking Approval From Family

Published on by Kasha Rosa3 Comments

By Kathleen Calder

One of the hardest things to digest is disconnect from family. It’s not a secret that in North America and some other cultures as well there is a huge emphasis on what essentially boils down to “staying together for the kids”. The term “kids”, in the case of this writing of mine today, refers mostly to the young parts within each of us. I have put myself into some very dishonest places within my family for the sake of keeping everything peaceful and not causing any sort of upset. My feeling about doing this is that it has led me to a sort of “caretaker” role and actually created a lot of co-dependency between myself and other family members. Likewise, I have been the one on the receiving end of the caretaking and as a result I have felt such an intense pull to find approval with family members that aren’t even my birth mom.

The question I’m exploring today is, what is it about our need for “mom’s approval” that keeps us clinging to unhealthy relationships? It’s easy enough to try and take this on a purely psychological trajectory, but I’d like to actually explore this in a SoulFullHeart (heart-based) kind of way.

Since realizing all of the unhealthy aspects of my relationship with my own mother a number of months ago, I have also noticed the unhealthy ways in which I have tried to let others in as surrogate moms, even people the same age as me, at times. It’s funny how the same personality traits appear in just about every woman who tries to mother me in some way…right down to the things they choose to worry about (including me). This has led to me seeking approval from them subconsciously. If I wasn’t in constant contact with my young parts, I wouldn’t be able to put my finger on why  I’m feeling triggered in a given moment or what it is about someone that seems to rub me the wrong way. When unhealthy relationship pieces have been felt out once, they have been realized by your consciousness and that makes it easier to recognize and take note when the same circumstances happen again. Without this mechanism in place, it would be that much harder for me to know how to cope with certain people that I draw into my life.

The danger with choosing to separate from your family, especially your mother, is that your young parts will draw in others to substitute for them in your life if you aren’t in active dialogue and feeling with them. When I first asked my mother for space I didn’t do this actively enough. Sure, I already had a relationship with my young parts that was juicy and beautiful, but I didn’t work diligently enough at the time to keep feeling into their deepening reactions to the “mom” situation. As a result I drew a lot of substitute caretakers who would speak to and treat me as if I was my young parts. They had a hard time seeing me as an autonomous young adult and especially had a hard time taking in that I was 25 years old and not still in my teenage years or even my early 20’s.

Realizing this now, I feel more compassionate and appreciative towards them and their efforts to love me the only way they knew how…which happens to be the same reasons why I have had to ask my mom to not be in relationship with me, at least until she can start to show up for herself and her own young parts so that I no longer feel like I have to. The same goes for the rest of my family. I feel I have more than done my part with regards to uncovering a more adult, heart-centred me that can be in deep, vulnerable, heart-based relationships with other adult, heart-centred selves. Of course I am still working this piece, and, you know what? Asking for sovereignty from my family and even being as forthright as I’m being in this writing is all evidence of that.

I can sense how this could easily cause uproar with moms everywhere. I do not mean any disrespect to the role of “mother”. I am very grateful for where my relationship with my mom has led me, even if it has resulted in fallout. None of this has been easy for me to take in and digest and I want to express that from the bottom of my heart. I simply had to feel my way into leaving the nest completely and I know that despite protestation from a part or parts of you, somewhere within you that need of mine will land. We have all felt it or will feel it eventually in some way, shape or form whether it’s in relationship to your immediate family or even your work family. You have my love, support and respect for whatever you sovereignly decide to do when these feelings come up for you on your own journey.

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

In The Lonely Room: Challenge, Struggle, Process, Surrender

Published on by Gabriel Heartman2 Comments

By Chris Tydeman

*This was written after a SoulFullHeart weekend group healing and energy session in Vancouver, BC.  It is a reflection and vulnerable description of my personal experience. 

As I write this, I am sitting in my living room.  I have renamed it The Lonely Room.  This name was brought to me by Jillian as a place where men go to digest, process, and reconnect.  It feels fitting in this moment and all others that have preceded it and have yet to pass.  To a part of you, it may sound depressing.  It certainly does to a part of me.  However, the reality is that this is the only place I can be right now to let in all that has been offered to me.  It has become sacred space.  A space where my parts, my daemon, and my connection to God can be together without distraction.

In my recent visit to Vancouver, I felt like a pinball.  At least, that is how a part of me felt.  But that is how it is sometimes.  We get put into play by our intention and desire.   We hit a rubber wall of resistance.  Other times we go through false walls and move right through.  We land in special places where lights sparkle and bells whistle with excitement, only to pop right out again to find more resistance, doors, and joyful resonance.  The flippers keep us in play to receive more lessons, more opportunity.  But eventually the ball comes to rest.  It rests in a quiet place.  To reflect, process, and download all that was felt.  This is The Lonely Room.

By now, you may be thoroughly confused.  Sorry about that.  Let me offer you my story.  As stated above, I went to Vancouver to join in a SoulFullHeart group session and energy healing.  Afterwards, I would visit with my daughter.  Even before getting there, I felt many emotions coming from multiple parts.  I have an arrest record that has made it a challenge to enter Canada.  Though I have taken the necessary steps to clear this, it has always been a 50/50 chance.  This brings up loads of anxiety and shame.  My young part, Christopher, is acutely afraid of authority.  “The men in black are scary!” he says.  The possibility of being told to turn around would be a blow to my fragile shame part, Shane.  It was difficult not to fuse with these parts.  I did what I could to allow the feeling to come in and reassure them I would not be arrested or turned away.  Easier said than done.

After lots of meditation and prayer I entered Canada and was given an opportunity to clear my record by a sympathetic border agent.  (Either that, or he just didn’t want to me to waste their time anymore.)  New life was infused within me and now it was negotiating transit to make it to my Mecca.  Now that I think of it, it was more of a pilgrimage than a sojourn, has I had previously thought of it.  Parts of me had found their way home.

The next day in group, I worked with a part of me that held my shame and guilt.  I had to admit something that was very painful to reveal.  This part of me, Marcus, is not comfortable with me being explicit, but the revelation was about his lack of self-worth and self-punishment.  In this moment, healing occurred, through Love and Grace.  A “rubber suit” had been placed around me to protect me from letting anything in, while at the same time not letting anything out.  Not a healthy combination.

Through this “feelization”, I was shown that my own daughter had inherited this suit.  This of course brought me more guilt and shame only to be held in love by Jillian and Wayne and was moved to remorse.  Not nearly as energetic and debilitating.  With remorse, there is awareness yet compassion.  To help my own child see this, I had to first remove mine.  This would be done during the energy session and it turned out to be a cocoon instead of a suit.  I was changed as a result.  A different me than the one that walked through the door.

That night I brought my new awareness to my daughter.  I could feel how much pain was residing in her young part over this.  We both reflect each other in our goodness, but also in our disconnectedness.  She was moved by my words and vulnerability in the moment, but could not let it all the way in, for her own reasons.   Reasons that I am all too familiar with.  I know that it will take time.  She has been offered this work as a way to help be more authentic in the world and to let in true love.  I was challenged as to how much of her resistance I was willing to accept.  To be honest, I really don’t know.  For now, all I can do is continue to bring my truth to her and see where it lands.  It has taken me some time to get here, and I am not able to let go yet.  This challenge, however, rattled my cage to the core, and has also led me to my relationship to my family and friends.

While I have created space from my family, I have not brought my process to them.  There are still too many energetics at play to be able to talk frankly about it.  I can write, but that is as far as I can go for now.  Though I know the time will come when I am ready.  This would be to truly love myself and them.  My friends, however, are more immediate.  I do not hold the level of energy I do with my family.  I was challenged again to feel what space I am holding for them while at the same time not being felt in my expression.  This is where struggle comes in.

As I go through this work, I become less and less connected to the “old” me.  That “old” me has built relationships around things that I no longer hold dear.  If this “new” me is as important to me as I say it is, how can I relate to my friends in an “old” way?  The answer is I can’t, but I still can’t say I won’t.  At some point, “I won’t”, will happen just as it did with my family.  I may need to go through one last cycle of expressing my authentic self.  This is where the “rubber meets the road”.  Cliché yet true.  The lack of connection may be loud and clear.  From there, I will have two options: Be old or be new.  A part of me already knows the answer; the other will need to experience it.  This is my process.

At the end of this process will be surrender.  Surrendering to what my daemon, Emmerich, knows to be true.  Surrendering to the faith he has in God.  Surrendering to the fear of letting my old friend, Marcus, go.  He will always be with me, just with a different name and a different role.  This will not happen overnight but rather over time, as the universe sees fit.

Though the road is sometimes bumpy and rough, I could not imagine being on any other one.  I am being real for the first time in my life.  I am taking responsibility for the life that has been gifted to me by the Divine.  By saying yes to this work I am saying yes to me and to love.  It is not forced upon me.  It is offered to me by the Mother and the love of Jillian and Wayne.  I am choosing this path because it is the one that feels the most authentic.  Thank you for reading this.  I always write for me initially, but somewhere I hope that someone may get something that comes out of The Lonely Room.

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

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

Published on by Jelelle Awen3 Comments

By Jillian Vriend

I felt as if I was holding my breath and my heart during the recent short but deadly conflict between Israel and the reigning Hamas government in Gaza.  As many people have offered, it feels that IF the human race is going to experience another world war that the Middle East is the setting most dangerously ripe and ready for it. I felt my usual feelings during any of the wars that have happened during my lifetime: distress, tension, despair, and a deep sorrow that our human consciousness hasn’t been raised enough to end all killing and violence for good, especially killing and violence that happens in the name of God or to defend a religion (even if that’s not the politically stated reason for the conflict.)

I exhaled with relief, as I imagine many others did worldwide, when a cease fire was reached, although I don’t feel that anyone really believes that ending the bombing symbolizes an actual ending to the contention, distrust, and deep disparity that exists between Israel and the Arabs. With both sides seeming to play victim without taking any real responsibility for their actions, the emotional immaturity and deadly density of their need to be right and to “defend themselves and their way of life” will continue to come at the cost of human lives, sanity and peace for their citizens, and be an energetic vacuum of dark energy on the planet (of which there are many others.)

This situation got me more deeply feeling how we are nearing the end of 2012 and about to enter into 2013, a year that has a deep sense of unknown and transition about it. Overall, the state of human consciousness seems to be a dark one (with admittedly some bright spots) that is asking for a deep shift and rebirth into something new. With Mayan prophecies of the world ending in 2012, it does indeed feel as if the world needs to end. Not literally to end, of course, but much of the way that we as humans relate to ourselves, each other, animals, and the planet is deep and crucial need of change.

This is the message that I (and many others who are sensitive to such things) have been feeling is an urgent one that we have been receiving from especially the Divine Mother aspect of God. The Divine Mother may seem to be an unknown or esoteric thing for you, as so much of our orientation toward God has been in a male form with a patriarchal undertone. For those who become conscious of the Mother as a real and moving presence in their lives, there is a sense that it is Her missing energy and influence that has been a deep root cause of many of our problems. The Mother offers us compassion and invites us to feel compassionately about others, even if we chose not to be in relationship with them. This applies both intimately and globally. The Mother invites us to feel our own innocence; how She experiences us as vulnerably her children; and She reflects to us that our essence is one of purity, curiousity, and joy.

Sometimes the Mother, especially in Her Dark Madonna form, presents us with a phoenix cycle, which is a death-rebirth phase that invites us to let go of something that was no longer serving us and arise anew out of the ashes to more deeply inhabit who we were meant to be. I have felt for awhile that the world is going through a sustained phoenix cycle, with all of the tensions, growing pains, and darkness that such a phase requires. I feel that we are being ushered through this cycle in order to arise out of it with awakening hearts, a more compassionate consciousness, and a deeper intimacy with both Her and the Divine Father. Coming from the place I do, this is the frame that I put this invitation into, yet you could put it into any that works for you to get a deeper sense of the loving yet necessary crucible of growth that we are challenged to inhabit.

We cannot continue on as we have; it’s just not a sustainable, long-term picture that works for any human, animal species, or our planet. The Divine Mother holds that what has been brought out of balance must be put right again. Most of us have become desperately out of balance in our relationships, our emotional maturity, our physical health, our ability to provide for ourselves, our connection to nature and animals, etc. etc.

In SoulFullHeart, we offer that the individual awakening and deepening of your own emotional consciousness is the path to becoming someone who is bettering the situation, not adding to or denying the problems. Emotional consciousness is about becoming aware of your reactions, your choices, your feelings, and your relationships through the lens of parts of you that have been previously only subconscious to you. Making these parts and their reactions an aspect of your everyday reality allows for a much deeper experience of life, including an unearthed desire for authentic intimacy with yourself, with others, and with the Divine. I know that this is a big leap initially to understand, but like any shift in thinking, it takes accepting inside of yourself that something needs to change and how you’ve been currently relating to your life hasn’t been creating the change you most deeply desire (or that the planet needs.) The experience of your parts becomes a quickly growing, self validating one and you need the support of a SFH Facilitator through individual sessions and with others during group weekends for it to really ground in.

As your emotional consciousness deepens and especially as you become aware of your Daemon or Soul Guardian, you begin to experience a much more personal relationship with the Divine which requires no doctrine, church, or middle man to inhabit. It is your birthright as a sacred human and it is through the healing of your soul and emotional wounds that allows it to be claimed.

We feel as more and more people awaken to their emotional consciousness through this process of getting to know their parts, the more possibility and hope grows that things really can shift in the bigger world. One heart opening at a time.

Visit www.soulfullheart.com for more information about the SoulFullHeart Way of Life and to find out about our new life assessment session offered over in person or over the phone.

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

Published on by Kasha Rosa3 Comments

By Kathleen Calder

Of all the battles that I have fought in my life, one that remains constant for me is a drive for leadership and recognition. Even as I write this I am coming from a place of desire to be recognized as some kind of new “leader” in this field called “personal/spiritual development”. It has been a struggle to try to let go of that desire, mostly because my Daemon (protector-part, guide, best friend), Sasha, and another part of me named Steven, hold this desire in their hearts. They want me to do what they cannot physically do themselves. Steven is a great scholar and thinker (who is learning to become more of a feeler as well) and he and Sasha have often conspired and brought me opportunities to “prove myself”. Being a guest author on this blog is one of them and I can feel their growing pride in me whenever someone pays attention to what I have written.

The challenge for me, and I feel the same challenge stands for all who wish to be (or already are) leaders, is to stay humble and grounded. To be able to place myself in the trenches with those who I wish to be a sort of “tribe-leader”…or I guess “Shaman” for. To be able to feel what they feel so that their needs are felt, heard and honoured, whether or not I can physically do anything to help them. Instead what I find myself and other leaders doing, is playing to the masses in a way that doesn’t really touch the real heart of the problem we are facing. It becomes a game of popularity and care-taking instead of feeling into what the real issue is.

Let’s look at the recent US federal election as an example of what I’m talking about.

In one corner we have President Obama and in the other, Republican candidate Mitt Romney. I know from my Canadian perspective that many people in my own country were feeling that Obama was the obvious and more progressive choice. Ok. In comparison to Mitt Romney, who desired to take America back to some old-fashioned ways of doing things, yes, Obama is more “progressive”. However, there’s a reason why the election was so neck-and-neck and why so many people that I spoke to actually had no idea who they would rather vote for since neither seemed to be competent enough in addressing any of the real issues. I feel this is a sign of the times we are in. People’s parts, namely their Daemons, are shifting to a place of, “this isn’t good enough anymore” and are longing for something better. That “something better” is the world I desire to help create. It is a world where leaders learn to feel and embrace sensitivity and therefore tap into what the real issues are for their people. The real pain that is buried underneath their desire for marriage equality or for the legalization of marijuana, just to name a couple of recent news items.

There seems to still be an intense fear of empathy instilled in anyone who wants to lead or manage anything or anybody. I learned the other day that Hilary Clinton once cried on camera and it caused a wide-spread panic and sparked questions about her potential ability to lead. I feel that the new way in which we need to be led in this world is through empathy and heart-based vulnerability. It would be a lot to hold as the leader of a country, so it’s possible that leadership would have no other choice but to be more collaborative in its approach. There would need to be multiple leaders in the highest rung.

I can hear and feel some doubts you may have about the potential for that. You and I both feel the danger of the human ego and its’ desire to be the one in solo-leadership. This is the Daemon and other persona parts who desires this, normally. If leaders were in active communication and feeling with their Daemon and other parts, I feel this would be a manageable issue. It is (and has been for a while) a feeling of mine that the more people who embrace parts work, the greater the potential for World Peace. People would be more comfortable being in authentic emotion with each other and would work out their differences accordingly, taking all the steps necessary to be in empathy with each other and their parts, allowing them to be felt and to speak their minds in safety with no knee-jerk reaction.

I am training to become this type of leader for as many as wish to be nourished by the work and the gifts my parts and I would love to bring to them. I am in training and I do not do this perfectly, nor is it about becoming perfect some day. There is no end-result that I desire, except to become surrounded by more people who have surrendered to this work and have chosen authentic, heart-based feelings and relationships to themselves and others. I wish to become more like this and I work on it every day, even as I write this. It is not burdensome. In fact, it is ultimate freedom.

I hope that at least some of this has landed in you. If it hasn’t, that’s ok too. And if it never does, well, I in my imperfection can find ways to accept that, even though it hurts to feel into what that means to me and my parts that desire for me to lead.

In support and love for your journey and where it takes you,

Kathleen

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

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.