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I wanted to offer all of you an imaginary pause button. It is in the palm of your hand. You can see it as big or small and whatever color you'd like. When you push it, it will freeze-frame your life for a moment so you can check in with where you are today. You can even imagine me or someone else asking you "how are you doing?"
Then check in with your breath and see if you can take it a little deeper (letting your tummy stick way out!) As we notice our breath, we signal our brain to start to slow things down. This can be quite different than the lifestyles we live in a world that runs really busy and plays to our ice queen, toughen up, and push through it all life script. So you can practice pushing pause... Pausing to notice. Pausing to scan all way to the feet. Pausing to bring the awareness of this moment in time on October 22, 2021. Pause and have a chat with your body... As I breathe in, I honor you, my body. And as I breathe out, I give you a new sense of release + reset. As I breathe in, I hear what you need. As I breathe out, I give you permission to move or make a sound. And when you are ready you can un-pause and come back...This is the story of our ability to create a new pattern + the beginning of noticing when we need to push pause. In a couple of weeks, I am offering a pause button to explore some different experiential practices to allow for your analytical + overthinking mind to take a vacation. At this time on the planet, the ability to move through things is very present and at a greater capacity, (so I know I want to take advantage of that!) but we have to slow down to make room for the connection to take place. We are not taught how to slow down, so creating space by opening to new experiences already sets the ball rolling with your intention to do so. A-ho.
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When seasons change...It gives us a natural awareness of how everything around us is letting go.9/28/2021 There is something truly magical about October in Kansas. Growing up in a small town, fall had such nostalgic energy (and still does). It feels like it opens this portal to a direct connection to the child parts who were more connected to nature + open to change. For child me, it meant homecoming pep rallies, leaf piles, Halloween parades, and you finally get to wear the clothes you bought for back to school because it's finally cool enough for long sleeves + pants. For some of us, the child parts of us remember a simpler life and can breathe in the excitement of change that fall brings in.
"Simple" is my current mantra and it has been amazing how useful it has been to help me return home to myself. When I can feel myself accelerating or in chaotic energy I ask myself, "how can I make this simpler?" Oh, how our nervous systems like simple!! Especially those of us that are sensitive!! So, I ask you, how can you simplify your life? How can there be more space than there is now? The biggest space makers I have found are: 1.) Working with boundaries and 2.) The act of releasing. I mean releasing anything that has a heaviness - old clothes, books, stored emotions :) anything that is hanging out and not moving energy. Those of you who are "sensors" know that "thud" of a feeling. Does it feel good to your body? When we open to "noticing" our lives change. Holding space for your unfolding, Cassie “Who am I?”
“What am I doing here?” “I feel like I don’t belong here.” “I have always felt like there is something big I am supposed to be doing here.” These are the thoughts I hear the most from the women I work with. Being a highly sensitive woman in a world that has not been supportive of our natural strengths and abilities, forces us to armor up and seek control. I mean seriously...how else could we have made it in a not-so-sensitive world with parents who didn’t see our truth or in school systems that made us follow the leader and disengage our creativity? We got the wrong memos with a heaping side of deeply rooted & distorted ideas and visions about who we are. I think about it like we were toned down into a sepia filter when you should have been seen through a rainbow filter!!! So how do we turn the colorful lights back on? I keep a set of beautiful stacking dolls on a shelf in my office as a reminder of how complex we really are. Every version & age of who you “be” lives within your body. Every moment of joy and every moment of pain. Every time your tender heart was broken and every time you were told your sensitivities were wrong. We have all the layers and stories swirling around in our subconscious and in our cells. So where do we even begin? I have found that when we only shine the flashlight inside without significant support, it activates our inner army of protection. (That is partly why we feel like it is just too much! Because they have full control of not wanting things to send us over the edge.) I remember thinking often...what exactly am I scared of? When I realized that I had a cauldron full of fears, I could then start to see that some were mine, but many were my parents, and so many were inherited from a world full of memos that said I should always be scared. Take a moment and look over your life story and see really what it has been like as a sensitive soul in the energy of fear. Our little nervous systems were not equipped for processing a world like this. So what did you do when it was too much? Most of us freeze our energy because it gives a sense of control and because of the times when we really gave space to our big feelings, we were often shamed for it. So we started young holding it in, gulping it down, turning off our lights. We learn to survive. Please pause for some quick facts...as an HSP you are more affected by the subtleties of what the world news is saying, what horror movies are imprinting, and what your mom says is true, because she heard it from a friend. We carry fear differently than most do. We sense the layers behind the words. It is important for you to honor that it the truth of who we be. So what am I scared of inside me? I have many different parts that are scared of being vulnerable, being hurt, exposed, finding a skeleton that I am not even aware of! But what I was really scared of was loosing control. There are stories enmeshed in my cells that say something is wrong with me, so much is wrong with the world around me, so it is just better to stay gripped to a sense of safety, however that looks for you. One of my teachers would then chime in here and say..."So, how is that working for you?" "How much life are you feeling from that place?" "How much of your soul gets to move through you when fear is driving the car?" "How does your body respond to always having to be in control?" When we move around the inner furniture it shakes things loose that our minds tell us we don’t want to know, face, or express...because life is too much, we are too much, this is all too much...and what the mind doesn’t tell us as it avoids our inner hygiene because of it only overwhelming us, is that creating a new narrative actually frees us deeply to make more space for who we really are. It is like cleaning out the basement full of shit you don't need or want to hold onto anymore, so you can create a healing temple in that space instead. We are complex- there is no doubt about that. We are relational, energetic, emotional, and physical- human transformers. When we are not connected to our emotions, we can not be connected to our little girls that live inside waiting to be seen, heard, and expressed. When fear is driving, we constrict our bodies, hold our breath, and we only have a fine line of availability to be with our Wise Self...our intuition. This innate wisdom & higher self version of who we truly are, she speaks simply, softly, strategically. Truth is clear & simple. The answers to who you are reside in the beautifully weaved, invisible garment that you are made of. Your soul has waited all through out time to be here right now.
This space is dedicated to bringing all of us misfits and sensitive souls together. You may have the energy of a Lightworker, Healer, Old Soul, Empath, Indigo, or Starseed, and you are those with the burning passion to change the world!! I am here to tap on your door and support you in illuminating your gifts. When we attune to ourselves, there is a rippling vibration that affects everyone around us. So many of you are this light by just BEING who you are. But, so many of us don't know who we are because the world was not meant for us to shine our lights. As the earth turns on her lights, it is activating us to want to shine our lights even brighter. To become the natural born advocates of the heart that we truly are. Together, I want to support you to create a new vision of who you really are. A journey of self-discovery into being and doing what you love. A new story line that consists of being deeply supported by a community of others who can relate to you. A tribal essence where we can be each others biggest fan, hold the torch for each others illumination and walk hand and heart forward to assist with the awakening that is happening on the planet. When we don't fit into the box of society, we start contorting ourselves to be anything other than who we really and truly are. We armor up, break off, and lock up our gifts, just so we can "fit" or at least try to make an attempt to. Most of us were raised in systems that did not see us through the magical heart-shaped glasses of who we truly are. So, we learned early to make ourselves smaller and maybe even shut off to our gifts. In this space, we get an opportunity to begin re-learning what it means for our souls to be in community. We are wired for it. We are also hard-wired for healing. We get the choice to re-write the story by EXPERIENCING our own truth, building inner-trust, and welcoming the innate wisdom that lies within us. When we are in the truth of our experiences, everyone is Illuminated! That is why community is so divinely sacred... Just like my teachers taught me, when one of us gets a healing, we all get a healing. I want to support you in finding your healing tribe to walk beside in your journey. I invite you with an open heart, open mind and open arms...let's become better humans, because we are the ones carrying the torch lovelies! We are the the leaders of the heart. We are the beings moving the energy of the planet into harmony. The time is now. The world needs you to be who you truly are. So...Let's get to work :) The sun is shining and things are sprouting. It feels good, doesn't it? There is a "waking-up" energy that is everywhere around us and speaks so much to the beauty of how the seasons unfold. Another word for unfolding is flowering- I just love that! We are ever-changing, flowering humans, and we are all dancing this dance of life.
Today is International Women's Day which turns the energy up even more! Feel it in your body!! What does it feel like to be part of a generation that is setting the stage for girls to dream and do it differently? It motivates me every day. I want to see a world where Women are being fully alive and true to who they are. No more staying small and hiding out. We need all of this feminine energy to change the larger energy, right now. I have a niece who is 18 and I can see already this huge shift in her that I didn't have when I was 18. She embraces herself so differently. She is okay with what makes her different and she shines with courage as she speaks. It gives me this hope that all of us that did not get the memo to be who we really are, get another chance, and we get as many chances as we need because there it is never too late to be more of who we really are. To do this we have to look at what stands in our way. Who told you who to be and what is still present in that for you today. So many of us didn't have support systems who were curious about our gifts. Most parents, teachers, and adults tell us what to be...Oh your good at this, you should be that...I know I thought well I am good at doing hair, so I guess I am a hairstylist. Then people said you are good at helping people, so I became a therapist. I never really asked myself what do I LOVE doing? I asked, "What am I good at?" Think about your story for a minute...what do you LOVE doing? And how much of that are you doing in your life right now? The dance back home to who you truly are is the dance I love to do with people. These limiting memos about who we should be and the hustle to maintain it leads to an exhausting way of being. It sucks the joy right out of us. So many of us are living lives that don't align with our hearts and I want all of you to live a life on purpose! One that brings forth the magic of your gifts. You are the only you in all of time- you are an original. What gifts do you have? So many of the empathic, intuitive women I support have this special quality of seeing things in "big picture". They have answers to big problems. They could change the world in an instant and do not understand why there has to be so much suffering when it seems so easy to change. It is heartbreaking to live in a world where there is so much pain and things are not fair. When we clearly see that all of the systems are outdated and the ways they can be fixed. When we sense the undertones of things going on around us. It is a tough place, this world we are living in because it was not created with the heart and growth in mind. And yet, it is opening to so many possibilities and I truly feel like we are here to change this energy. The world needs more heart-centered leaders, healers, and entrepreneurs! I talk to people all the time about how we stepped into a box in elementary school that we spend the rest of our lives trying to get out of. Yet, there is still a little voice inside that knows this can not be it. What is the substance of life if we aren't fully living it? I want to help you make your dreams come true. Dreams and wishes are in your DNA- when you light up it is because you love something- your entire being speaks. (You know that glow in the eyes that says this is me! This is why I am here!) Peace, love, and flowering together, Cassie As I write this, I notice there is residue of energy around my heart that is delicate. There are parts of me that keep knocking on the door of my heart, because there is deep grief wanting to continue to be felt. Grief of how life used to be...like having somewhere to go or something to do, buying a new outfit, wanting to plan a trip, see my nephews, schedule a in-person coffee date, go to a concert, and HUG everyone!
Last night, the grief knocked extra hard on my heart door as someone on TV was sitting in a restaurant connecting with friends- being close to one another and free. You know, like the old way of feeling free...without masks and worry. I just started bawling. I curled up in ball and cried the hard cry… you know the “it’s not fair!” loud type of cry. It isn’t fair. That is the truth. And it does make me angry, frustrated, sad, and want to cry out to the universe for a change. As I listened to different parts of me move through the process, I knew these parts, these emotions, just need to be heard and felt. I heard the part that said, "People have it so much worse than you, so be thankful." And the part that said, "You are being too sensitive". I also sensed my body and the realness of the pain. I can not compare my pain. My feelings are honest. My body tells the truth. All of our inner-truths can look very different, because we are all unique to our own struggles. BUT, we dismiss our pain when we compare it. I also heard my loving, wise part and her soothing voice say, "There, there love. This is hard. This is real for you. Be gentle with the sadness." I teach this to people all the time…breath into that emotion, give it some space. Listen to what it has to say. And I too, am a normal human, having the same emotional body as everyone else. And this grief is no joke. It is like a strong ocean wave that can knock you over and you might have to be rolling around in the sand for a while before you can sit or stand back up. It is something we don’t give enough time and space for. One afternoon a few years ago, I was sitting across from one of my teachers holding my heart, with tears running down my face. (You know when someone is sitting across from you staring into your soul…there was no hiding. I was visually bursting at the seams!) I asked her through large, heavy eyes...“What am I feeling?” She said, “Cassie, dear you are in the middle of a divorce and moving through deep sadness, which can sometimes be grief”. She said all of the grief’s that were not given enough space, all throughout your life go into a bucket, until we get to a place in our lives where we can start to move through and feel them. I just sat there and held my heart and went through my life movie…the thought of my parents divorce, loosing my grandma Julia and my dog, moving away from my community when I was 14, being bullied, abused...all of the hurts frozen in the time capsules of my inner-tapestry. This movie had so many hurts, for the child parts and past versions of myself that no one even knew they were inside me. I had not told anyone or shared the pain. I had kept most of it locked up inside. So, my caldron of grief was FULL...so full that at times, I didn’t think I could even touch the lid. She also reminded me that we grieve because we love… that they are the same coin, just different sides. And that, we are wired to love, so we must also be wired to grieve and feel all of whom we are…The beautiful spectrum of all of the feelings. I thought I had met ALL of the feelings, until I met grief. She is different. She is unpredictable and demands attention. “We cannot heal what has not been processed, and it takes time to move through the pain of loss and grief. We don’t do ourselves any favors when we rush or simply try to skip over the process of grieving. Even when it is scary, we must follow our hearts and honor our grief. Allow our hearts to heal the way they truly want to. Grief teaches us the power of our love, and our resilience. When we practice courage we lean into showing the world our whole self, wounds and all.” – Brené Brown I spent a lot of time that year on the floor of my house in mental, physical, and emotional pain. I rocked myself a LOT. I wanted to make this heaviness lighter and I wanted to do it without numbing or dissociating. So, I sought out more support. I found someone to help me stay in my body and energetically ground myself. I went back to therapy. I went to community acupuncture. I was also in an internship with a group of amazing souls that would catch me when I was falling. I learned to ask for help and I learned to receive. SO MANY TEACHINGS! I remembered I had the book Tear Soup by Pat Schwiebert from play therapy school. It is a children’s book about healing after loss by making tear soup. It stresses giving the pain time and nurturing, something I had not witnessed. It is such a beautiful story. I also remember listening to Brené Brown’s book, Rising Strong, as I was pulling into my hometown. She said something to the effect of it wasn’t her parent’s divorce that was the most painful experience; the pain was in all the things that she would NOT get to experience. I am not quoting her, but regurgitating what hit my grief bucket so hard. I held my breath as I felt the fullness in my chest. That was exactly it. I wanted to experience life how I had dreamt it up to be. I had envisioned my life differently. I already had most of it scripted out. It does not include loosing anything. No divorces, no pain and no death. Never had I thought about what life would be like without someone or something. And as I move back to present time, it does not include this pandemic, or quarantine, or disconnection. I don’t know about you, but I did not have 2020 scheduled in my script of possibilities. My vision board has people standing together in a circle, hand in hand, and it says, “Everyone is illuminated” above it. None of us have prepared for this grief. We had the normal script running… the plans, the holidays, the gatherings, and the connection. We create this script mostly for safety and control, because we want this inner world and outer world to match up. It is fascinating really. This year obviously completely shifted that. It is much harder not to hear your grief. It has more space to be heard. In the book, Letting go of the Person You Used To Be, Lama Surya Das talks about how we are always changing, always birthing and always letting things go. “With every breath, the old moment is lost; a new moment arrives. We exhale and we let go of the old moment. It is lost to us. In doing so, we let go of the person we used to be. We inhale and breathe in the moment that is becoming. In doing so, we welcome the person we are becoming. We repeat the process. This is meditation. This is renewal. This is life.” ― Lama Surya Das, Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be Now to balance the dark with the light, we have to have them both. We cannot just stay in the dark forever. We need balance…the Yin to the Yang. There have also been gifts of 2020. The big gifts like reconnecting with nature, talking to the trees, watching more sunrises and sunsets, and more space for stretching and moving. More time to help our bodies rewire new patterns, like shifting from busyness to more stillness. I decided to make a 2020 mantra and it is "I choose to SAVOR the moments. I have a 16- year old Chihuahua, who I know is only here for moments, not years. And she is my touch stone. When I look at her I remind myself of the moment I am living in. This is it. This sunrise, we will never experience again on this day in our history. I also have been taking photos everyday of moments that my heart connects to. I have been cooking more and I want to savor the food by giving it lots of flavor. I say good morning to the earth when I let my dogs out in the morning and I say goodnight before bed. It keeps me centered, present, and really is a beautiful mix of gratitude and ease to remember we are so much bigger than this moment. Each moment bringing me home inside my heart and reminding me that I am one with the all… I am connected to the earth, the trees, my animals, my home, and my community. Remembering that I am but a drop in the ocean of this ball of earth floating around in space… Zooming out of my story into something much bigger. Gratitude is sacred and expansive. Notice your heart the next time you feel it. This new way of life has taken readjustments, sometimes moment to moment. And there are beautiful gifts and there is a lot of heart-break/ ache/ loss… Both/ And... Yin/ Yang... Grief/ Joy... Be gentle with yourself and others. We are all grieving. We are all writing a new story. With so much love, Cassie When I was asleep in my body and offline energetically, I was a school counselor and I remember the full moon energy as chaotic and something teachers would say in passing. Something like, "oh it must be a full moon today," and that is the reason children were acting out. Children are awake, aware, and still connected in ways that numb adults can't understand. I really got it once I began growing up inside, thawing out my frozen inner children and moving along on my inner journey. I embodied that the more awake and aware I am, the more sensitive I am. (Which has its ups and downs, but I still choose it over numb any day!)
Numerous full moons I awake with this electric charge in my body. I will be vibrating head to toe. I have had the light of the moon wake me up, just to connect with it. It is POWERFUL energy! I have formed a new relationship with the moon and its magical powers and celebrate the intensity that comes with my energy body being heightened, my emotional body usually also being heightened, and work on keeping myself grounded to earth energy. (Just this morning, I went and stood barefoot on the grass for a while to regulate my energy body.) In my astrology chart, my moon sign is in Virgo in the 9th house. This is something new for me, as I am a child in the world of astrology, but I have found it has brought a deeper sense of meaning in understanding my sensitivities. So if you haven't already, download the app "Time Passages" and plug in your birthdate and time. (It is free knowledge!) Then take a moment to read your moon sign. My planets chart says my moon sign is in Virgo and as I read it, via the Time Passages App, I am just taken back by the powerful information, so I wanted to share... "The Moon in the Ninth House represents emotional sensitivity in the areas of higher ideals and visionary philosophy. You may be something of a dreamer and tend to romanticize your emotions...(Ughhh yes...) Your philopshy is based on your feelings and sensitivity to your ideals regarding the superconscious realms...You constantly study your experiences to redefine your own philosophy about life experiences, which may be the basis of your own vision of religion. Your philosophical attitude may seem difficult for other people to understand. You may suffer from a utopian ideal of wanting to feel good all the time which can cause you suffering. You tend to be a dreamer yet your dreams may reflect truths about reality when you are in tune to your higher awareness of consciousness. You love travel and are likely to take many journeys. You are a natural teacher. You have a strong need to share your philosophy of life with other people. In this way, you can share your redefined imaginative and creative insights and show others how to refine their inner visions along with you..." WHAAAAATTTTT! This is seriously me on all levels. I am a born teacher, an investigator who wants to redefine everything I come across that is in this healing arena and I want to know the truth, so I can share the truth. I want everyone to do their inner work so as a collective we are connected to our hearts and our power. I don't conform to a label or a section of what the world has told me I need to be. I want to be myself and I see through the lens of growth and change. I don't like anything that makes me feel trapped or needing to drink the kool-aid of the American propaganda dream. But I am also a big time dreamer and heart-felt sensitive. You may say I am a dreamer, but I really am, and I know I am not the only one. When I was in graduate school, we had to write out own counseling philosophy and my teachers just thought I was aloof with all my ideas and wonderment. When actually, I really didn't feel what they were ever telling me was "the way" it had to be done was the truth. Even though there is different theories and scientific research that says all the things- blah-blah, my heart was like nope we are so much bigger and more complex than this shit. I titled my paper Dr. Jones's Kaleidoscope Theory and wrote page after page around how I thought things could look differently than the ways I had been told they should. At my core, these are truths about who I am and how fun to let the moon and its wonderment, continue to help me investigate my gifts of being sensitive and powerful. You can create your own Full Moon Rituals...
May you be an active participant in the life you dream of. Much Love, Cassie Today is a day here on earth and in the cosmos that there are huge energy shifts happening... can you feel it? Today is also the day that this dream of creating a sacred space to bring awakening souls together to do their inner work has manifested into fruition.
So, for a moment imagine that YOU are a new computer that was excitedly taken out of the packaging and turned on. You notice you already have the Microsoft Suite of "Family patterns and issues" already installed. Over time you download new apps, never deleting anything, just filling up the space, allowing some to continue to use all your data and run constantly in the background. You also have a drop down menu with how you think you are supposed to do things and how to make the right choices and decisions (even though we decided that this is how we should do it because that is how my mom did it or how I have been shown is the "right way"). Another drop down option is something that we added in adolescence when we thought avoiding our issues was easier by drinking that or smoking that. There is also the option for how to react or feel the feelings...do we get mad or we have the automatic redirect of "we don't get angry because it doesn't look good on us women". You get my point?? This body is our computer system and it is jammed pack and soaked full of other peoples stuff and outdated defaults. IT NEEDS AN UPGRADE. It got the wrong memo on so many levels!!! So, for my first ever blog post (yay) I am announcing my manifesting magical intentions around what I am holding a vision of for this new space for introspection and growth. I see sensitive people who are awakening to knowing there has to be more than "this" mental, depressed and anxious life, coming together to support one another with open hearts and open minds. I see when how we begin to deprogram our inner computers and open more space up to actually add new apps to what we want and desire life begins to feel way more purposeful!!!! I see you reconnecting with your beautiful imagination and using this space to be a top resource for your inner journey. I see you using this space to pause and take a deep breath in as you connect to the feeling of making a warm drink.. feeling the warmth in your hands and then your nose catches the aroma...breathe it in. Allowing space and time to begin sipping slowly. We need to reconnect to our sense and the pause. The savoring of moments and the noticing of our emotions and energy. I see you connecting with your body that is so full of wisdom. The body is our greatest teacher and I am here to help you regenerate and restore your connection. It is with the body we can move out of fear and into the safety of exploring our inner landscape, pulling weeds, planting flowers and trees, and making the choices that we want to make instead of being lead by old downloads and programming. I see you knowing THY SELF as the biggest gift you can give yourself, your partner, your children, and all the past versions of you waiting to be heard, seen, and healed. They are like having you own inner team waving a banner, flags, and jumping up and down with excitement of what they know you can be! Feel them all supporting you to awaken and grow! I know at my core that your unique essence is deeply needed on the planet and you have gifts that no one else has. And I am so ready to support you! |
Cassie JonesHolistic Psychotherapist, HSP Coach, Dream Weaver & Heart Connector. Archives
October 2021
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