Tag: Relationships

Letting Go With Love: Healing Codependency Between Fathers And Daughters

Published on by Gabriel Heartman1 Comment

By Christopher Tydeman

Throughout the SoulFullHeart healing/growth process, much is felt into around our relationship to ourselves (i.e. our parts), our birth parents, our friends, and our mates.  We have written extensively about those in this blog.  The one relationship we have not written much about is our relationship to our children.

Each combination of relationship (mother to son, father to daughter, etc.) has their own specific dynamic.  When our children arrive in this world, both past and current life agreements we subconsciously made with them begin their construction and playout.  Our experiences with our birth parents, our societal/religious conditionings, and our past life woundings, all coalesce to shape the dance between parent and child.

Through the formative years, parts of us invest a lot of energy in protecting and guiding our offspring.  They represent something to us.  Our greatest hope and our biggest fears.  We project so much onto them that the mere thought of their “failure” or lack of well-being is combated with a barrage of care-taking and/or excessive demands.  To lose them physically or emotionally feels like a fate worse than our own death to a part of us.

In this fused state, it is hard to conceive that our children have their own soul trajectory.  Their own needs and experiences they must have on their individual journey.  This becomes increasingly clear the older they get.  An emotionally healthy and awakened relationship would naturally find its completion around 18.  This doesn’t necessarily suggest we would never cross paths again someday or consciously avoid seeing each other.  It would just be the embarking of their adult journey, taking with them all the love they received in their youth.

But, we collectively are not in a healthy emotional state.  Our children are still children at 18 because we choose for them to be that way.  Our needs and inadequacies took precedent over their real growth.  They are stunted.  Sure, they may run a Fortune 500 company, but their emotional immaturity causes them to treat others unjustly, take advantage to satiate their greed, or run a company into the ground because of issues of control.  Or they may live a “normal” life with a spouse, their own children, a stable job, and a nice house.  But internally they are dissatisfied and unfulfilled.

As a young man, my father would tell me, “I don’t give a shit what you do for a living, as long as you are happy.”  My mother made it her mission to see me graduate college to fulfill something she desired in her own life and as a symbol of what was considered “successful”.  In each case, it was more about them than it was about me.

I carried this with me into the birth of my own daughter.  My fears and hopes were transferred onto her.  All a part of me felt I couldn’t be, hoped that she could.  But to be that meant her breaking away, so another part kept her small so she wouldn’t.  “Be big! No, be small!” Was the energy of my parenting.  A dichotomous push-pull.

As I progressed through my eventual healing, I had to draw boundaries with those that I had an unhealthy bond with.  This included family, friends, and later a mate.  But the one who got the “pass” was my own child.  She had her own vision for her life and that didn’t include healing toward emotional and spiritual awakening.  The others in my life who weren’t ready I said goodbye to, but a part of me could not accept that with my daughter.

Fast forward a couple of years later.  I have found myself in the belly of my care-taking.  Letting go of my need to be needed.  Feeling and seeing the impending industrial imperial implosion.  The ensuing chaos and violence, both physical and emotional.  I have entered into the Brave New World.  I can talk about it until I am blue in the face, but that won’t matter if someone is not able or willing to feel it.  It becomes a soul choice.  A personal decision.  To tug or force someone to get them to come along serves neither me nor them.  There is only one choice…let go.

To say goodbye to my daughter is by far the most difficult thing I have had to do.  It was a choice not made overnight.  It has been, as with all other difficult moments, a process.  Gut-wrenching and tear laden.  To continue a relationship with someone whose path is divergent to mine is not self-loving.  It is also enabling that person to stay in denial and smallness.  I love my daughter too much for her to be in either.  But more importantly, I love myself too much to continue to be seen as less than what I am, even if it is my own child.

As I walked away from her, tears in my eyes, pain in my heart, I could feel the Divine with me and with her.  Mother tells me,

“You make choices based in Love, you enter Love’s eternal grace.  Your kingly act of courage is the greatest gift to your daughter, to yourself, and the world at large.  There is no goodbye, for those souls meant to be together will remain so in heart.”

In that moment, I felt trust.  A trust that she will find her way in her own time, with her own choices.  A part of me is letting go of protecting her and trying to “save” her.  I will always have the desire for her to be a part of our SoulFullHeart community.  She has VIP status.  BUT, it is with her sovereign choice and my needs being met, that that can happen.  Until then I will hold her close to my heart as I prepare for the next phase of my soul’s journey.

 Christopher Tydeman is an apprentice SoulFullHeart Teacher. Visit soulfullheart.wix.com/sanctuary for more information about staying at SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and virtual sessions.

What It Truly Means To Be Me: Owning My Emotional Reality

Published on by Kasha RosaLeave a comment

heart_on_sleeve

By Kathleen Calder

I am here in my emotive, energetic and physical body. I am not here to transcend my reality and I am certainly not here to waste this lifetime on not living into what it truly means to be me.

It took me over two years involved with this SoulFullHeart way of life for it to land, but I finally woke up to something very important during a session yesterday – what makes your authentic self “authentic” is real, in the moment feeling and outing your emotional reality from a grounded place within yourself.

I’ve been under the impression, or perhaps another part of me has, that the SFH Self (what we call the authentic self), is essentially non-reactive and only seems reactive when fused with a part and/or choosing to validate and advocate for a part’s emotional reality. As it turns out, this simply isn’t true. Life isn’t about finally reaching a state of non-reactivity in order to be considered “emotionally matured” and “centred”. It isn’t surprising to me that given how powerful I have felt my own emotional reactions to be that the majority of people in our culture seek some way to invalidate themselves and to only come from a place of “centre” or calm. Stillness lives inside of all of us but refusing to be triggered by others actually doesn’t do us or them any favours.

I remember that a number of years ago I subscribed to the idea that anger is fine depending on how you use it. In other words, I tried to find ways to channel it that didn’t tell anyone I was angry at them directly. I also tried to find ways to just not feel it, but it would eventually find ways to come out. We are meant to flow with our emotions, not build walls around them…and not journal them away either. Journaling can help emotions flow and move in a way, but your journal can’t give you reactions back and help you dig deeper. People can. Life can.

I am not a victim to my feelings, though they haven’t always garnered positive feedback. I am entertaining this new energy of simply owning how I feel in an authentic, no bullshit, in the moment way. What’s sad is that outside of SoulFullHeart it is much harder to trust I will land somewhere, but I am not a victim to that either. Through ongoing work with my parts on my own and in sessions, I am building a deepening trust ground inside of myself. Trusting that all of my reactions are sacred, at least to me, and that there is no greater relief than to let them out responsibly. I have enough emotional healing and maturity now to trust I will not resort to name-calling, though at times there may be a defensive “fuck you” that has to surface. I can hold that. I can also hold my apology afterwards if I hurt somebody, but I also trust that their hurt is good data to them and to me. Hurt and pain is a roadmap meant to surface, not be stashed away for another day or even another lifetime.

Yesterday’s session was a couples’ session with Christopher and I. We have traveled a rocky road together, having had several incarnations of our coupleship over the past year. In some ways we are more solid than ever, but there is still one thing that trips us up – owning and outing how we feel in a vulnerable and authentic way. Parts of us have been wanting to tiptoe around each other still, caretaking one another but also fearing that if we do out how we feel we will no longer have love flowing between us. This is always possible, no matter what, however. So the real cost as I feel it now, is to ourselves and our own healing and growth. If the knife of our words can only be turned inwards, we are poisoning ourselves and there is nowhere for any of it to move and heal. If I do not out how I am feeling about my mate, no matter how “unreasonable” part of me may say it is, I am not honouring my true feelings and they are getting no air. Neither is he. We are in this to react to and trigger each other. We are not in this to “coast” through life, though parts of us would probably prefer that most days.  The cost of that is no deepening intimacy or closeness. The cost of that is an expiry date no matter what, for at this point on our healing paths, there is no way I will stand for stasis for long and he probably won’t either. As scary as it feels to rock the boat, the true cost is “me” if I don’t. My truth and heart get suppressed and my spirits become dampened with a victimhood I have put on myself.

I am here in my emotive, energetic and physical body. I am not here to transcend my reality and I am certainly not here to waste this lifetime on not living into what it truly means to be me. Join me? www.soulfullheart.com 🙂

Kathleen Calder has been embracing the SoulFullHeart Way of Life since January, 2012. Go here to read more of her writing and visit soulfullheart.com for more information about SoulFullHeart.

When Lightning Strikes Your Tree: Healing Through Rapid Changes

Published on by Kasha RosaLeave a comment

treestruckbylightening

By Kathleen Calder

There’s no perfect way to deal with a personal crisis. Just as there’s no perfect path to “enlightenment” or to the life you’ve always dreamed of.

I’ve had a number of personal crises in the past few months. My most significant romance in my life so far coming to an abrupt end; finally mourning all that I have left behind in all of my dashes toward a new life; realizing that I now have to “go back into life” after being so beautifully immersed in this way of life we call SoulFullHeart, for the past 6 months or so. This last one has been the hardest pill to swallow for my parts and my Daemon. The romance was a part of this immersion. Its completion was a part of my waking up to the necessity of this change, at least for this next phase of my life. By “immersion” I do not mean that I was sequestered or actually feeling totally separate from the world in any way. That’s why we call SoulFullHeart a “way of life” instead of simply a “process”. I was living with a mate who is also involved in SoulFullHeart and socializing almost exclusively with others engaged with SoulFullHeart during this time. It wasn’t that I didn’t want anyone else to be in my life, but I felt it necessary to cut the cords of old relationships that aren’t in line with the personal healing I need and the new view of life and relationships that I need to explore.

I turned 26 this past Tuesday. I’ve been “spiritual” for about as long as I can remember and have constantly looked for the next stage of my evolution. Now I finally have to do what I expected I would have to for a while now – get down off the mountain and give myself permission to be 26. While embodying all that I am and all I have learned, with the support of my beloved SoulFullHeart family and the Divine Mother, I must start stepping back into the world. I don’t expect to have to face poverty like I had to before, nor the disconnected relationships of every kind. I have much stronger boundaries now. They will be tested. I’m finding the most challenging part of this is to not hyper-track my fusions and parts. This is crazy-making, as I’ve noticed lately. It feels like my Daemon, Itsan, is both worried and fairly confident about these next steps for me to take. Daring to be in my bigness in a world and demographic that can be unforgiving. Of course he wants to me to track my trailing-edge as much as possible so that I don’t repeat the same “mistakes” over again. Chances are that some of them will be repeated, but at least I have a more centered “me” that can handle them differently… maybe even better than before.

Lightning struck my tree, but I’m healing the trauma that my parts experienced because of that. I’m finally learning how to really land in my process with them and have them land with me outside of sessions and group. Not that I hadn’t been working on this all along, but now that the stakes are much higher, it makes it both easier and harder to do this. This is one of the greatest gifts that has come out of these crises. Another one is that my vulnerability has helped me to surrender and lean into the Divine Mother more, closing the gap that my parts were feeling between us and her. The feeling of journalling with Her, being held by Her…I couldn’t do this without Her claiming me and me claiming my connection with Her. I feel like weeping when I feel this. When Itsan feels this. He is so happy to be helping me make this connection for it also helps him. It gives him more confidence in his ability to partner with me during all that is happening and all that is to come.

I feel my connection to past lives in the resiliency that I am displaying now. My soul has been through hell, over and over again. In some ways, this is nothing compared to what I have been through before. I also realize that half the world is in awful torment on a daily basis. I read about it on the news and I feel it in the air. This makes what I’m going through feel even more survivable and I draw strength from that as well, keeping in the mind that I also want to help the world somehow. Right now though, it feels that there is something to the personal healing I’m doing now that may actually help heal something on a broader scale. At the very least, I know that healing the world begins at home, within me, and I feel that the world cannot change without personal healing coming first.

I hope that when lightning strikes your own tree that you find your way as well — Whatever path you are on, whatever road you take.

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

On Sacred Romance: An Introduction

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

By Jillian​

​I have always considering myself to be a romantic person, drawn to love and relationship. I intuitively felt that I needed intimate romantic relationships in order to heal my deeper heart and soul wounds. As a woman, I’ve experienced both incredible and difficult moments during relationships. I’ve been both adored and resisted; admired and disdained. And I’ve had my own draws and resistances to the men and the relationships in my life. I have truly experienced that romantic intimacy offers me and you the most powerful and catalytic opportunities to see ourselves (both our strengths and our struggles) and to grow, learn, and change. As a healer and intuitive guide, I’ve experienced in working with people that nothing seems to be more challenging and threatening, and yet more desired, than a meaningful romantic relationship.​

​I feel that it is our sacred humanity which holds a desire for connection, romance, intimacy, sexual union, resonance, companionship, and attraction. Our soul holds a desire for these grounds to feel sacred and connected to our soul calling and purpose for being here. The desire for another soul to mirror our biggest strengths and our most tender struggles. We hold a desire for the love to arise in each moment offering a deeper invitation into the ultimate mystery of our beloved’s hearts, souls, and bodies. And, in exploration of this dance, to feel the beautiful mystery of ourselves unfold in response to a commitment with another.​

This, to me, is the possibility of sacredness that romantic relationship uniquely offers the human species. The realities of these dense earth dimensions create a necessary separation that invites us to explore intimacy without the safety of the overriding sense of being One and part of All That Is, even if some souls have some access to these frequencies. Sacred romance invites us to feel the desires and physical needs of our bodies; that special “tingle” that only catalyzes in alchemical response to our mate; that chemical reaction that only human bodies can produce in response to the person that is uniquely there to trigger it.​

Sacred romance invites us to heal our childhood imprints about romantic relationship, marriage, gender differences; it triggers up the messages and conditioning that we received from our parents and our culture. These distorted messages that our defenses/daemons and our young parts got about relationships could be: You can’t really trust men/women; Love doesn’t really last and, if it does, it can only be a love based on security, boredom, and routine; Sex isn’t supposed to be hot and regular and intense in long-term relationships. In fact, it’s ok if it doesn’t happen for years and years!; You can’t have everything that you want from your relationship, so just settle for what you have; It’s not ok to want more, so you need to stay in the relationship for the sake of your partner/your kids/your mortgage (I have actually heard this excuse before!)/your assets/your security, etc.​

The conditioning in our culture around romantic relationship is very pervasive; based in a defensive, security-driven picture; and encourages a conforming our needs, desires, and bigness to fit the relationship. The “Usness” of any romantic union- that alchemical creation that arises out of the connection between the two individuals- is a dynamic, ever changing, and fluid thing. Even if our defenses put the usness in a compartment and try desperately to keep each partner invulnerable, stuck, and numb- the usness, in its essence, is still an alive and arising entity. Just as we are!​

When Wayne and I meet with clients, if they are in a relationship or marriage, we can feel the usness between them, even without meeting their partner (although it is always our deepest desire and recommendation to serve both). We feel together how vitally held the usness is; if it is being nurtured and nourished; and how the person (and their daemon!) relates to it. SoulFullHeart wants to serve the love between the couple, to serve the usness ground that is still alive on some level, and to blow love on the embers of it to possibly ignite a new passion, desire, and intimacy between the couple that is based in alive frequencies rather than dead ones based in security, familiarity, and routine. And, SFH also wants to serve to explore the possible necessity of completing the relationship if that is the couple’s sovereign choice to do with honor and respect for what has been, while not denying their desires for more.

In meeting with couples, we emphasis the need for them to connect to themselves “vertically” rather than overly focusing “horizontally.” This means that many partners have fallen into a habit of overly obsessing about the relationship, how to fix it, and feeling they just need communication strategies to make it better. In SFH, we feel that it is each partner’s individual emotional and spiritual health that most impacts the “usness” in the relationship. The degree of codependency, triggers, mom and dad projections, and non productive turmoil is the amount of wounding that is in the partner as an individual. The relationship is mirroring to them that they need to heal themselves in order to contribute in an emotionally healthy way in the relationship. We support for couples to meet with us individually for a little while in order for them to have a safe, non charged ground in which their parts can share and express their feelings about their partner and the relationship. Eventually, we encourage couples to meet in typically three hour sessions in which each partner primarily shares their individual process and parts with their partner witnessing their sharing. This allows the couple to feel each other more compassionately and with less charge as the focus is on the individuals, not on who was “right” or “wrong” in the relationship.

(Note: this blog entry is the introduction from an article about sacred romance posted on the SoulFullHeart Website.)