Breathing Underwater.

The water was freezing and violent and I was filled with fear, but I knew that was where I was supposed to be.

I found after that day of being ambushed by grief that the only way I could do my life was to stay in meditation as much as possible. When I couldn’t do that, I walked around crying, the pit of anxiety in my gut sometimes doubling me over in pain.

Even writing didn’t help, which is bloody unusual for me.

Sunday I sat and meditated for at least four hours. It may have been more than that, but I know it was at least that. I suck at tracking time, so I’m not so sure.

I was determined to sit and meditate and not sleep, even though the sleep deprivation for the past few weeks was hard to ignore. I didn’t want to set myself up in the cycle of taking naps so that I couldn’t then sleep at night.

As I sat in meditation, breathing into the panic and heaviness, I was aware of sliding in and out of dream-like states in my fatigued condition. When I was aware enough, I kept the focus on my womb space.

Wanting to stay in my body as much as possible, I concentrated on breathing into my womb space and seeing the fire in my belly glowing brightly.

The get out-of-the-body type of meditation is a very Masculine way of meditating. I admit to using that type of meditation for most of my meditating life without really knowing there might be another way. When I began exploring the Feminine way of spirituality is when I began to focus on staying in the body while meditating.

Focus on the body, emotions and senses is the Feminine way.

While I sat that day, determined not to sleep but to actively process emotions, not just sit and enjoy a ride out of my body, I went into some sort of visualization. I don’t know if it was a past life, a dream, a metaphor—perhaps I fell asleep? I don’t know. But if I did, it was a type of lucid dream.

I was looking down at a blue and white ocean, boiling and spraying. It was violent. It filled me with fear to look at it. I was high on the cliff looking down at the violence.

I knew I needed to get to the water, but I was looking down from the high cliff and everything between the ocean and me was a steep boulder field of huge, sharp, black, slippery rocks and crags.

The waves continued to throw themselves up and against the cliff and the huge, sharp boulders. The water and spray were freezing me.

I started down, and somehow I was able to make progress down the steep, black, slick, rocky incline. When I got close enough, I launched myself out and down into the ocean by pushing off in a jump to hopefully make it out past the rest of the cliff and into the water.

The water was freezing and violent and I was filled with fear, but I knew that was where I was supposed to be.

From my high jump, I sank easily down past the foam and spray and whiteness and then kept descending without trying. It was a beautiful, clear blue-green down below the violence. I was holding my breath.

Down there, it was not as turbulent and I felt like I was being gently rocked back and forth. My feet were down, my arms out, like I was standing in the water. I looked up and could see the violent whiteness above me, but it was silent and almost calm here.

That’s when my sister appeared in front of me, smiling, her long, beautiful, curly red hair spread out all around her like seaweed. I noticed it moved to that same rocking rhythm, waving softly around her, her skin so lovely and pale, her blues eyes somehow warm in all this freezing blue water.

I was so happy to see her again! We smiled at each other and held each the other’s arms, so that we were together, but had room between us to look into each other’s eyes.

I was beginning to notice that I needed air.

She smiled a small, kind of sad smile and shook her head at me—slowly and lovingly. I pointed up and motioned that I needed air. She shook her head at me again, still smiling—patient, understanding.

I began to get frantic, but she wouldn’t let me go so that I could rise to get more air at the surface. She took my face in her hands and looked at me intensely, conveying to me that I must stay. Some part of my brain thought of the drowning scene in The Abyss.

And indeed, she held me there just like Bud held Lindsay in the movie, looking into my eyes softly, with the water beginning to fill my lungs in stabs of scorching pain as I fought her, thrashing about trying to get loose.

Even though the water was freezing, it hit my insides like white-hot heat, searing me, burning.

Finally, with my lungs on fire and with her still holding me in front of her, I took in a deep, lung-filling inhale and completely filled myself with water. Horrified and still looking at her, I realized I was breathing water instead of air at that point.

It felt heavy and laborious to breathe this way.

She was still smiling. I opened my eyes wide and shrugged to ask her how the hell this was happening. She just smiled wider, holding my gaze with hers.

I relaxed as much as I could and looked at her, ready to “talk” to her and find out why we were both here.

That’s when I noticed she was dying in my arms, becoming limp. Her gaze left me and became unfocused and her eyes slid away and over my right shoulder. I began to shake her and was yelling, “No!” at her through the water.

She was already gone though, limp and beginning to sink deeper into the darkness below. I grabbed her and held her to me there in that cold, gently swaying blueness and looked at her face. It was pale and lifeless, her eyes still open and blue. Her long, seaweed hair surrounded us in the water, weaving itself all around both of us.

My tears were indistinguishable from and lost in the ocean water.

She looked like a blue-tinted version of the body I had witnessed in her coffin—deflated and flat and thin, wearing one of her favorite pink sweaters that was now heavy and pulled downward by the weight of the water. The never-to-be-healed knife slashes and stab wounds were now apparent again on her face and neck, showing the tiny stitches.

She had kept me here and helped me learn that I could survive in this “foreign” world below the violent waves above. Then she was gone, reclining now in my arms, both of us swayed and rocked by the water, surrounded by her long, floating, seaweed hair.

I “woke up.” I didn’t know if it had been a dream or a vision or what. I concluded it didn’t really matter.

I use Bing as my home page on my computer because I love their photos. The next day when I opened my laptop, Bing’s page came up and the underwater ocean scene was the exact color my underwater “dream” had been.

Not for Women Only—Finding the Feminine Essence.

A few years ago, when I began my Divine Feminine journey, I could not have told you what a feminine gift might be.

I had only just discovered I was living in and was nearly always coming from a place of habitual, self-protected (usually, angry) masculine energy.

I could not have told you how to get from that masculine stance into one of feminine energy. I did not understand the Divine Feminine at all, nor what was meant by the term “feminine essence.”

David Deida pissed me the bloody hell off; I thought he was misogynistic. I tried reading some of his books and would always end up throwing them across the room in disgust and anger at some point.

They’d bounce off the wall or furniture, and I’d let them lay there and kick them in passing for a few hours—or days.

Then I’d pick up the current, offending volume and try and read some more of it. Over all, and at the least, I found him annoying and wrong.

To get into feminine energy, he prescribed breathing into it, but what the fuck did that mean?!

So there I was, desperately wanting to connect with and breathe into the Divine Feminine, but in my ignorance, had no idea about how to do that.

The World as we Know it

The world basically functions as masculine. It values masculinity over femininity in nearly all things. Masculinity is sought-after and praised more often in our society.

Probably any business plan you know about is masculine. Meditation practice is taught as masculine. For a woman, “dress for success” means dress like a man—or dress like a slightly feminized version of how men dress.

A strong, powerful woman is defined as a woman who acts like a man.

Do we even know what the definition of “a strong woman” is without masculinizing it? It’s a good, valid question, I think.

The Feminine Aspects

The Feminine can show up in many forms/aspects as it exists within all of us. There is the girl-child, the lover, the queen/mother, the priestess, the warrioress, the crone, among other manifestations.

All these facets are within each of us—male and female. I like what Sunyata Satchitananda has to say about these.

Everyone has both masculine and feminine aspects and there is no right or wrong in how these energies are made manifest in anyone’s life.

Some folks, whether male or female anatomy-wise, feel more comfortable living in masculine energy most of the time, and some are more comfortable in the feminine most of the time.

The deciding question about masculine and feminine energy is, I have discovered, simply this: Are you happy with your relationships (of all kinds)? Are you happy with the people you are attracting into your life?

For me, I found the answer was not good when I looked at the type of man I was continuing to attract. I wanted to attract masculine men, but I was only attracting passive/feminine men.

When this continues to happen, you can bet the first thing that needs to be looked at is your own energy.

This can also manifest as the woman already in a relationship who is in a reactive, no-one-seems-to-be-stepping-up-to-take-care-of-this-so-I-better-do-it position. She has taken over “driving” the relationship—and he has allowed her to do that. Both of them need to start paying attention to their energy.

And believe me (because unfortunately I know this from direct, personal, embarrassing experience), it does no good to stand in masculine energy, look at a feminine man and demand he be more masculine.

That only calls up more passive energy in him and more masculine energy in me.

There are reasons the Masculine and Feminine are constantly balancing, gifting and polarizing each other. Each needs the other. Like the poles on a magnet, like repels like and opposite poles attract.

A feminine “gift” is defined as anything done in feminine energy that calls up the masculine in anyone else. And to call forth the Divine Feminine energy is to embody the feminine as Divine—the Goddess—in all its many forms.

Giving and receiving masculine and feminine gifts to one another is not about being disrespectful and manipulating. It is about appreciation, about consciously and unconsciously fostering the connection and polarization between masculine and feminine energy to establish and maintain the attraction, the “spark” between two people.

If you don’t have polarization, you will not have that spark of attraction. Instead, for instance, in long-term relationships, you may feel more like good friends and roommates who seldom, if ever, have sex—because that attraction/polarization is missing.

About Feminine Energy

The feminine is about the body, emotions and sensations—the senses. That is why there are so many references to “breathing into” the feminine. The feminine is about allowing, flowing, receiving—and paying attention to and trusting the intuition.

Feminine energy is usually soft—but do not mistake softness for weakness. Think of water—soft and powerful at the same time. Think of the Grand Canyon, carved wide and deep by water, over the years.

Think about Mother Nature—natural, flowing and beautiful—and extremely powerful (earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes).

Unfortunately, many people equate femininity with weakness. To them, to call someone feminine is a put-down. I truly believe it is time we take back the definition of “femininity” to mean what it really does: Powerful and soft all at the same time, allowing—more like The Tao.

When I gave an example of how I could stay in my soft, feminine energy, but at the same time effect a powerful change in direction to my man’s attention and thoughts, he said very soberly—and kind of surprised, “You have power.”

I answered, “yes.” “And you know how to wield it.” Again, “yes.”

And as with all power, it is important to remember: “with great power comes great responsibility.” ~ Voltaire

Meaning, it is never okay to use any type of power to hurt or manipulate anyone. It is never acceptable to use someone’s vulnerabilities against them.

Getting into Feminine Energy

Afraid to be feminine, afraid of what will happen if you “let down your guard?” Yeah, I was too.

Remember what Alison Armstrong says (paraphrasing here):  All men come with a built in “protect women” program. Sure, there are a few men out there who want to hurt women, but they are the minority. So when you think of all the men out there, even complete strangers, who would come to help and protect you if you called upon them, you realize the world is, all of the sudden, a much safer place.

It might be important to activate your own masculine energy before beginning to evoke your feminine energy. It may seem counterintuitive, but when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

In order to feel safe enough to relax into my feminine energy, I had to first call upon and activate the Divine Masculine aspect inside me.

The Divine Masculine

So close your eyes and focus your attention inside. Ask your Divine Masculine lover to come to you and make himself known. Take your time.

Imagine him standing belly-to-belly with you and breathe. Feel your body responding to him. He is your perfect lover. Keep breathing. Ask him if he is willing to put his arms around you and protect you. He will always agree.

Ask him if he will protect you and be strong for you so that you can feel safe enough to soften and relax into your feminine energy. He will always agree. Allow yourself to feel his strong, protective energy.

Allow yourself to soften into his arms, his strength. Ask him if he will always have your back, always protect you. He will agree (it’s part of his job, as the masculine—it is his pleasure to do so).

At any time, anywhere, when you want to get into your feminine energy, just imagine standing belly-to-belly with your perfect, inner lover and let your body respond to his energy.

Imagine him looking over your shoulder, protecting your back as he holds you. Let yourself soften into him and your breath change into what it naturally does—full, deep, powerful, sexy. You will absolutely and instantly go into your feminine energy.

Once you activate your inner, masculine lover so that you feel safe enough to be feminine, another great way to get into your feminine energy is to focus your attention on your own body.

Tune into the body—especially the womb space. And as Rachel Jayne Groover reminds us in her book, Powerful and Feminine, everyone has a womb “space” even if you don’t have a physical womb. Focus your attention on your womb space and breathe into and from deep in your belly.

Dance, move, enjoy the movements of your body. Listen to music and let the music inform your body about how it should move. Stretch like a cat, slowly—have fun with the body.

Focus on your emotions—call them up to be identified; feel them—let them out. A strong, powerful woman does not shy away from emotions. She knows they are essential. She knows an important part of being feminine is being emotional.

She learns to honor those emotions, to be proud of them. She begins to know that she need never be ashamed of them—even the so-called “dark” emotions:  anger, fear, pain, anxiety, etc.

She never lets anyone shame her for her emotions. How? Simply state, with your own calm, and even kind, conviction, “I refuse to let you shame me for my emotions. I feel things. If you are not comfortable with that, then you might want to leave.”

She knows emotions come and go. She knows that to let them out doesn’t mean she will build a house in the land of sadness, for instance, and dwell there forever. She knows rather that calling those emotions up and out allows them to be heard, seen and felt, so that they can then leave.

It is only when we don’t allow them to come out that they become stuck in us, causing all sorts of problems on many levels.

Meditate Like a Woman

Focus on the womb space and stay in the body while meditating. Most meditation traditions focus on a very masculine way of meditating. They talk about watching the emotions come and go from a disassociated place, from an outside sort of place. They instruct you not to actually emote/feel them.

The goal of many types of masculine meditations is to take you up and out of the body to some “spiritual place.”

Try staying in the body instead. That is the feminine way. Focus on the womb; incorporate movement or dance too if it feels correct for you. Focus on the womb and breathe and luxuriate in the soft but heavy and full feeling of breath inside your body, of energy moving throughout the body and concentrating in the womb.

Let the energy/breath make love to you—have its way with you. Some women even report orgasms from meditating in this fashion—not because they are thinking sexy thoughts necessarily, but because the body itself is enjoying and celebrating the breath and energy and the energy becomes too much to continue to hold—it is released by orgasm.

This is very different than kundalini energy/rising, although both can be very powerful.

Practice Appreciation of all things Masculine

Another very quick way to get into your feminine energy is simply to notice and appreciate anything, all things, masculine. And the quickest way to call up the masculine energy in a man is to genuinely ask for his help. In fact, use the word “help” to get his attention and his assistance.

The next most powerful word to remember is “love.” Speak in feminine. Use your own, even flowery, words to live your life. The men around you will appreciate it and respond beautifully.

Yes, this can be accomplished even in the board/conference room—speak from your power, your belly, your womb.

Appreciating the masculine is for all ages. Thank an elderly man for holding the door for you. Ask a young boy you know if he would be so kind as to help you in some way—perhaps carry something for you.

The age does not matter; the type of relationship does not matter.

Making these feminine-centered changes can seem very foreign and forced at first, but soon it becomes a lovely way of life. I can’t imagine living my life now without being a fountain of praise for the masculine.

And until you get used to the new way of being, just remember, you can practice on anyone. In fact, practicing on strangers gives you more leeway to “fail.” Give yourself permission to fail and to make mistakes.

Start small:  Appreciate the arm muscles on the 7-year old with his mom in front of you in the grocery checkout line. Comment on the nice manners of the teenage boy who makes way for you to go first through the door. Make eye contact and say, “thank you, sir,” to him sincerely.

Don’t be pressured by our very masculine world into giving up your femininity. Use your own feminine words, gestures, clothes, energy. A powerfully feminine woman leans into the fear and vulnerability it takes to make these changes in herself.

Then she not only leans in, she walks right into the emotions, the fear, the vulnerability, knowing that emotions make her a stronger woman, knowing that vulnerability is not a weakness but pure courage, knowing that she is balancing herself and the world.

She becomes her own force.

We Shared Some Silence Once.

We shared some silence once
together but apart

comfortable

Each to their own
but somehow as one

in mutual space and time
in separate minds

You reading
a turned page rustling at uncalculated intervals

Me writing
pencil scratching over paper unevenly without rhythm

Both stopping periodically
distracted by the call of the sun
by the need to doze
with upturned face

My head bobbing suddenly, erratically
in time to some mad
inner conductor of soft, beckoning dreams

living in an ashram

For the past few years, I have been living in an ashram.  Or I have kept that mindset anyway.

Let me explain.

A few years ago I decided I didn’t really like my life, and I decided to do something about that. I decided to create a life I really liked and felt good about/in. So I began experimenting with what felt right/good. It took a while, too, b/c it took a while to figure out what worked and what didn’t. From that starting point, nothing really felt right/good.

You know how we get entrenched into the old stuff and even when new, and maybe even better, stuff comes along, we resist change. And how if we dare to try something – anything – new, it just doesn’t feel good until we give it some time, until we grow into it, until we feel comfy in that new thing. Well, that was me a few years ago: Determined to change something to feel better, but just not sure what that was or how that would look… or what to do…

After a while, though, I settled into a routine that I began to describe as “living in an ashram.” It went like this: I got up at 5am every morning to the gentle sound of monks chanting the Eternal Om as my wake up call. Three days a week I would work out cardio-wise – usually on my rowing machine. It made me feel good – while I was exercising and afterwards too. Twice a week I did yoga. I loved the soft, meditative Hatha flow of the yoga on my mat those mornings. In the warmer months, I did all this on my back deck, taking in the morning splendor. I rode my bike everywhere, loving the freedom, the air, how healthy and ‘green’ it made me feel. I ate healthy foods, and a lot of 100% dark chocolate. I still worked my ‘real’ job, still saw clients. I meditated every day. I looked at it like this: In an ashram, you get up early, you meditate and do devotional prayers/etc., you also have to do work to keep the ashram running – wash clothes, clean the floors, prepare food, weed the garden, etc. You also, in an ashram, sometimes have to go out into the ‘real’ world and interact with those not on your same path. All the things I was doing in my life.

It worked marvelously. I was happy. My life felt wonderful – maybe it was just all that chocolate, but life was good. For several years.

And then right around May – June 2013… it wasn’t.

I began to feel, again, that something was wrong. Nearly every morning, upon waking, I felt sad. Many mornings I cried in frustration as I woke up. Or I was angry – so angry that I cried and cursed. I did more of what I had been doing to make myself feel better: I meditated to try and come up with why this was; I exercised; I did yoga; I ate healthy foods. I asked the Universe to tell me what this was and how to fix it.

I happen to believe that those first few seconds upon waking are some of the most vulnerable, truthful, Real moments we get about ourselves, our lives. We haven’t had time to put on our social face or our spiritual face or whatever ‘face’ that is gonna keep me from hating life and crying. I tend to respect those few seconds and pay a lot of attention to them – they tell me volumes about me and my life – about my subconscious.

About the same time as things shifted, I began to explore the Divine Feminine (DF) energy I knew I had always had access to. I have been doing energy/light work for years. I always taught it the way I lived it – which is: The Divine is the Divine. It doesn’t matter if it’s Masculine or Feminine; it is pure. But I found I really wanted the Divine Feminine energy; I wanted to explore that, and so I kept searching, kept researching. I read several excellent books on the subject, among them Red Hot and Holy by Sera Beak and Powerful and Feminine by Rachel Jayne Groover.

Everything I encountered about the DF told me the same thing: Your way of connecting with the Divine may shift. You may not want to sit quietly and meditate any more – a very masculine way of reaching for the Divine, by the way. I thought I was listening for that call, the call of the Goddess. I thought I was ready to shift as needed. But apparently not, b/c I did not recognize it as that until just today.

Last week I began to think about experimenting again – duh! What took me so long to figure that out?! Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not happy about this experimenting. I didn’t just skip along and laugh merrily and decide to play with my life, happy to be changing everything about me and my life again. No, remember I said this had been going on for months. Months of frustration, anger, depression, anxiety – feeling powerless to figure out what it was and how to fix it, even though I was constantly trying to figure it out.

I think maybe I got to the point of just giving up. The “Oh, fuck it – whatever,” stage – said without any energy behind it.

So last week I didn’t exercise every day. I let the monks begin their chanting every morning at 5am, but I didn’t necessarily get up and do anything. A couple of mornings I reset the monks and went back to sleep – and smiled while doing it. One morning I just stayed in bed, listening to the monks, smiling, wallowing under the blankets, talking to the weenie dogs, just spending time languishing.

This morning at my sunny bathroom sink, after, once again, not rising and ‘sticking to the schedule.’ I had an “ah-ha” moment, when I realized I’m tired of living in an ashram. Even Liz Gilbert didn’t do that for more than a few months, for fuck’s sake! And I realized I would much rather live at a spa now.

I am currently changing my mindset to “living in a spa” – you know, the fancy, I-deserve-to-be-here-languishing-in-being-pampered type of spa. The one where you realize you want things to be really easy and fun. Where someone brings you things and you eat some ‘forbidden’ foods and might even gain some weight (gawd forbid!). I realized that I don’t want to be called out anymore by, what now feels like, my inner Drill Sergeant at 5am every morning to hit the road/rowing machine/yoga mat/etc.

I want to rest. I want to be pampered. I want to have fun. Don’t misunderstand: I loved “living in a ashram” for a few years. I was happy and had tons of fun doing that. It felt exactly right.

And I still love riding my bike everywhere – 7 miles a day, or more, on most days. I still work out, and I still love to meditate – to sit in the most excellent silence. But I’m not regimented about it any more. And if I need/want to skip something, I don’t freak out that I’m not adhering to the ashram’s schedule, somehow.

Fun is starting to look different than an ashram now. And for the first time in months, I feel hopeful and the beginning blush of happiness again.

you don’t fuck with Mother Nature, buddy

Today I felt a man dis me – and if felt like it was b/c I’m a female. It did not feel good – at first. He asked me a question, I began to answer, and then he ignored me when a man entered the room, and asked the man the same question he had just asked me. I left the room and the “conversation”.

And I was somewhat upset about it – but only b/c I was wondering what kind of energy I was putting out to have, perhaps, attracted that. So I took a break to check on my energy and get some clarity on the situation (okay, I went to the bathroom). And while I was peeing, I focused on my womb space and the Divine Feminine energy there and sent it down both legs and into the ground. I could feel the roots growing downward as I pushed it further down. It felt amazing.

I got the Mother’s response immediately, and for the first time since beginning this exercise a week ago, I physically felt the power and energy return to me from the Divine Earth Mother after sending down those cords. It felt like power, like strength, support; it felt delicious. It felt like home. The energy was huge, heavy, dark, rich and fecund, and I did not stagger under its weight.

Instead, I grew big – in power. I felt my energy shift and accept the invitation from the Mother. And unlike Masculine power, which when I try and imitate it, makes me want to stand tall and open my chest and get big physically, this energy felt powerful from deep within. And it felt like a lovely, irreverent secret shared between womenfriends.

Immediately I laughed and was no longer upset – why bother with someone’s disrespect? It had nothing to do with me.

The Power came through me, and with no small amount of delight, I directed my thoughts/energy (which did not contain anger or upset anymore) to the disrespectful man:  “Who do you think you are to dis me? I am The Power. I am The Glory. I am Mother Nature, Mother Earth. You don’t fuck with Mother Nature, buddy. I am The Power that created you. I have the ability to create humans – from scratch. You would not even be here in physical form were it not for me,” the Mother, through me, said.

And I laughed again.

Dear Ones, Dear Sisters: You are The Power and The Glory. You are Creators. You are Feminine.

Heal on, sisters.

allowing longing.

I awoke this morning with a heavy, achy heart – sad and a bit tenderoonie.

So instead of going instantly into my usual fix-it, let’s-get-happy-again-as-soon-as-possible mode, I made the conscious decision to just sit with it. To wait on my heart to tell me its story the same way I would sit and wait with a sad friend – just to be present, just to be there for them. So I have been still all day, listening, showing my respect and admiration for such a brave, strong, sensitive heart.

And my heart has been telling me lovely, sad stories of longing and belonging all day. It tells me a story of longing to belong, another story of desiring independence and strength – to be alone, stories so sweet and tender that I have been in tears all day at the sweetness and vulnerability of them. It tells me the story of longing, desiring my permission, to go ahead and search for God like a man with his hair on fire searches for water (or maybe like a ‘woman’ with her hair on fire searches for water, b/c the search would not be the same) – the longing for the Beloved – the ache to once again meet and merge with the Divine One and surrender to her/him.

And my heart is not broken, not breaking open. Instead it is swelling, overflowing – full of life, full of tears, full of pain, full of love and knowing. And instead of quieting my heart, instead of trying to muffle the sound, I am sending out the longing like the call for the Mate, the Beloved it seeks.

resting in the Mother

This morning after yoga, sitting meditating and focusing on the womb space, I imagined a sphere of light being born there and beginning to grow – the way Rachael Jayne Groover talks about in her excellent book, Powerful and Feminine. And after a moment or two, I let the color of that light choose itself. I was fascinated to discover it turned from the yellow-gold that I had held in my mind to black – deep, dark, soft , secret and warm – with some purple-indigo-red.

When I let that sphere grow until it formed the bubble around my body, the safety, warmth and grounded-ness of that certainty of the womb surrounded me – I was safe within the Mother – it was delicious.

Years ago, I was cautious in using black energy/light for healing until I realized: When all the colors/frequencies of light are combined, you get white light. When all the colors of pigment are combined, you get black pigment/paint. Heal on sisters.

Hypnotherapy Class Series: Open to Love

presented by Grace Cooley, Certified Hypnotherapist, Registered Psychotherapist
with special guest speaker Steve Horsmon, Certified Professional Life & Relationship Coach

For Women Only
Single or Partnered
Open your heart, energy, life and body to allow love
Connect with the juicy, sacred, powerful Divine Feminine Energy that you really are

Discover and Heal the subconscious beliefs/blocks that are
Keeping You from Experiencing Deep, Satisfying and Fulfilling Love
Take Charge of Your Life

Are you wondering why you’re still single, when all you want is to be in a fantastic, loving and fun relationship? Are you already in a relationship but can’t figure out why you seem to be on the outside looking in at it – why you can’t seem to really connect with and surrender your heart to your lover? Do you attract the same type of partner each time you try a new relationship?  Are you afraid to commit to him/her and a relationship?  Are you fearful of repeating the same mistakes you made in your last relationship?  Is your partner not “manning-up”?  Is THIS something you’d like to be able to play with in your life?

This 5-part series (*plus bonus presentation By Steve Horsmon, professional Life and Relationship Coach*), utilizing Group Hypnotherapy, Journaling and Energy Work, will assist you in pinpointing, healing and releasing the issues/beliefs that are blocking your success in relationships of all types – especially romantic relationships.

Each class will include group hypnosis, journaling and sharing (at your comfort level).
Bring something to write with and something to write on/in.  Consider using a special journal to document this empowering journey for yourself.

I hear from women all the time who are having difficulty manifesting the relationship they want. They are working hard; they meditate, they visualize. They can’t understand what is wrong – why they have been praying, meditating and visualizing for years about this issue without seeing the results they want. They call me wanting a reading, so I can tell them what their Guides are saying about how to get what they want and when that will, hopefully, happen.

You may be familiar with the Law of Attraction – you get from the Multiverse what you put out to the Multiverse. What some don’t realize is that everyone emits their own, signature, unconscious frequency at all times. And according to the Law of Attraction, the Universe/Multiverse responds to give you more of whatever you are broadcasting. But what if you are broadcasting unconscious frequencies/beliefs that are sabotaging your relationships? Beliefs that are buried so deep that you aren’t even consciously aware of them? We will only receive from life, relationships and the Universe what we are inviting in – with the frequency we’re putting out – so we will be looking at how our beliefs and attitudes might be holding love, relationships and people at arms’ length. For a great perspective on this subject, check out this article.

Hypnosis is like meditation or visualization or like daydreaming – only with the added benefit of having the Hypnotherapist there to keep you on track. Because my mind tends to wander when I meditate. Does yours too? That’s why I’m here, to help keep you focused from a gentle, outside, detached-from-the-issue place.

Together, we will gently ask your subconscious to reveal what is holding you back, so that you can offer healing and release to the subconscious beliefs/blocks to you living your best, most happy relationship. I am always honored to be allowed into your personal, sacred mind-space during hypnotherapy and group sessions, so rest assured that you are welcome and safe here. Even after the first session you will already feel lighter, more relaxed and open to love. And it just gets better from there.

I’m not in a romantic relationship either – and I want to be. So I know this class is just as much for me as for you. Let’s discover, together, what will open us to love.

It is such an exciting corner to turn when you take charge of your life and start to live the life you really want to live – when you learn how to find, change and heal those unconscious beliefs that are holding you back from being your very best, authentic Self!

Class info:

Tuesday nights – 6:30pm – 8:30pm in Downtown Fort Collins, CO
RSVP for location of classes and to reserve your spot – space is limited.
Please be prepared to take all the classes, as they build on each other

March 4 – Introduction to Hypnotherapy, Self-Hypnosis, and the Divine Feminine/Masculine – Assemble your Inner Team: Find your ‘Safe Place’, Inner Advisor, and Divine Feminine & Masculine Aspects

March 11 – Find your block(s) to love/happiness

March 18 – Heal and Release the block(s) to love/happiness

March 25 – Release the Past and Limiting Soul Contracts

April 1 – *Special Presentation by Steve Horsmon, Certified professional Life & Relationship Coach – “Your Feminine Power: Three Secrets to Helping Him Meet Your Needs”*

April 8 – Meet your Future, Sexy, Powerful, Self who is already in a wonderful relationship

$110 for all six sessions – paid at the first class, or $20 per session each time (a $600+ value if done in individual sessions)
cooley.grace@gmail.com to reserve your spot. Find out more about Grace here and right here.

*About Steve Horsmon*
Steve Horsmon is a Certified Professional Life and Relationship Coach and founder of Good Guys 2 Great Men.

With a long corporate career in leadership and organizational training and development, Steve is a lifelong student and “passionate pursuer” of the communication and personal development skills required for healthy and satisfying relationships.

As an expert on relationship issues affecting single, married, and divorced men, Steve emphasizes the importance of men achieving clarity of their personal values – or Masculine Operating Principles. In addition to making commitments for personal improvements, his clients are also expected to become serious students of women, the nature of emotional safety, and human sexuality.

Using his consistent message of “we are absolutely equal, but we’re not the same”, Steve helps men choose to make changes within themselves that can lead to mutually rewarding intimate relationships with women. These changes are for one reason only – it helps them become the man they want to be.

Steve strongly believes in relationships built on an equal partnership of trust, respect, emotional safety, and intimacy. Men and women share the responsibility for making it happen. Steve coaches men on the power of choosing to “go first” with confidence and clarity. Many of his client referrals come from wives and girlfriends.

Find more information and an extensive blog archive at www.Goodguys2Greatmen.com. Find  his FaceBook page here.

contents of the Lightwork Handbook

In the Beginning

The category “the lightwork handbook” is intended to cover many aspects of light/energy work. Having done light/energy work for 20 years now, I am always getting questions from folks about how to clear themselves or their homes/businesses, how to do energy work (similiar to Reiki and Hands on Healing), etc. So I offer in this category some of the same information I have been teaching in my classes for many years. Please feel free to comment on any article with questions, and I will do my best to answer. If I don’t personally know the answer, I will channel it for you from the Masters.

I will cover:
*How to Clear Yourself and your Space/Home/Business
*How to Meet and Communicate with Your Spirit Guides/Guardian Angels
*How to Discover and Change the Unconscious Beliefs that are Creating Your Life
*Open to Channeling Messages and Healing Energy
*Recommended Books
*Working with Colors
*Working with Chakras and the Energy Bodies
*Meditation
*Etc.

#1 define ‘walk-in’

Definition of a walk-in
A walk-in is a soul/essence/entity that has an agreement with a born-in to change places in a (usually adult) body.  A ‘born-in’ is the soul that originally came in when the physical body was born. The born-in inhabits the body around physical birth time and up until the walk-in takes its place.

Usually, there is a period of Earth time when the walk-in and the born-in take turns and may both be in the body off and on. This is to get both of them ready for the switch and to accustom the body to the new energy. The born-in will be traveling out of the body more than usual, giving the walk-in a chance to inhabit the body.

Now understand that this is not a possession. There is an agreement on a very high level between the born-in and walk-in. The agreement usually happens during the born-in’s time in the body and usually centers around the born-in not wanting to complete the lifetime. Instead of wasting a perfectly good body to suicide (in whatever form – it is quite possible to manifest one’s physical death without committing actual suicide), an agreement is made for the born-in to leave and the walk-in to take its place in the body. The walk-in usually comes in with a mission of some sort – usually of a rather high-leveled nature.

When looking back, one can usually see changes in behavior that began to take place at some point in the timeline of the person.  For instance, maybe seemingly out of the blue, that person begins to do research about spiritual matters, or begins to meditate, or begins to dress or talk differently. These changes may even begin to occur before the official, permanent switch. The personality may change – either radically or subtly.

Sending a walk-in into a body is usually an ‘intervention’ type of thing to do. However, know also, that the agreement between born-in and walk-in may take place before the born-in comes into the body. The walk-in possibility (or certainty) may be known by the born-in when it initially comes into the baby body.  It may have an agreement to come in and be physical for a time, knowing that the walk-in will take over at some point.

Also know that there can be more than one walk-in to inhabit the same body. Either at the same time or one after the other – in linear, Earth time. More than one walk-in is not common, but does happen.

The Physical Body

The human physical body has its own, unique consciousness separate from the soul-self. And a body can survive for some time – sometimes even years – without a soul inhabiting the body. It often will deteriorate b/c of not having a soul present to channel energy into it, but can limp along nonetheless for a while.  The soul normally provides the energy for the body to heal, operate smoothly, etc. – see it as the ‘electricity’ that powers the body’s systems.

When the body senses that the soul is leaving or wants to leave/die, it may start the death process for the physicality. So that even when the new soul is situated, it may continue to deteriorate. It is very important to communicate with the body and let it know that the new walk-in will be inhabiting and taking care of the body on an energy level. Bodies can try and ‘reject’ souls much like a body can reject an organ transplant. Signs of rejection or lack of acceptance may be aliments that begin after the walk-in comes in, such as:  food/chemical allergies and sensitivities, disease, illness, body degeneration in some form, malfunction of systems/organs.

Before the walk-in comes in fully, the adjustment period gives the body and new soul time to get accustomed to each other, however, the process is usually an ongoing one, even after the new soul is fully present on Earth in that body.  Some walk-ins and the relevant body may never fully adjust and may always have physical problems. Most of these cases are those of walk-ins who are not consciously aware of their walk-in status.

Because the new walk-in inherits the born-in’s memories (stored in cellular memory throughout the body), most walk-ins are not consciously aware of their walk-in status. But most walk-ins quickly begin to lose those early memories and have a difficult time recalling things that occurred before they walked in.

And because the walk-in is a new, different entity/soul than who used to be in the body, they will often make major changes in that life – simply b/c they have different tastes and preferences. This may affect lots of areas of the life. Examples:  divorce and breakups – b/c they are not attracted to the same souls as the born-in was and don’t have those connections with those souls.  A total change in taste and style as regards clothes, interior decoration of their home, food preferences, friends, activities, life style. They often change professions too.

So while being a walk-in is supposed to be a good thing, it can cause a lot of upheaval for those people and loved ones that were associated with the born-in.  Usually no one is consciously aware of the switch, so to loved-ones, this seems like a sudden, unexplained, bizarre change of behavior and personality that is often perceived as very negative. Family members and spouses are often left confused, angry, sad, etc. at the sudden changes. Many walk-ins split entirely from the former life/family and begin again, attracting those souls with whom they have connections from other times and places.

For some great basic info on walk-ins, read Ruth Montgomery’s books:  Strangers Among Us and Aliens Among Us.