I used to have this nightmare several times a year. I’d be standing on the shore, and then a huge tidal wave would form, growing taller and taller, looming over me, turning the sky black and the surroundings gray. Sheer terror would fill me. I’d see it start to arc over me, and instead of waking up just before it crashed on me, it WOULD crash over me and I would be pummeled by it and suffocating. Then I’d wake up.
I kept having this dream, and analyzed over and over why I might be having it. Was it the near-drowning I experienced when I was young, when some ocean spirit eventually deposited me onto the beach without me knowing even how I made it back? Was it sexual repression? (ha! not likely with me…) Water means so many things in “dream analysis…”
Well, this is what I love about coaching. Taking a different approach than most therapy models, in the end I didn’t so much care why I had the dream. I just wanted it to stop. Or – more accurately – for the terror to stop.
When I had almost finished completing my coach training in 2009, the dream took a different turn (hang with me…this is where it gets juicy).
One night, I had the dream again. I stood at the edge of the ocean, and the wave grew taller and taller…perhaps the tallest one I’d seen yet. The same terror filled me and I tried to run away. I turned around, but then the futility of what I trying to do hit me. I could never outrun a tidal wave. So, I turned around, and surrendered.
I faced the looming wall, accepted it was going to crash over me, and hellz yes it did. I was tossed around under the water for several minutes, limbs flailing and darkness enveloping me. I found it…interesting. In my state of surrender, I was in awe of the power of this wave. I’d been tossed in the washing machine surfing before, but this was a freakin’ tidal wave.
Then, something totally different happened.
I got spit out the top of the water. The surface was calm and clear. The sky was blue. And there were colorful bathtub toys and beach toys floating all around me. It was…epic and beautiful and relaxing.
I never had the nightmare again.
In hindsight, I think I kept having this dream because I was focusing on wanting to avoid the fear, make the tidal wave stop, or escape the problem altogether. But did you ever entertain the idea that parts of life are supposed to be hard? Well, of course you know that parts of life can be hard…but do you believe it’s supposed to be hard sometimes?
I don’t buy the whole “everything can be easy and effortless all the time if you just think it will be” shizzle that some people spout out (although self-sabotage is real and a whole other blogpost). What I do believe is that we would not be able to achieve states of bliss and joy if it were not for the existence of the contrasting hard feelings. It’s emotional physics. And the irony is, once you embrace that we don’t need to run from the hard feelings, they actually pass more quickly. In the end, we suffer less than we would trying to fight them.
Life is indeed hard at times. When we try to avoid it being hard, or avoid feeling our hard feelings, the problem grows and grows. Like my tidal wave.
You also lose confidence in yourself, because you don’t trust that you can handle it and test your shit out.
A few years later, I heard one of my teachers, Pema Chodron, say that true inner confidence wasn’t about never being afraid. She said it was about knowing that when you got knocked down, you could get up, again and again. Then she gave the example of standing on the ocean’s edge (not kidding!), and then how if we fight getting knocked down by the waves, or try to escape them, we get exhausted and worn down. However, if we allow ourselves to get knocked down, and then get back up – now that is unshakeable confidence. She also said the Tibetans called this radiant inner confidence ziji…which is what I named my confidence course!
Essentially, once you’ve learned that you can get knocked down – and that you will always get back up – you can turn to the world and say, “Bring it!”
True confidence is not built from avoiding getting knocked down. True confidence is built from knowing you will always get back up.
There’s a reason you are reading this today – maybe you’re feeling crushed and you needed to hear it. Maybe a friend or a loved one or a stranger on the street needs to hear it, and you need to muster the courage to tell them.
Get. Up.
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
I want to let you in on a really important ingredient for creating authentic happiness – the kind that stands the test of time and is more resilient to the hard stuff that comes our way.
We often feel that it’s justifiable to feel like something is missing in our lives when we have some heavy shit going on. For me right now, it’s marriage struggles (marriage is hard, yo!) and my mom’s recent death. For my friends and clients, it’s things like feeling they’ve missed out on truly being themselves for decades and grieving that loss; struggling with loneliness and wanting a life partner; miscarriages; loss of identity…it goes on and on. It’s the shit that comes with being alive and human. The “truth of the existence of suffering” that Buddha reminded us all of millennia ago. It makes total sense that we feel like something is missing during those times.
Thing is, we also tend to feel like something is missing even when life DOES seem like its going really well! For example, here are a few scenarios that coaching can help a lot with:
• you have a bitchy inner critic that tells you you aren’t worthy of a better life • you have a tendency to make bad choices relationship after relationship • you are a perpetual perfectionist and can’t seem to start, finish, or let go of anything because of your need to have it be flawless • you keep searching for a life with more meaning and purpose…and still haven’t found it • you struggle with creating healthy boundaries and saying “No” to people, trapped in a never-ending cycle of people-pleasing and lack of self care. • you feel trapped and stuck • you wallow in a scarcity mindset, blocking abundance from entering your life • you feel a lack of self love and self-worth • you wonder why you don’t feel confident or courageous enough to do what it takes
While coaching is great for these scenarios, what a lot of people don’t talk about is that once you achieve a lot of your goals – the freedom, the location-independent lifestyle, the abundance, the awesome relationship, the killer career, the confidence – we still tend feel that something is missing.
And let me tell you – that moment sucks. Royally.
Here you are, having done the spiritual work, the intellectual work, the creative work, the courageous work – a LOT of freakin’ work – and it all seems perfect, yet something is Still. Freakin’. Missing.
So what is this missing thing? It’s not as sexy as you might think, but it’s damn important, and I’ve seen it over and over. It helps when we are in some deep dark times of life, and it helps when we have that nagging feeling of being incomplete even when life seems amazing.
It’s not gratitude, although that is still a daily practice I do every morning.
It’s … (drum roll!) … being of service to others. Or better yet – feeling we are of service to others. Or even better yet…a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives (which tends to be connected with service to others).
Truth is, we are born to serve in a powerful way.
You can do all the gratitude journaling you want, but if you don’t feel a sense of purpose or meaning in life, if you aren’t clear about how your unique self is undeniably needed in the world and how you fit into it all, it won’t help you with this feeling that something is missing.
We are meant to use all the skills we learned up until this glorious moment and use them to (no pressure here;) change the world. From what I have seen, we humans cannot seem to be able to feel totally fulfilled in life if we are not deeply serving in some way.
In order to serve powerfully, we must muster the deepest type of courage yet. This is courage deeper than what is required to ask for a raise, or to start our own business, or to leave the toxic relationship.
Don’t get me wrong – they are related, and the first kind of courage is requisite to getting to the next level of bravery.
But what is required of you to truly feel like your life is enough is the courage to be of deep, devoted service to something greater than yourself.
So, in order to be able to feel maximally fulfilled, I highly recommend you set to work on making the world a better place.
When I look back on my life, it is not the peaks I have climbed, the adventures I have been on, or the financial milestones that help me feel that today would be a good day to die – although I will be the first to admit that they certainly help me feel better about that day.
Rather, it is the times that I have made other people’s lives better that help me sleep at night and live more courageously. The times I spent in Africa working with refugees on the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC. The times I forgave people that deeply hurt me. The times I risked disappointing others and being criticized in order to bring a bigger message to the world through my coaching. The times I delivered babies in a public hospital for Haitian women, or sat with a mother holding her stillborn and allowed myself to cry with her in sisterhood.
I am sure that you too can recall the moments you have touched someone’s heart with your actions, and how grounded and complete you felt.
Because you have been there, you know that this goal of ultimate fulfillment is not for the faint of heart.
It takes a lot of courage to serve others fully. To allow ourselves to feel the pain and suffering of others and to take action to stop it. To be so vulnerable with strangers that it scares the shit out of you.
On top of that, you also have to know what the world truly needs in order to best bring your gifts to the world in acts of service. And learning what the world needs can be terrifying, scary, and overwhelming. But you can do it. You MUST do it.
You were born to do it.
I have clients break down in tears when they realize this, and it’s understandable, because the responsibility can feel overwhelming. But trust me – you don’t need to do anything more than discover your gifts and live them fully. This is truly of service to the world.
You do not need to head into war zones or depraved conditions (unless that’s a part of your gift), but you do need to discover and be honest with yourself about what you are good at, and how it can help make the world a better place than when you arrived.
Living your true gift involves some form of deep service pr contribution to others – even if that may not be obvious to you at this moment.
It’s scary, but you can find the ziji, the courage, the confidence to do it.
How do we get this kind of courage so we can explore our true purpose? In my experience, this deeply driven courage is created by an emotion that deserves much more bandwidth than topics like the courage or the confidence to manifest your dreams (even though that’s what I totally dig writing about):
It’s Compassion – for yourself and for others.
Compassion is the most courageous emotion we can carry, and the brave acts it allows us to undertake is why it is the emotion that helps our life feel like one well-lived.
As Pema Chödrön, a Tibetan Buddhist nun, said:
“The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes. ”
There you have it.
If you want to live a truly courageous and deeply fulfilling life, open your heart.
First to yourself. This gives us the courage to go beyond our own needs.
Then open your heart to others, and look deeply into their eyes.
Feel the pain, the suffering, the injustices.
Do the work. Learn what you need to. Spend time alone. Spend time with people who really matter.
Fiercely quest for your purpose.
Let any ideas of your previous self die away, so that you may truly be open to the gift that only you are able to deliver – one you may have no freakin’ idea about yet. Or one you know about, but that really, really scares you to think about embodying.
You are enough, and the best way to see that – and indeed, the best way to feel that – is to discover that gift and how to best bring it to the world in service.
What does that look like for you? Is it volunteering with a local organization or abroad? Changing the focus of your biz? Leaving your job to raise your kiddos on a sailboat? Opening up a community gathering place? Helping people feel beautiful when they feel absolutely devastated inside? Giving people hope when they have lost their mojo?
Share with me on the blog or hit reply on this email to tell me about your gifts, or what has helped you sleep better at night, the ways you love to serve, the ways you dream to serve. I love this kind of stuff – and trust me, I’ll reply.
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
A funny thing happens when you do the hard and gritty personal work – the wrestling with your insecurities, taking risks, creating boundaries (that many people don’t like), being scared and doing it anyway, cultivating compassion towards the Mean People, discovering your Inner Badass; opening to the suffering in the world and thinking about how to make a difference in your own unique way, and knowing your own suffering is real and worth tending to as well…
…when you start working towards all those things: You start getting what you want.
Or at least what you think you want.
This can be a kind of test, a final exam of, “How well do you know thyself?”
I decided to write this piece because a client of mine (let’s call her Emily) recently posted in our Facebook group that she is being asked to step into an even greater role in her profession, one that she was surprised to even be considered for, one where she would stand side by side next to badasses in her field. Yet she wasn’t sure what to do. While it was an incredible opportunity, it was also going to create more work, less free time, less opportunity for self-care, and more stress. And a big part of her work in our Adventure Mastermind was putting her needs first (for once). But a part of her really wanted this, and liked being acknowledged for all her hard work thus far.
She wanted to know how to navigate making these Hard Decisions. The Big Decisions. The Unclear Decisions.
I’ve always said it’s easier to say “No” when its a “Hell No!” and is really obvious. It gets a lot trickier when it’s a “maybe,” “sort of” or “good enough.” Same could go for Yesses.
In case you, like Emily, are presented with a test from the Universe, one with a temptation that seems so good on so many levels yet feels not-so-good on many others, here are a few of the tips we reviewed:
How to Make Hard Decisions
:: Create clarity around your Ideal Life. Create detailed lists for: 1) how you want to show up in the world, how you want to feel, how you want to BE 2) What you want to be doing with your time, including work, play, spirituality…all those important arenas 3)What you want to have – in detail. Home/shelter, environment, what kinds of friends and community, family?
:: Write about your Perfect Day – how do you want to feel and what do you want to do form the moment your eyes open to when you fall asleep? Since I’m a big fan of the dreamworld, I even advocate for being clear about what you want to dream about or use your dreamtime for!
Doing the 2 above exercises can help you remember what it is your trying to create in your life – then you can step back and see which decision would best move you towards that. Sit with this question – aka The Hard Decision – you have, and ask your Wise Self (your most Magnificent Self, your Self who has already achieved everything you could ever dream of), “Does this decision move me closer to my ideal life?”
:: Get out of your head, and get in touch with what “yes” feels like in your body and what “no” feels like. Spend a couple of days feeling into what is a Yes and what is a No in your body. You’ll start to learn that your body has very specific ways to tell you something is going to be bad for you – from food to people to movies etc. And ways to tell you something is awesome and a hellz yes!
Which decision feels like a Hellz Yes! in your body?
:: You can also use tools like oracles or Angel cards etc to help tap into your intuition on the matter. When we leave some things up to Mystery, it can be interesting to observe what comes up and how it stirs our hearts and minds.
:: Remember not to get caught up what society says you “should” be doing. Don’t get caught up in the accolades, promotion status, ego-driven feel-good vibes (which are always so short-lived and precarious, because they rely on others’ perceptions of us). Ask your Wise Self about if the whole shebang (the life changes that would occur, the schedules and colleagues etc) actually feeds your needs. Your SOUL’s needs.
:: And of course, because ultimately I’m more of a Death Coach than a Life Coach 😉 … Remember – life is short. We are all going to die and we don’t know when. No time for bullshit.
People always want me to work more because I am good at what I do. I know to say, “No, but thank you for offering!” because I know the level of freedom I need in my life and what makes me happy. If I wasn’t so clear on that, I’d be saying “Yes” way more often, because on paper, only an idiot turns down the offers I get. But my heart and soul – and my body’s knowing – they watch out for me, and I can’t go wrong.
I hope you can get more clear with these exercises. Print this out and tuck it away somewhere. I know that with all the hard work you’re doing to cultivate radiant inner confidence in yourself, you will someday be given The Test to see if you really know yourself, what you crave, desire, and long for…or if you’re easily swayed by The Distractions.
For more Clarity + Courage tools like these, donate any amount you like and dive into my acclaimed Ultimate Confidence Course. I’m working on a project to help mamas and babies in Nepal, and all proceeds go to this amazing work!
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
While there are certainly many inalienable human rights that can help to define what freedom is, that’s not the freedom I’m talking about here. I am sure you can think of plenty of people that are privileged to have those rights, and yet they feel suffocated and stifled. Trapped, like a puma in a cage. Stuck. Like you will never know the true you, or live your true life.
Anything but free.
I’ve certainly been there. Have you?
Is this because we are spoiled and take for granted the freedoms we do have? That if we only realized how lucky we are to be able to write negative blog posts about the president without being blacklisted (for now, at least), or being a woman and being able to go to school without fear, or being able to stroll along the beach and not be concerned about landmines, that we’d realize how free we really are and get over it?
Personally, I don’t think so.
That’s because the deep freedom I’m referring to is a feeling – it’s something that we sense deep in our soul, when we are aligned.
The surprise to many is that deep freedom is not having a location-independent lifestyle, or tons of money to do whatever we want with. It’s not being your own boss or not having to answer to someone else. It’s not saying whatever the hell we want and wearing what we want. It isn’t kissing or loving whomever we want, or living wherever we want.
Those are external freedoms. They are measured against us being able to do/be something without ramifications from others.
Deep freedom is when YOU are able to fully accept you, be you, love you…and also accept things as they are. That’s being aligned. The only ramifications of not doing these things are felt by just one person – you. The only person that makes you feel bad about these things is just … you.
So you see, if you want true freedom – deep freedom – it starts with going within. It can be easy to get distracted by the external freedoms, and trying to shape your life into the perfect little scenario where you don’t have to rely on anyone, or answer to anyone. But take it from someone with over 20 different certifications, 3+ places to live (read: run away to), and over a dozen ways I’ve learned to make money in case myriad things happen to the economy or political state so that I will always have my needs met: it doesn’t mean shit if you aren’t really free on the inside.
At this point, you may think, “Ana, I get the accepting myself part. But are you really saying I need to accept the things around me…this craziness that’s going on?” Yes.
Before you throw pastured high omega-3 eggs at me, know that by accepting things as they are does not mean you condone them or support them. It means that you stop wishing things were different, and get on with actively creating the world you want, while (and here’s the clincher) accepting and loving you and all the present moment has to offer.
Until you are able to pull that off, you won’t truly feel free, no matter how many beaches you take your laptop to for work, or how many Instagram photos you post about your travels. You’ll perhaps feel badass and very adventurous…but not deeply free.
This is why you always hear me say these three things together: freedom. adventure. purpose.
In my opinion, we need all these things to live a life full of Ziji (Tibetan for radiant inner confidence). When we feel deeply free; when we know we are squeezing every drop of juice out of this precious life with everyday adventures; when we use our mind, body and soul to fulfill our deepest purpose; we walk this earth grounded and with a powerful sense of confidence that is not shaken by external forces.
No. Instead we do the shaking up. From a place of confidence – not fear.
And sister, you know we need that more than ever these days.
How can you take steps towards this deeper freedom? Here are a few places to start:
Get clear about your values. By knowing you – and what you want to say “Hellz yes!” to and what you want to say “Oh, hell no” to – you will be able to move closer to loving and accepting all of you. There’s some great activities to help you do this in my free Clarity + Courage Course
Choose to focus on the things you can change, and release the things you can’t (and get reality checks from people to help you learn the difference). By refining our skills to know what we have control over (hint: usually that starts with ourselves and the way we respond to life), we can more effectively use our time, money, and energy to create positive change in the world. When you do this, you can more easily accept the present moment, and begin actively creating the world you want to live in, instead of fighting the wrong battles.
Stop giving a shit about what other people think of you. “The people that mind don’t matter, and the people that matter don’t mind.” Love that quote. It is so, so true. Whenever you think about compromising your integrity or self-love out of fear of disappointing others, repeat that quote like a mantra. You need to focus on accepting your self – your full self – unapologetically, before you worry about what others think.
I know those things are easier for me to type than for you to do – but know that I have helped hundreds of women do exactly those things, so I know at my core it is possible. And if for nothing else, know that we need you, and your special gift, more than ever. This isn’t just a request in a weekend blogpost.
You achieving your deep freedom is a duty to your people. Now go get it.
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
As many of you know, I spent a lot of time in the Utah desert on my own personal wilderness Quest last year. About a half year later, I led some amazing Legendary ladies on their own personal Quest in Joshua Tree. Suffice it to say that both experiences were pivotal, and after I had wrapped up my year with my Legendary ladies, I had a huge 2×4 from the Universe smack me upside the head, and I had no other desire than to go inward.
exploring the Omani desert with Maia (photo credit: Thai Verzone)
Plus, having a kid made me look at how I was prioritizing my life in way that was even more powerful than having had cancer twice. I think a kid can do that for a lot of people – especially those of us, like me, who can have issues with self-love. It is somehow easier to do it for someone else sometimes.
It was all overpowering, but I didn’t have the mental, physical, or spiritual space to have to “explain” it to anyone. I just did what had to be done. I find women explain far too much anyway, and could benefit from just doing what the hell their souls are telling them they need to do – without explanation.
:: I (almost) instantaneously unplugged from online marketing. It’s amazing how much space this opened up in my life. I took clients by referral only, and that kept me plenty busy along with everything that followed…
:: I moved through a psycho-spiritual crisis and unacknowledged postpartum depression, and healed my body. My relationship, family and spiritual practice is now stronger than ever, and my body is feeling more powerful every day…something I haven’t felt since before I had my kiddo. I shed much of my excess ama, and my body feels almost as light and energetic as it did when I was much younger. I still have some work to do, but I am well on the path.
:: I listened to the one word that kept sprouting from my Quest and popping up in Mystery wherever I went: SERVICE.
This was a doozy, because I did not want to hear it. I felt I was already in service with my Legendary and other coaching clients, and the volunteer work I did abroad every few months (diving into it at a refugee camp with Congolese and Rwandan refugees for a month counts for a lot of service, right?) But this word “Service” and its calling told me: Wake up, Woman! You are meant to do more. Open your eyes and see it. Why the hell do you think I’ve been having you cultivate those myriad skills over the years? Not just because you are a multipassionate/ multi-potentialite or whatever people are calling it these days. You are supposed to DO something with all of that.
:: So…I applied for and received a scholarship for a doctoral program and focused my project on helping to start the first emergency maternal-child transport system in Nepal. Yes, for the entire country. No, not alone. But yes, far larger than I ever thought possible. A daunting undertaking to say the least, which will extend well past my doctoral program. Anything born from the heart should endure past it’s short-lived inception.
:: I also started crafting something pretty powerful that will rock the system of healthcare that we live in. It’s something I can’t talk about yet because it will upset a lot of people, and I can’t handle that right now. But I am in deep Jedi training for the Big Disappointment that I will have to endure, knowing that I have to let go of the fruits of whatever efforts I put into this project…which, again, is the case with anything from the heart 😉
I am almost done with my doctoral degree – if all goes well, I should be receive it by December (can you believe it?! Those two Master’s degrees finally paid off, LOL). Then shit gets very, very real after that. You’ll have to stay tuned…but trust me, you will be in on it when it happens.
:: So, what does that mean for Freedom Junkie and Legendary Wilderness Quests? It means I am even more clear about what I am here to do for you. It’s simply a more distilled version of what I have been giving you from my heart since the very beginning, with my very first FullOn365 blog post.
:: I will be offering many of my online programs for free or donation-only, to honor the call to Service and to counter the craziness that our new politics is creating. Please, take all you want – but I beg you: USE IT. The world needs you to be YOU more than ever.
:: I will lead a select group of women (who are ready) into their own Legendary wilderness Quests once a year. I am committing to making this as affordable as possible.
:: One retreat a year will be held in Alaska, and the other in Baja, Mexico where we will deep dive into your Soul in some of the last great, vast, expansive lands of unadulterated wilderness there is left on this planet.
In short, if it isn’t obvious, I am focusing on in-person contact with you, my people, my tribe. I am wanting to offer a bit of Medicine to counter all the disconnect that permeates our society, because no matter how much you comment on posts and get replies, or how many different emoticons or video feeds or likes you get, there’s nothing is like talking, seeing, touching, and BEing with a real-life human BEing.
To put it differently, my strongest super powers come out when I am in your face. Literally.
So why do anything else? I’ve got too many other Service duties going on to mess with anything less than my ideal delivery system.
I’ll also be focusing on system-wide changes in our country. I’ve had enough of waiting for other people to do it.
I’m writing this just after landing in Nepal to launch my doctoral project. The 36 hour trip here has been one of the longest periods of time I’ve had to not have to choose between staring at a computer or playing with my kid in the outdoors (guess who wins most of the time?), or attending to the needs of my soul. The first thing I thought of doing was writing to you.
Guess that puts you pretty high up on the list.
I hope this inspires you to follow your Soul’s calling, no matter how scary it might be, how radically different it may look from what you think you “should” be doing, and no matter how you might disappoint others.
That last one’s a doozy. But you will – and can – survive. If you need some help, feel free to start with my Ultimate Confidence Course – the Ziji Up! Mastery Program. It’s 7 weeks of full-on confidence and courage building. For however much you can afford. For realz.
I wonder what would happen if all of us started living from our Souls. Can you imagine how different this world would be? I can.
Let’s do this.
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
“Wake up. You know what you need to do. Love. Forgive. Take action. Discover your power. Live your truth.”
I woke up at 4am feeling myriad emotions watching messages come into my inbox and Facebook feed asking for advice about what to do next. I have never sent out a “political” email, but I feel a responsibility to respond to you, my tribe calling out. Here is the best response I could come up with this early, utterly sleep deprived. This is not, in the end, about politics – it is about fear, compassion, courage, and the human heart. And why your purpose indeed matters very, very much. Much of this post contains some of my writing on Facebook I have already posted, and it is not perfect or exhaustive – but I hope it will help.
What has been helping me in the immediate moments is to first allow a deep mourning for the loss of a dream. Do you have dreams that you now feel are lost? Allow yourself to cry and to mourn. This is essential to moving forward with heart and courage.
Then I choose to focus on what I want, the changes I want to see happen. I am deep in prayer and filled with resolve to be a cultural change agent who helps open the hearts and minds of my people. I continue to have faith in the goodness of others, in humanity and in the power of love and compassion. You don’t need to do everything. You just need to do what you do best in this beautiful world you want to manifest (more on that further down).
I know that it is exactly these times that wake people up who may have been asleep, like a massive thunderbolt on a granite peak. I am witnessing the awakening of my people, and know now that my work needs to be on a much, much greater scale than I have ever imagined it to be. I am up for the task, and welcome you to join me.
I look up to the sun, to the sky.
I will wake up and face east, to new beginnings and with a courageous heart.
I know and understand that sometimes, a deep loss is what is required to make one’s desires and dreams more tangible, urgent, real. I see the eagle’s view of what is happening. We are being called to not be complacent. To sense the urgency. To rise up. To never fall asleep to the dying of a people’s soul – ever again. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!!!
Then, we need to focus on how to be the leaders in our community that do not act out of fear, which got us into all our mess in life anyway. I feel we need to remind ourselves that when a culture is centered around consumerism and its people are constantly fed the notion that they have no deep inherent worth beyond what they do or own, and then that culture also does not prioritize the teaching of compassion and the cultivation of soul and one’s divine soul purpose and the belonging to a unified culture with deeply held values – connected to something greater (humanity, earth/nature) – that this is naturally the outcome: fear-based decisions and actions.
It is a symptom of our cultural Achilles’ tendon. It is a cry out that people are afraid and that they don’t feel the ability to cultivate love and safety from within – that as a culture we have failed helping our people learn this.
I will see this as proof of our nation’s need for its people to be treated with compassion, and to fight against the cultural current that takes us away from our humanity and our sense of purpose.
I will remind my people that when people don’t feel love within, that they look outside of themselves for safety. I will remind myself and my people that it is time to stop pretending everything will be ok if we continue as we are.
I will remind my family and friends and community that when so many people are asleep, sometimes the Universe needs to come by with a 2×4 to wake them up. This always happens. Indeed it is deep suffering that has spurred the most powerful of changes.
I will encourage my people to learn the skills they will need to weather the challenging times ahead. And that I do believe – as humanity has shown over the millennia – that while sometimes it takes too much pain to awaken our hearts, that people do awaken.
I will remind my people that we are a young nation – adolescent when compared to other nations. That adolescents make foolish mistakes. That this is an unwanted yet perhaps necessary growing pain.
That love and compassion will prevail.
To take action to protect the vulnerable.
To stand united. Because no matter who won this election, some of the most important things we can do is love even harder in our own communities and live the example of what we want to manifest.
To send compassion to all those suffering so much that they act from fear.
To realize people are very afraid, and to remind my friends and family and community that this level of fear is what happens when we forget our roots as humans living one wild and precious life, and when a people don’t experience feeling loved and valued and purposeful.
We need to work on helping people not be so damn afraid.
This means that YOU need to continue to work on living a life filled with purpose, love, and compassion. I know there are some out there who feel knowing one’s life purpose is not urgent – and I respectfully disagree. The journey a courageous soul undertakes to discover one’s life purpose is full of growth in self love, self awareness, profound maturing and social responsibility. When people seek life purpose from their soul – and not their heads – it becomes a warrior’s path of growth instead of an anxiety-ridden search.
The initiated adult who knows their unique place in the world does not act out of fear. They act from a courageous, compassionate heart because they know what truly matters in this world.
So indeed, your life purpose matters, and you need to discover what that is. As fast as you fucking can. Did you know in some cultures, if an adolescent does not glean insight about their purpose from their Quest, they do not return? In cultures that value a sense of purpose in the greater scheme of things,they also know that a culture with people who have no sense of purpose is directionless.
Wake up. You know what you need to do. Love. Forgive. Take action. Discover your power. Live your truth.(tweet it)
I am with you.
Will this be easy? Hellz no. Nothing in life truly worth anything is easy. But it is going to be worth it.
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
“The first act of freedom is to choose it.” ~ William James
Life is about making choices.
This has become sooooo apparent to me this past year as I attempt to intentionally design my life for the next few years. I felt an overwhelming sense of decision fatigue – the kind I feel walking into a supermarket and trying to buy toothpaste seeing shelves upon shelves of various forms of spearmint vs peppermint (?!!) and would I rather have whitening power or flouride… but on a larger scale.
(BTW this is why I LOVE traveling to developing countries where I walk up to a wooden kiosk and ask for toothpaste and they slap on the counter the one kind they have, and I happily walk away having found my toothpaste).
While not many of life’s choices are as lightweight as choosing between flavors of toothpaste, we make them every day – ALL day – without being conscious of many of them. This tendency to go into autopilot and not realize we are making choices in each moment can bite us in the butt. What you choose and how you make choices (or don’t make them) is central to your inner confidence and sense of authenticity.
Choices do, however, come in two flavahs:
1) ACTIVE: When you make something happen and live with the consequences, and
2) PASSIVE: When you “choose not to choose,” and continue to live with the status quo because the stakes appear too high for any changes choice might bring. This one can be a comfy place, but it gets booooooooooring.
Active choices can be painful. Feelings of fear and vulnerability often come along with the territory. When you acknowledge you have choice in the matter, you are more exposed (cross dem legs!). Alas, just because we know what’s best for us doesn’t make it any easier.
This active choice-making is risky, too. The most difficult choices don’t have any absolute right or wrong; there is no perfect solution. It takes great inner confidence (and courage) to face these hard decisions.
On the other hand, putting off decisions, or not taking the time to clarify what it is you want or believe in (which in general leads to crappy choices), can have serious backlashes in the way of stress, depression, discouragement, a total lack of feeling authentic, and even physical illness.
Procrastination and ignorance seldom have any favorable results. But that’s kind of obvious.
The take-home point is this: Once you accept that your choices create your experience and your reality, even if you don’t like what you created so far, YOU ALSO GET TO CREATE YOUR NEW REALITY – THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE! And now you can do so more mindfully, deliberately and, skillfully…which freakin’ rocks!
Though in the end the choice is yours, getting to the place to be able to make a decision doesn’t have to be a solo trip. Ask for help. Talking things out with another person can be helpful, especially someone who is on your side but has nothing at stake in your decision (like a coach, a spiritual teacher, or a counselor). Just putting voice to your concerns may help you sort things out, and writing down the pros and cons will give you more clarity than keeping everything in your head.
You can also learn skills that help you make choices that are more clear, deliberate, and in alignment with your passion and values (check out this recording of the oldie-but-goodie Jedi Juice™ training call, “The Power of Choice – and the freedom of owning your shit,” here).
Getting some distance (emotional or physical) may make sussing out your options (and what you WANT) easier, especially if that distance allows you to see the reality of the situation, rather than the way you wish it could be.
Even with thoughtful consideration, not every choice will be the right one. But remember this:
“Wrong” decisions don’t make YOU wrong.
Trite as it may sound, one of the ways we learn is through the mistakes we make. And on the flip side, one way we build confidence is to take risks, commit to a choice/decision, and succeed, even if its after a few (or many) failures. We won’t ever have that chance if we don’t ever deliberately make a choice!
Not each of the choices you make will have profound effect on the whole of your life. But the ongoing and continuous act of making choices – in full awareness – will.
Making choices you believe in, choosing intentionally and with keeping your deepest values in mind, and taking responsibility for your choices – these are some of the markers on the road of living an aligned life.
What choices do you know you’ll have to make today? How can you enter into them with more awareness of what values you are saying “yes” to and what values you are saying “no” to?
Set the intention to be more aware of the opportunities for choice in your day today, and make them in alignment with what the real, authentic you desires.
Ana Verzone is known as the Soul Midwife™ She helps individuals awaken their lives and personal freedom with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly eZine goes out to thousands of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE 7-day Clarity + Courage Course by visiting www.claritycouragecourse.com
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
You know that thing we do when we compare ourselves to others until it hurts? It’s totally normal. In fact, one of the most common causes of suffering in us humans is the fear of being average…the desire to see ourselves as “above average” (a different way of saying we want to see ourselves as better than others) – and the vast majority of us suffer from this…which is why we compare so much. To see where we stand.
When I first read that factoid as I was researching info for my next course (one on self-compassion!), I really really really wanted to feel that I was not victim to this desire (because that would be kind of…average, right?).
But I so. totally. am.
I have an overwhelming fear of being…average.
I don’t want an average income. Or an average marriage. Or an average car, travel schedule, house, wardrobe, or stack of graduate degrees. I don’t want average grades, careers, weekend trips, or stories to tell by the so-not-average campfire.
I want a fucking extraordinary life. Waaaaay above average.
I have had a fear of being average since I learned what was possible if you proved you were above average in this world (aka school). Being above average got me out of the ghetto and into my Freedom Junkie way of living. It got me amazing opportunities: scholarships, grants, adventures, jobs…lots of good things. I was terrified of what would happen if I ever lost my ability to rank as above average. Indeed, the idea of losing my mind like my father did (he had schizoaffective disorder) was the scariest thing I could imagine. It was my above-average mind that…kept me safe.
The fear of being average was such a big part of my life that it even drove me to hound my uro-oncologist when I was first diagnosed with kidney cancer to find an alternative to removing my kidney and chucking it.
I was sitting in a meeting with him at the uro-oncology unit of UC San Francisco (he happened to look like the Dalai Lama in a lab coat, which helped with our negotiations;). He told me that my tumor was in a part of the kidney where all the blood vessels come together, and that to remove the tumor while my kidney was still attached to me – and have a good chance of complete tumor removal without causing other severe complications – was very, very small. So they would have to just remove my kidney altogether.
Then he said the thing that got me researching my ass off:
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine with having one kidney. In fact, studies have shown that people who donate a kidney have the same level of happiness as the average American.”
Oh heeeelllllz no, Dr. Man.
“Ummm. No offense…but I am way happier than the average American – and I plan to keep it that way,” I replied. I didn’t say out loud that to be an average American was the most miserable thing I could think of. I just saw myself watching TV on a couch and having the big adventures of my life be camping out for Black Friday sales.
I got on the internet that night, and while I was watching multiple YouTube videos of the surgery I was about to undergo, I saw an interesting blip on my Google search page: “UCSF: #2 renal transplant facility in the country”
Hmmm. So if the issue is they can’t cut the tumor out safely while it is attached to me, why not remove my kidney, cut the tumor out, confirm the margins are clear, then put it back in me?” Shazaam!
I called my surgeon the next morning.
“Interesting. I’ll see what the tumor board has to say,” he said in response to my suggestion. (Since this was such an involved surgery, you have to get the OK from everyone on the team – in this case, uro-oncology, the transplant team, and other hospital folk.)
The next day he called: “OK. We decided that we can try the autotransplant – but one of the main reasons is because you are a rock climber and have a higher risk for trauma than the average person, and thus may have a higher need for 2 kidneys.”
Woohoo! Being above average saves my scared ass again! (But that is soooo not the point I am trying to make here;)
What’s poignant here isn’t the fact that I got the team to try a new surgery…but rather that the fear I felt when thinking I might end up average was all-consuming.
Yes, the outcome was great for me in this scenario – but it always haunted me that it was my fear of being average that was the driving force. That it had been the driving force behind so many of my actions in the past.
So what’s wrong with striving to be above average when so many cool things can come of it? Like awesome adventure travel, getting to keep your organs, and free tuition, to name a few?
When you have “fear of being average” as your main motivation, you are also susceptible to a deep, wounding type of suffering, because your happiness is based on something outside of you: how you compare to others.
And as long as your happiness depends on where you stand in relation to others on the scale – even for something as noble as adventure or compassion or generosity – you will never have the kind of deep, radiant confidence (aka ziji!) that comes from knowing your own inherent self worth.
So you know those days when you internet troll or just perseverate endlessly while comparing your life to others on Facebook or in “real life” – someone in a similar field as you or in your social circle or tribe – and you wonder why they seem happier or more loved or more famous or more exciting or more wealthy or more adventurous or more kind and compassionate or more relaxed … or more anything than you?
Yeah that.
That’s from our fear of being average. The Comparison Carousel. Round and round. “Where do I stand now?” we wonder. All. freakin’. day. It’s exhausting.
I used to think only my friends and others with FOMO (fear of missing out) had this type of fear, and that it was this fear that helped them have such amazing lives of adventure. But then I started to realize that we all have the fear of being average. It’s why scapegoating is so common when times get tough – when there is an economic depression or scarcity of jobs, racism and discrimination increase as people strive to prove in a scarcity environment that they still have the one-up on others.
Don’t take this lightly, folks. This tendency to want to be above average creates more suffering in us as individuals, as well as worldwide in small communities, large countries, and in international relations.
You may not realize the degree of suffering this causes if you manage to stay “above average” in the categories important to you or your culture for a long time…until you start to get exhausted running the race; start to fall behind; or finally find that person who is smarter than you, prettier than you, sexier than you, more adventurous than you…just better than you all around (all else created equal). And you will find that person. There is always – always – going to be someone “better” than you are at something (except, of course, at your own unique purpose;).
When that happens, you feel crushed. Or suddenly depressed, even though you have achieved some amazing shizzle in your life. Or you feel devastatingly not enough.
I know some of you may be wondering if this means we should all strive to be “average.”
Absolutely not.
This life is precious, a gift like no other; to be born in your body on this planet with the ability to create life experiences and a mind to dream…its all a miracle and you would be a fool to not take full advantage of it and make the most of this life.
I want you to live an extraordinary life.
Because of that, what I do want to encourage is this:
Do not let your motivation be to feel like you are better than others, or “above average.” Let your motivation in life be to live your best life. To live your gifts into this world. Screw what anyone else is doing. Only you know if you are living life full-on. And that is all that matters.
After all, in reality, we are all average. As Dr. Kristin Neff, a Developmental Psychologist from the University of Texas at Austin, points out, “To be human is to be average.” It’s true. We all have our strengths (the things we do really really well), and the things we do just so-so (sort of average)… and we also have our weaknesses – those things that we just suck at, or have a lot of room for improvement.
The key to sustainable happiness – and indeed the true inner confidence that follows – is to accept that we are all beautifully average. The world needs us all to be average at most things! Then, we can focus on our gifts – those things we do really really well – and leave the rest to the other average humans that rock the things we suck at.
We don’t have to do it all or know it all (ahhhh…isn’t that relaxing!).
While the reality is that we may need to stand out from the crowd to get certain jobs or attain certain accomplishments, we don’t have to be better than someone else to be happy.
Indeed, the opposite is true. Embrace your averageness;)
Live an extraordinary life on your terms.
When you release the desire to be above average and embrace your true gifts and the preciousness of this life…ahhhhh – that is when the fun begins. The freedom. The adventure. That no one can take away from you.
Since this tendency to have a fear of being average exists in almost all of us, don’t beat yourself up about it when it arises. Just notice it. Notice it as part of the average human experience.
Then do things differently.
Choose to be motivated from your own heart’s desires…what makes you happy, no matter what else others are doing.
Stop comparing.
When you see yourself comparing, ask yourself what you really want in this life, and what is one action you can take right now to move you closer to it.
Embrace your “average,” and focus on extraordinary living from your heart
Recognize the common humanity in all of this – that you are not alone in your fear of being average. That we all fear it. And that is it precisely our averageness that beings us closer as humans….And it is precisely the unique gifts that every single one of us has that, when expressed fully, make this life extraordinary. It is savoring each moment, staying present, being kind to ourselves and each other, manifesting your gifts and living this life as the greatest adventure of all time that will give you the radiant inner confidence to know you are crushing this whole carpe-the-dang-diem thing.
make a list of 5 culturally-valued qualities you have in which you are above average
make a list of 5 culturally valued qualities you have in which you are average
make a list of 5 culturally valued qualities you have in which you are below average
Now, can you look at this list and embrace it fully? Can you accept the fact that we ALL have traits in which we kick ass, fall within the bell curve, or need to leave to someone else – which makes us all…average? And can you feel in your bones that just because you – and everyone else – is actually quite average does NOT mean you cannot live an extraordinary life?
It just means you are finally…free.
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
Most people look at life coaching and think of it as something that helps people feel…happier. There’s a lot to be said for simple happiness. But there is a lot more that people aren’t talking about. Here is the truth about why it never feels like enough.
The field of Positive Psychology and it’s emphasis on how humans thrive best is the perfect compliment to coaching. After all, a lot of what myself and other teach is how to help decrease your own suffering.
Maybe you can relate to one of these situations:
you have a bitchy inner critic that tells you you aren’t worthy of a better life
you have a tendency to make bad choices relationship after relationship and chose someone who doesn’t lift you up
you are a perpetual perfectionist and can’t seem to start, finish, or let go of anything because of your need to have it be flawless
you keep searching for a life with more meaning and purpose…and still haven’t found it
you struggle with creating healthy boundaries and saying “No” to people, trapped in a never-ending cycle of people-pleasing and lack of self care.
you feel trapped and stuck
you wallow in a scarcity mindset, blocking abundance from entering your life
you feel a lack of self love and self-worth
you wonder why you don’t feel confident or courageous enough to do what it takes
Coaching helps you with all the above. But what a lot of people don’t talk about is that once you achieve a lot of the things above – the freedom, the location-independent lifestyle, the abundance, the awesome relationship, the killer career, the ziji (radiant inner confidence) – people end up realizing that something is still missing.
And let me tell you – that moment sucks. Royally.
Here you’ve done the spiritual work, the intellectual work, the creative work, the courageous work – a LOT of freakin’ work – and it all seems perfect, yet something is Still. Freakin’. Missing.
Here’s the clincher: we are born to serve in a powerful way.
We are meant to use all the skills we learned up until this glorious moment of fulfillment, and use them to (no pressure here;) change the world.
You cannot be a human with all faculties present in yourself and feel content in life if you are not deeply serving. You will always feel like something is missing.
In order to serve powerfully, we must muster the deepest type of courage yet. This is courage deeper than what is required to ask for a raise, or to start our own business, or to leave the toxic relationship.
Don’t get me wrong – they are related, and the first kind of courage is requisite to getting to the next level of bravery.
But what is required of you to truly feel like your life is enough and to finally feel content is to be of deep, holy service to some-one/some-thing else greater than yourself.
You don’t necessarily need to expose environmental injustices like Margaret Heffernan
… move to Afghanistan to be the attorney representing abused girls like Kimberly Motley
… or demand transparency in medicine like Leana Wen
This also does not mean that you can expect donating 10% of your income to charity can help you feel this sense of purpose. I know that donating part of one’s income to charities is more popular than ever (I do it myself) – but this is not the type of action I am talking about. Nope. It is ideally YOU who is doing the act of service (but by all means, please still donate, because we need so many types of service out there!).
What I mean is if you truly want to feel fulfilled at the end of this life, your actions need to involve courageous acts of service. By you.
When I look back on my life, it is not the peaks I have climbed, the adventures I have been on, or the financial milestones that help me feel that today would be a good day to die – although I will be the first to admit that they certainly help.
Rather, it is the times that I have made other people’s lives better that help me sleep at night. The times I spent in Africa working with refugees on the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and DRC. The times I forgave people that deeply hurt me. The times I risked disappointing others and being criticized in order to bring a bigger message to the world. The times I washed my bloodied gloves in a bucket by hand while delivering babies in a public hospital for Haitian women that had no running water. The times I sat with a mother holding her stillborn and allowed myself to cry with her, and kissed her baby so she could see that indeed, her baby’s life mattered to me too. The times I helped another women claim her power and freedom.
It takes a lot of courage to serve others fully. To allow ourselves to feel the pain and suffering of others and to take action to stop it. To be so vulnerable with strangers that it scares the shit out of you.
You also have to know what the world truly needs in order to best bring your gifts to the world in acts of service. And learning what the world needs can be terrifying, scary, and overwhelming.
But you can do it. You MUST do it.
You were born to do it.
I have clients break down in tears when they realize this. This is understandable, because the responsibility can feel overwhelming. But trust me – you don’t need to do anything more than discover your gifts and live them fully.
Your true gift involved deep service to others.
You do not need to head into war zones or depraved conditions (unless that’s a part of your gift), but you do need to discover and be honest with yourself about what you are good at, and how it can help make the world a better place than when you arrived.
It’s scary, but you can find the ziji, the courage, the confidence.
How do we get this courage? In my experience, this deeply driven courage is created by an emotion that is much less “sexy” to many: Compassion
Compassion is the most courageous emotion we can carry, and the brave acts it allows us to undertake is why it is the emotion that helps our life feel like one well-lived.
“The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes. ” ~ Pema Chödrön
There you have it.
If you want to live a truly courageous life, open your heart.
Feel the pain, the suffering, the injustices.
Do the work. Spend time alone. Spend time with people who really matter.
Fiercely quest for your purpose.
Let any ideas of your previous self die away, so that you may truly be open to the gift that only you are able to deliver – one you may have no freakin’ idea about yet. Or one you know about, but that really, really scares you to think about embodying.
You are enough. The best way to see that – and indeed, the best way to feel that – is to discover that gift and how to best bring it to the world in service.
Share with me below about your gifts, or what has helped you sleep better at night, the ways you love to serve, the ways you dream to serve. I love this kind of stuff – and trust me, I’ll reply.
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
Remember that time when you knew something wasn’t the right decision, but you did it anyway?
Like when you took a job that you ended up feeling trapped in; or went on a date that left your evening feeling like a waste of time…and you’d have rather marathon-watched the entire Star Wars series (at least you would have picked up some Jedi tricks…). Or bought the car that ended up being a lemon.
I am sure you – like most of my clients – have tons of examples of when your intuition was brushed aside.
Maybe you thought you were just being too fearful, or overly cautious. But no matter what, in hindsight, you thought, “Damn. I totally had a hit that I wasn’t supposed to do that. Why didn’t I listen to my intuition?”
Well, everything is 20/20 in hindsight.
One of the most common questions I get from clients is some iteration of, “How do I know when I am sensing my intuition…versus if I’m coming from a place of fear, or thinking it’s something I’m just conjuring up?”
A common answer to this question is that when you are tapping into your intuition, it comes across as a calm, deep voice; or “a small still voice,” vs. the cray cray running around that your brain does when it is conjuring things. If your brain is taking over the show, you will often sense the thoughts or input as “above you” and it feels quite scattered and distracted (oh…I should do that…but then there’s that other cool thing…hmmm or maybe I need to explore that instead…).
While this explanation is pretty useful, I have found it is often not enough. I wanted to share a few quick tidbits here so you can practice working with your intuition more.
First of all, there are generally four main Ways of Knowing our intuition, or sensing energy info. This idea is pretty common in many spiritual traditions and cultures. Often they are described as starting with “clair” which means “clear” in French. We have:
claircognizance (clear knowing)
clairsentience (clear feeling/sensing…can include claiempathy)
clairtangency (clear touching – maybe happens when holding an object)
clairgustance/ambience (clear tasting)
clairalience/scent (clear smelling)
But we are going to focus on the main 4 ways of tapping into your intuition.
One way to start playing with this is to learn what your default “clair” is. What is the way you most naturally sense energetic info?
Mariana Cooper, founder of Aha! Moments International, recommends reflecting on what happens to you…after watching a movie! I found it super helpful, and maybe you will too.
Here’s what you do:
When you walk out of a movie, what do you remember most? What impacted you the most?
Do you remember the relationships in the movie and how you sobbed the whole time with the characters? Clairsentience.
Do you comment on the score? Clairaudience.
Did you know the ending from when the moving began? Claircognizance.
Do you comment on the set (the costumes, backdrops, scenery)? Clairvoyance.
You can have one dominant clair, or even all of them! Most professional intuitives have cultivated all 4 of them. Also, different situations can call for different clairs to show up more than others.
Another tip I like for tapping into your intuition is using oracle cards – you can use Angel Cards, Messenger Oracle Cards, Goddess cards, or even good ol’ tarot cards if you’d like. There are tons to choose from! Pick the ones that resonate with you.
I find that when I use them, it helps me surrender to a higher purpose of what’s going on, and reminds me I may not automatically know “why” something is happening…and to be OK with that. It helps give me a context for what I may be experiencing that is not immediately apparent to me. I love that there is a sense of a “reason” for me having drawn that card. Go ahead – try it! There are even online ones you can google for.
Now I’m not saying you need to believe in being psychic or in the powers of channeling etc. (although I strongly recommend you play with those ideas;).
What I am suggesting is that if you’ve ever had a time when you didn’t listen to your gut and regretted it, you owe it to yourself to learn more about your intuition and how it can help you. After all – you’ve seen evidence that it exists yourself!
Let me know below what your dominant clair is. Share a time you did – or did not – listen to your intuition too. It’s always great to learn from other people’s experience!
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
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I used to have this nightmare several times a year. I’d be standing on the shore, and then a huge tidal wave would form, growing taller and taller, looming over me, turning the sky black and the surroundings gray. Sheer terror would fill me. I’d see it start to arc over me, and instead of waking up just before it crashed on me, it WOULD crash over me and I would be pummeled by it and suffocating. Then I’d wake up.
