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
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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 JonesVisionary for a New Kind of Earth Archives
September 2023
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