Channel the healing and reclamation that lie within Spring's burgeoning energies.
This is part one of our series for March, The Spring of Healing. In this post, we'll work with dismantling the invisible barriers and reclaiming your freedom, professionalism, and power.
Welcome to March! Now the year really is getting underway, its energy palpably rising. There's always a thrill at seeing the first snowdrops and crocuses, which seem to suddenly appear one late-winter day, poking up with their green shoots and delicate, colorful flowers. Where I am, they literally appeared just two days ago. As the very, very first fragile flowers of the year, their contrast against winter's spareness has an extra energy to it that other blooms do not have. They have boldness and magic. Think of how bold it is, to dare be the very first flowers to open in the still-chilly rawness of the year!
March has come, bringing longer days, brighter, sun, and the promise of spring adventure on the horizon. While I hike all winter long, my kayaking only happens in the warmer months, so I'm already planning and training for this year's paddling adventures -- new lakes, new rivers, new distances. What about you? Let's journey onward together.
To build on our work for the year, we continue to engage with themes of journey, transformation, and the exploration of unseen and hidden forces. This month, we'll work with healing and reclamation using spring's energies, and this week, we'll work with crafting insight and empowerment around unseen barriers.
This is the essence of life's journey—a process of unearthing, confronting, and mastering the unseen forces that have, until now, unconsciously dictated the direction and quality of our flow. They are forces that may have been so invisible, we never really knew they were there.
Charting the Unseen: Unearthing Hidden Obstacles in the Riverbed
Underpinning the visible currents of our lives lie deeper, unseen obstacles waiting to be cleared to release our full wildness, joy, and success. Invisible blocks to success are more powerful than you can imagine in blocking you -- and are incredibly rewarding to surface and release. These are the blocks that have created the inexplicable pain you fear when that which you desire always seems an arm's length away -- the book that is never written, the new business that never gets launched. That's why this releasing work is so valuable, as it relieves many of the pains that may have had you saying, "What's wrong with me, I'm talented, I have all the pieces, why can't I get it finished -- or even started?"
The currents of insight arise from articulation, i.e., the ability to express it in words that suddenly release an intense "aha!" flash of light for you. When you articulate, you understand. When you understand, you now have the power to rise above what was previously a completely unconscious barrier.
To dive into that flow of insight and empowerment, take your journal in hand, and set up a long session in which you honestly explore that which most wounds, or seems unfair, or seems to balk you. Begin to let your Inner Self speak with total healing honesty to you about the origins of these energies -- people, places, past, present, anything it wants to bring up no matter how far-flung. Let your journal roll like the river with whatever currents of whitewater or salty spray want to be spoken through you. I've healed from a highly toxic upbringing, and I've had some pretty intense things come through that were so breathtakingly true, it finally let me release the shaming and blaming that had been embedded into me. It takes a willingness to let it be said, safely and on paper* (*or computer, your choice of modality :) ).
This process can be quite intense, private, and disruptive-on-paper, so it is best to keep it private such that your Inner Self can speak with the true freedom necessary to surface these long-hidden thoughts. If you do share, share perhaps with only your most trusted ally, someone you absolutely trust, who always keeps you feeling safe, who knows how to hold space, who knows how to work with emergent thoughts like this. That's because if you've been wounded in the past you may have, like many wounded professionals and persons, attracted predators and bad-actors into your social circle who are going to rip apart your newfound power and take you right back to square one. Be wise about who you open up any of these thoughts with.
Paddling the Waters: Active Engagement With Hidden Currents
Once you surface these barriers, clarity allows the logical mind to make a choice: choose to keep (hopefully not, if it's a barrier :) ), or forever discard. These insights can guide your actions into a permanently empowered frame of mind.
Here are three sample questions to help you surface what you may need to release. Write on the following:
What experiences or patterns rise up from past unfairness or family toxicity that continue to hinder your ability to create fulfillment and progress in the present time?
Do you have any mysterious shame, guilting, or self-sabotaging patterns? Begin to dialogue with your Inner Self about where these come from and whose beliefs they represent, and what the motivations of that person truly were.
When you feel your path is blocked by circumstances or wounds from the past, what insights can you gain from these moments about what really happened? Were one or more individuals forcing you to adopt their mindset, attempting to stagnate and control you? If so, can you see that you can let these go now as ways to live?
As you consider the obstacles that your Inner Self brings to you as unfair, wounding, or damaging, how can you use these as tools to shape your vision of the opposite state - a joyful, powerful, healed and empowered self, personally and professionally?
Merging Streams: Integrating Insights with Actions for Renewal & Empowerment
By articulating and naming the fears, woundings, and barriers we unearth, we recognize their existence. From this, we reclaim the power to navigate through them consciously rather than reacting to them unconsciously. We know where the river-flow has unexpected currents or problematic rocks, and what put them there. We realize, these are not "inevitable" energies in our lives, but can be put down, like burdens we no longer need.
Take your insights, and integrate them actively into your life:
Decide on a few daily steps that you'll take to release these burdens and no longer let these thoughts or beliefs fire in your thought-patterns.
Consider whether these hidden barriers have caused you to accept and live within any uncomfortable and stagnating situations, people, possessions, workplace flows, or other energies in your life that you now realize are holding you back. What will you do about those?
Reach actively for new thoughts, plans, activities, surroundings, actions, that represent the freedom from these entanglements. New inputs make new neurological connections as well as refresh the spirit and empower the soul.
Frame every minute of your life as one of YOUR OWN choice and empowerment. You don't need to ride the river feeling frustrated, scared, sad or blocked any more -- you can paddle on freely into the waters of fulfillment that are your birthright.
The River's Gift: Harnessing Empowerment for Sustained Momentum
This is not a one-time process, and is best worked into an ongoing practice. It can be highly fulfilling, especially if your Inner Self has a lot it's been waiting all your life to say to you. Let it take you down whatever river journeys it wants -- the results will always be rewarding.
Keep your "paddling strength" active in this with regular exploration. Maintain and build upon the initial empowerment gained from this self-discovery, turning it into continuous momentum that propels you forward in life and career, much like a river that gains strength from its tributaries, following its ongoing flow.
This ongoing journey, fueled by the initial act of self-liberation, becomes a self-reinforcing cycle of growth and achievement, where each success feeds into the next, keeping the river of your potential flowing strong and unimpeded.
That river, flowing from the Spring of Reclamation, is the river of adventure as the year rises into new energy.
Where will it take you as you #healworklife?
See you in the next post,
Katherine
