Tag: emotional healing

Admitting Your Apathy To Find Your Compassion

Published on by Kasha Rosa7 Comments

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I couldn’t blame myself or part of me for not caring anymore. So many years of bullshit and suddenly realizing how much of that I shoveled on myself, let alone on my relationships with others. I had years of trying to stand out from my birth family, declaring myself to be the “black sheep”, which is true in many ways but was a declaration that led to much entitlement around what I should and should not have to experience and be vulnerable around in my life. I did the same with virtually all of the people around me, family or no, setting myself apart from everyone, somehow and someway.

My daemon, out of painful, held deep disdain towards humanity made sure of this. He wanted me to be driven towards a fame trajectory. It was rooted in the performing arts for a time, but was also about becoming a spiritual guru of some sort. It was my dream (or part of me’s dream) for many years to become an author and speaker, engaging audiences from a stage and maybe even reading them out as a psychic/medium. The invulnerability of the desire I held to do and be this is only coming to light now. The deep-seated apathy underneath it all is being revealed, inch by inch. Luckily my daemon, Gideon, is willing to be open and vulnerable in sharing with me his experience with this, wanting to heal and move it, which is big for an awakening Daemon.

Now when I feel my old desire to be an important figure in the “self-help” industry, I am feeling with Gideon, in real time, some of the layers he detects are really at play in a business climate that is supposed to be about “love and light”. While there is genuine work being offered out there that isn’t all about transcending your pain, much of it still is. This is what keeps people coming back for more. They get hooked like a child on sugar. If you don’t keep going back to these dealers and spending money on books, seminars, etc, you find yourself back in the same ditch you started in. This happened to me.

I recall going to the I Can Do It! Conference presented by HayHouse year after year for about 4 years in Toronto, Ontario. While there were and are some genuine hearts and minds who write and speak there, I can feel how I was caught up in “seeking” and not ready to be found. I wanted re-frames and a more positive spin on what I was facing and actually not really feeling my way through in my life, especially around romance and discovering my own psychic gifts. In other words, it became medication I had to keep renewing my prescription for. Part of me wanted to be told, “you’re okay!” when she really didn’t feel that way. I call this part “Katie” – my main way of interfacing with the world until very recently.

My daemon at the time was happy to keep bringing her more messages of, “you’re okay, you’ll get through this and you will be one of those authors on that stage someday. You’ll have found your soul family and you will never have to have the normal human life that so many around you have resigned themselves to. You’ll finally be seen and loved”. These words were like honey and they kept me fed for many years. But…how can holding a goal about being “seen and loved” still be about being in genuine service to others? It doesn’t feel like it can because then it’s ultimately about you. This isn’t true compassion and honestly it isn’t hard to feel how many healers on stages care more about being seen than they do about helping people, though they do offer some moving and helpful experiences to others at times. Many of them, if you read their bios, had very painful lives prior to finding their “gifts”. Pain they were never felt in and therefore couldn’t move through. Pain their daemons use as an excuse to keep taking over their lives and avoiding the real work of healing yourself so you can actually serve and heal the world in a real way…which isn’t necessarily a famous or glamorous way, either.

I have recently been feeling where Gideon holds apathy about my/his own healing, let alone anyone else’s. Apathy towards humanity and fully inhabiting life as a sacred human. Beneath the apathy is real, heartfelt care that isn’t pretty or glamorous but is beautiful and emerging all the same. Kind of like a newborn baby covered in gook. At least that’s the image I’m being offered in the moment. Like that newborn baby, there is real pain and tears that come with that whole package. It’s all being held in my personal connection with the Divine and with my SoulFullHeart facilitators supporting me. I can feel the layers I must heal through in order to continue letting in real love from myself to myself primarily.

If I don’t start there, there is no overflow of love to offer others. This is the real work they don’t tell you about at most conferences and seminars. What I feel to leave you with, whether you identify as a healer or seeker or whatever label, is that it’s important to find your apathy. You don’t need to make it “bad”, but feel where it comes from and why it’s there. Nothing feels more toxic, degrading or destructive than offering false care to yourself and others, no matter how many books you sell. You and I can’t help the world if we don’t face this truth and, in fact, we will only create new problems and perpetuate current ones if we don’t.

Visit soulfullheart.com for more about the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life.

Shame Spiral: A Part’s Journey

Published on by Gabriel Heartman2 Comments

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*Note: The following was written by a part of me named Simon. This part of me has been my self-image, my presentation and interface with the world.

 Since I can remember, I have always had a voice in my head that said I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t “man” enough, wasn’t creative enough, the list goes on. Always comparing myself to that which I felt I lacked. “I will never be as confident as THAT person. I could never be as creative as them. Who am I kidding?” The irony I am learning is that those qualities I felt I lacked, are the very ones I might possess in spades. I would get frustrated with myself and then cap my passion sending me into a shame spiral. A flat-lined version of myself.

 The well-intended responses from friends and family never seemed to reach me, either because I just wouldn’t let them in, or they only scratched a surface. I needed someone who had been there. Someone who knew the texture and geography of the feeling space so as to guide me through the pain and not just mask it over. This has been Jillian and Wayne. They have given me space to express my spiral, to see it differently, and to feel through it rather than go around it. It is difficult for others to really go to the place I need to go, because they are afraid of what I might do, or afraid of their own spiral and reluctance to go there. Only when someone has been there and healed it healthfully can you be felt emphatically.

 A song that has come up that I resonate with is Alanis Morisette’s Spiral. The lyrics reflect this mechanism inside that has existed my whole life and maybe other lives. I remember early on in my process I heard this song and I wept as it struck a heart cord. I have come back a few times to this space and wondered why I was feeling this again. Hadn’t I healed this already? I am realizing healing has its own spiral. Each time I heal it moves, but may come back again for whatever purpose to heal again, and again, and again. I have learned that if I do not reach out for help, I get stuck in a suffering loop. Much different than a spiral. In the loop, you feel stuck. Unmoved. Anchored in a pile of shit. I don’t like that feeling. I need to stop the spiral and the only way to do that is to out it when I feel it. I need to out when I have been hurt or when I am angry or when I don’t feel good enough.

 To some that may be a “no brainer”. But for me, it has been a challenge for my own reasons. My life filled with experiences that felt like they cemented that voice with steel barbs. I know that being public with those experiences would be a vulnerable act but I am not there yet. Just doing this is vulnerable enough. I start with today and feel what I am feeling, and then move on to tomorrow and repeat. That is my process. The beginning of my journey. I want to say that if you too feel anchored in a pile of shit and are sinking in it, ask for help. Talk to someone that you feel safe to talk to. Contact Jillian and Wayne and SoulFullHeart. Do Something. Don’t let it stay there. It does you no goddamned good.

 I wanted to leave with the video and lyrics to Alanis’ song and hope they move you as they do me:

“Spiral”

I could be daydreaming but for a moment
And somehow they’re creeping back in
I could be sleeping awakened the torrent
Somehow I get caught in their grips again

And here I am in my shame spiral
I’m sucked in to it again
And I reach out for your benevolent opinion
And you bring the light back in

Don’t leave me here with all these critical voices
Cause they do their best to bring me down
When I’m alone with all these negative voices
I will need your help to turn them down

I could be listening to a conversation
The story I’m not even in
These voices have their way when I am unguarded
Suddenly I step in quicksand again

Once again in my shame spiral
I am glad that you’ve weighed in

Don’t leave me here with all these critical voices
Cause they do their best to bring me down
When I’m alone with all these negative voices
I will need your help to turn them down

All these judgements, so incisive
Voices left to their devices
This moments narratee is a desperate plea
For slack to be cut to me
Cut to me

Don’t leave me here with all these critical voices
Cause they do their best to bring me down
When I’m alone with all these negative voices
I will need your help to turn them down

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

Entering Your Inner Garden Of Eden

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

 

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Imagine…

You’ve signed up for a space exploration program. You are going to visit a recently discovered planet. You’ve been told that it is very similar to life on Earth- same atmosphere, same carbon-based life forms with humans as the most conscious on the planet. However, unlike the current difficult conditions on Earth, on this new planet all species live in harmony with each other, collaborating and cooperating in a balanced way that preserves the environment, provides for every creature’s basic needs, and allows all inhabitants to survive and thrive. Let’s call this world “utopia” as that term already has an association for most of us as an ideal and perfect place.

The Utopians look like humans, but the similarities end there. When you meet your first one, a woman, shortly after landing on their planet, you are struck by how clear her skin is and how radiant her energy. It’s like she is glowing from the inside out. Her body is healthy and vital. Her movements are fluid and relaxed; she feels grounded and centered in her female body.

Beyond the physical differences, you immediately notice that her language is different when she greets you and welcomes you to her world. This Utopian woman, let’s call her Eve, asks you if parts of you feel ok if she gives you a hug to welcome you to her world. You aren’t sure what she means but, suddenly, you’d like very much to receive a hug from this vital and warm woman. She embraces you and you feel a warm and loving energy spread from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes.

“Your energy is a bit lacking and heavy,” She says, looking you deep in the eyes and smiling. “I can feel how it’s been hard for parts of you to leave the home that they know. But, please know that we will provide the space for them to be felt by us in these reactions. They, and you, are welcome here.”

You don’t know what she means by “parts of you” but, again, you are reassured by her mere presence and the gentle yet firm way she holds your hand. You begin to suspect that the warmth coming from her hand is helping you feel more relaxed and energized at the same time, yet you aren’t sure how that could be.

A Utopian man comes up; we’ll call him Adam (of course!), and puts his arm around the woman. “I see Eve has you in good hands,” he says, laughing at his own joke, flashing beautiful white teeth and a spontaneous smile that has you laughing and smiling along with him. Still grinning, he looks you deeply in the eyes and repeats Eve’s welcome. “It might take parts of you awhile to acclimate to being here,” he says, suddenly more serious.

He studies you some more and tears spring into his eyes. “I feel the pain that is in in your heart; I feel how parts of you are afraid. What I want to remind you is that this is how things were meant to be for you. How it is here. Not like where you come from. This is how things were meant to feel.”

Tears start streaming down your face, seemingly against your self control. You don’t understand why his words hurt and feel comforting at the same time. Your mind can’t comprehend really anything that he is saying or what it means, but it feels good to feel his eyes on you and to see the tears of understanding in his eyes.

“I’m feeling you,” he explains, taking your other hand in his. “This is what it feels like to be felt by someone who can feel you. Your parts are drinking it in. The tears are a sign of their defenses melting. You and they need much, much more of this. It was what you were meant to have.”

You nod, again, not sure what it is that you are agreeing to. Yet, you are here with Adam and Eve, bright sun shining on your skin, birds chirping in the background, waves crashing against the shore as you stand on a pristine, white sand beach, feeling the warmth of their hands on yours, feeling their tears as they focus only on you, feeling the love so easily coming from them to you. This does feel like how it was meant to be. This does feel like home.

Adam and Eve walk you to an airy and spacious one room hut made of bamboo and dried palms. There’s an open living space with a kitchen, living room, and sleeping area. It’s cozy, warm, and right on the beach so you can still hear the waves outside. It is decorated in natural fabrics, shells from the ocean, with healthy and vibrant plants tucked in every corner and big cushy pillows on the floor in the living area.

They tell you that they’ll be back in a couple of hours, so you may take this time to relax, rest, and adjust to your new environment. They point out that there is a journal and a pen on the nightstand by the bed if you want to check in with any of your parts about the journey and how they are feeling.

“What do you mean by ‘checking in’?” You ask them as you sit down on one of the cushions on the floor, feeling that same sense of confusion yet familiarity.

Adam and Eve smile and look at each other with empathetic grins, then back at you. “We’ll explain it all to you after you’ve rested more. But, we won’t need to explain much because this will all be natural for you. After all, it’s what you were…”

“Meant to do,” you finish their sentence.

“Yes! You are getting it!” exclaims Adam, flashing his wide grin again. Eve nods happily and exits, leaving Adam standing in the doorway. He gazes at you intensely again, seeming to look straight into the heart of you, peeking at your insides in a focused yet loving way.

“So, why don’t parts of you believe in God?” he asks, his tone innocent and curious, no judgement in his tone that you can feel.

You sigh, memories of Sunday mornings spent in church or synagogue or at temple running through your mind. You remember boredom, disconnect, and an underlying feeling of wrongness about yourself related to God. Or, you have no connection to God at all. It’s a blank canvas, nothing written or imprinted.

“Part of me hates the God of religion,” you answer, using their language despite yourself. Well, using “part of me” seems appropriate in this case because of course not ALL of you feel this way.

Adam nods, as if he deeply understands. “Yes, part of me hates the god of your religions too. Not a God that I would want to get to know.” He moves across the room and sits by you on the cushions laid out on the floor. “We don’t have religions here. We have only experience of That Which Made Us. Our Creator. It is our Mother and our Father. Both.”

“Our religions only have a male God. Our Father. And male prophets too.” Bitterness has crept into your tone. You don’t know where it’s coming from.

Adam looks confused, but you can tell that he is trying to understand and feel where your pain comes from. “But, that would exclude half of your people from having a Creator that matches their own face and bodies! That would make women feel as if they were less than men! As if only men were worthy to be represented by Creator! That would make men feel as if they were better somehow than women. Or that they would have a right to control or dominate the women! And, putting a male face on Creator would make It seem like a human rather than That Which Made Us All!”

You nod sadly, feeling sorry that his grasping of your reality is tainting his own sense of joy and goodness. You begin to worry that you will cause him pain somehow by bringing your life into his.

He picks up what you are feeling and takes your hand. “It’s ok. For the part of you that wants to take care of me, I want to tell it that I am fine. My trust and connection with my Creator runs very deep. Yes, I am shocked and feel very passionate about the picture of your religions being off and hurting many people in its distortions. But, I am here to offer you and any others who would like to receive it, a new experience of their Creator which is not like this one at all. Would you like this?”

You swallow a lump in your throat. It has been a long time since you have felt any longing for God. Or, maybe you have been a spiritual seeker for a long time but have abandoned the idea of a creator and embraced the non-dual or sagely teachings this life. Or, you are connecting to God despite the picture of religion and understand exactly what he is offering. Although you probably wouldn’t be reading this if you did.

“Yes, I would like this,” you say, tears beginning to fall again. “Part of me is afraid of it. Part of me feels very angry at the religion’s God, as I said before. And part of me…maybe this is me, feels very much like the Creator you describe is what I was meant to experience.”

“Yes, it is,” Adam says, wiping away your tears with his hands. “This, as all things, will be negotiated with your parts at a rate and pace that you and they can bear. This is the mercifulness of my Creator and especially the Mother’s face of the Creator. She holds us as we feel our pain and makes it possible for us to bear it. She wipes our tears and She will help you get to know the most sacred and precious aspect of you called your Daemon or Soul Guardian. This part of you will become your collaborator, your muse, your pipeline to Divine guidance, and help you open up access to your soul gifts. As you feel this Daemon part of you, you help it heal from past life pains and traumas. It needs your human heart and compassion in order to heal.”

You nod, as if you have any idea what he is talking about. But, again, it just all sounds right even if the words are foreign. Mother’s Face of the Creator. Daemon. Past lives.

“Is there a young part inside of me too?” You ask, already knowing that there is. You have heard of the idea of having an “inner child” and this is something that you’ve felt inside of yourself in response to doing fun things or eating particular foods from your childhood. Or you’ve felt this part in response to your own children.

“Of course, yes,” says Adam, gazing at you again. “This part of you is very sweet. Very innocent in its’ nature. Yet, also, it is in much pain and very shy. This part of you suffered much in your childhood and your caretakers, even if they love you very much, weren’t able to feel you while you were experiencing those pains. So those pains get stuck at certain ages and places. This young part of you may actually be several parts stuck in different times because the pain was not able to be digested by you and so it remains subconsciously stuck there.”

“Do you have parts? Or were you felt by your caregiver while you were feeling things?”

Adam looks down for a minute, as if contemplating how to answer. Then, he looks up, more serious again. “Eve and I are the first of our kind. We are the only humans on Utopia. This is why we’ve invited people from your world to join us, even though we can feel how different we are from you right now. Our Creator has guided us to bring others this picture of life that we were just born into. Our Creator offers that some people will respond to it and come along although it will be much harder for you because you will need to heal from the pains that you brought with you rather than just your reactions in the moment, as Eve and I do.”

You realize now that there were no other Utopians to greet your ship as it landed. Only Eve and then Adam came along soon after. You realize that you have not seen any other Utopians since you have arrived there. You realize that actually there were no other people from Earth who came along with you on your journey. You were the only one who answered the call for adventure, journey into the unknown, and took the risks that that choice required of you. You feel a rush of loneliness and homesickness, suddenly thinking of your family. Or maybe your children. Or your husband, wife, girlfriend or boyfriend.

“You and Eve must feel so lonely!” You exclaim, again feeling an impulse to take care of this wonderful and strange man that you’ve just met.

Adam gazes at you. “Yes and no,” he says. “Our love and connection with each other is very deep and rich. We are individuals as our Creator intended us to be. Yet, our intimacy ground, our “usness” as we like to call it, is a third entity that we both serve love to and respond to on a moment by moment basis. I do not own Eve nor does she own me. We have a commitment to serve love in the moment, that is all. We do not understand what you call “marriage contracts.” You cannot guarantee something such as love. It arises or it does not. You cannot control it. You can open your heart to let in more or you can feel where you do not feel connected in love anymore.”

You are amazed by his description of love and intimacy as it is so different than the mainstream picture of marriage, divorce, and expectation of lifelong commitment and staying together no matter how unhappy you are. Yet still, he admitted to being lonely even with his connection with Eve?

“Yes, Eve and I felt a growing desire to share our love and goodness with others. To invite, as I said, others into our garden of love and invite them to eat the fruit of the Creator’s love with us.”

You are suddenly reminded of the Garden of Eden and the serpent and the apple and original sin. You are reminded of the fall of humanity from the grace of God. You are reminded of Original Sin and the twisted way that religion has presented the very thing that you are now being invited to become part of.

“That story has indeed been twisted,” says Adam, seeming to read your mind. “The garden of Eden is not a place, although where you are now comes close. The Garden of Eden lives inside of your heart. It lives as a seed, planted inside of you by your Creator. Planted inside every person as a reflection of the sacred human essence for which we are all made is the template of your own expression of an Adam or an Eve. Your seeds just need water to grow and bloom into the sacred human you were meant to be. But the false self part of you which is created in order to fit into the barren world for which you are born keeps you small and denied of this food. Your false selves use stories such as the distorted one that we just mentioned to keep you from letting in the love water and food that is actually always available to you.”

The Garden of Eden lives inside your heart, you think about this. You like the idea of it and you like the idea of having a seed of sacred human essence that is just waiting to bloom. The idea of a false self, for now, is one that is hard to digest.

“How do I get the water for my seed to bloom?” You are already wondering how bloomed your seed is compared to Adam’s. To your husband or wife’s. To your other family members or friends.

Adam gets up, beginning to head for the door. “It’s not something that you can get,” he says. “It’s only something that you can let in.”

He turns to you one last time and you miss his warmth and comfort already. “And, to be able to do that, you need to feel the parts of you who are afraid to let it in and why they are afraid,” he says. “This is a process of healing that will take some amount of time, energy, and passion for you to be part of. In the meantime, you will have to give up some things that you are currently very attached to because it is most likely your false self which is attached to them. Any relationship, things, or belief systems that are used to keep you from feeling what your parts and you are authentically feeling will need to be felt into being let go off. There will be many of them and it will be very, very hard. You would only choose to do this if your desire to bloom into your sacred human essence is strong. You would only choose this if you feel a deep loneliness and also a desire to be in deep connection with a heart mate like I described. You would only choose this if you want to deeply know and love your Creator in way that goes much beyond what your religions have offered. You would only choose this if it feels like the only and best way that is being offered to you at this time and if, it feels as if you were meant…”

“To choose it,” you say, finishing his sentence.

He nods softly, saying, “Take your time to feel into this choice, especially now that you and parts of you know what is at stake. Now that you know that basically everything that you have known from your world will be questioned and felt into and potentially need to be let go of, even if for only a phase of time, if that’s what feels right. Now that you have met and experienced Eve and I, take your time to feel into if you want to stay with us and continue your journey.”

He puts his palms together and bows in your direction. You return the gesture, your head spinning and heart churning with all that you’ve experienced and taken in already.

He continues, “If you decide not to, we will send you back to your home with some sadness but also complete acceptance of your decision. If you decide to stay, I promise you that you and your life will not remain unchanged. I promise you that you will experience love in ways and in depths that you cannot even dream or imagine possible at this moment. And I promise you that Eve and I will be there to support and guide you all along your journey and so will your Creator so, in that, you will never really be alone again.”

He leaves you alone with your choices and your possibilities. He leaves you to take your time to “feel into” if you will say yes or no. You curl up on the pillows, wrapping a blanket around your body even though the tropical breezes keep you perfectly cool. You close your eyes, imagining how it would be to leave everything that you’ve come to know as your world and potentially the people in it in order to embark on a new adventure into the garden of your inner Eden. You imagine how it would be to get to know these parts of yourself that Adam has described: your inner child, innocent and shy; your Daemon, tortured yet beloved soul guardian; your false self, self-protective and wanting to keep you safe.

You begin to hope that your husband or wife or girlfriend or boyfriend would want to join you too and that maybe you could have the kind of relationship that Adam and Eve do. You begin to hope that you could feel the Creator the way that Adam described and perhaps feel the part of you that hates God. You begin to wonder how and if you could ever give up that hope and risk to let anything and anyone go who doesn’t serve your most authentic self.

Or maybe you feel only like resting and sleeping for a while. Letting the love and possibilities seep into your starved heart and soul. Doing their magic while you sleep in the arms of unseen angels. You fall asleep resting into the sense, at least in the moment, that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

And, you are.

Being Vulnerably On The Altar Of Our Humanity And Our Divinity

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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By Wayne Vriend

Recently, part of me was feeling anxiety about money feeling tight, and I could feel initially the background emotional tension around it. This same part of me has also been deeply feeling the very edge of deep change that we are on now in our world, and of course anxiety about how that will affect Jillian and I personally as it plays out.

I connected with this part of me through a journaling dialogue on pen and paper and felt its desire to reach out to the Divine Mother for guidance, I received the following guidance from the Divine Mother to this part of me:

“You must be willing to feel how all of life is vulnerable. Life is powerful, alive, amazing, and also vulnerable. Of course you feel anxiety in life. It is part of life. The stress comes when you are not willing or able to feel that life is vulnerable. You need the freedom to say ‘I feel afraid,’ when you feel that way, and recognize when you do. There are no guarantees. There is fear; there is desire; there is you and there is me.

THAT is why living life with your heart open is so courageous. You feel yourself, instead of medicating over your desires and hopes and fears. You tremble in the arms of me, Mother, if that is what you need to do. You curl up and ache and bawl on the floor if that is what comes. You have your own private and manageable nervous breakdown right there. You are all alone in one way and yet so held and loved, like you’ve never known, and like you cannot ever forget.

Life re-arises and comes back into focus, and even with strength and power, but these are not things you use to medicate the feelings of life’s never ending vulnerability, but instead feel your share in being unalterably on the altar of humanity and Divinity at the same time.”

This part of me felt so relieved and encouraged to feel the aliveness that comes from not suppressing vulnerable feelings and instead embracing them, owning them and making them mine. I have and get to play with power, and creativity, and purpose, but inside of a container of need and dependence and never ending reality of being a beloved child of my Divine parents.

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

A Son’s Ending, A Man’s Beginning

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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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.

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.

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. 

Playing Pretend In The Shadow Of Our Truth

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

By Chris Tydeman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does your real power and bigness look like?

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

By Wayne Vriend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.