10 Tips for Surviving (and Thriving) As An Empath

‘Protected Empath’ by Elena Ray, http://elenaray.com

Note: This month I am participating in the Super Natural Healing Summit. Register and you will receive interviews and free gifts from many different healing practitioners once the summit begins on August 15th. This is an excellent FREE way to learn more about healing modalities of all types! My own interview will be featured on August 19th. Register here, and spread the news.

We are living through a very intense time right now, and in the coming months I’ll be focusing here on the energies of this particular phase of history, and how we all can deal with them. Today I want to start with the basics of caring for yourself as an empath. We are all empathic, because to be human means to be connected energetically to everything around you, whether you are aware of this or not. Just as our physical senses are constantly picking up sounds, sights, tastes, smells, and sensations, so our subtle body senses are constantly experiencing the energies present in our environment, emanating from the world mood at large, and from the people around us.

However, there is a spectrum of empathic sensitivity, and if you are reading this blog, which is almost entirely about energy, then you are probably higher than average on the empathic scale. Recently in my private session work, I have been working with many people, women in particular, who are struggling and have not realized just how much they are being weighed down by the energies of the world and people around them. These energies magnify whatever struggle we are personally experiencing. If we take on the dark energy of certain forces in the world, or from the struggles of those around us, it can add to whatever challenges we are facing to such an extent that we feel overwhelmed. While our tendency is to keep focusing on our individual problem or struggle, often just a little empathic self-care can help us just enough for us to break through the fog, and gain the clarity and personal power we need to see things in a new light.

So I encourage you to make these tips a priority for 2-3 weeks and see how you feel. Particularly if you are struggling with a personal issue, give the self-analysis and overthinking a rest for a bit, and just take care of yourself. Most likely you will begin to see the issue you have been struggling with in a new way within a week to 10 days.

One important note on this though – please don’t let this list add to any sense of self-judgment or unworthiness. I actually rarely feature lists like this here because they can so easily become a list of ‘shoulds’, creating a projection of what we ‘should’ do and who we ‘should’ be – a projection against which we always fall short, feeling inadequate. Let your self-care instead be a form of self-love and self-appreciation, of relishing yourself in the form of your body and subtle body.

1. Exercise. Yes, exercise! Move your body! Just as stress chemicals in our physical body can result in muscle tension, so energies that we take into our subtle body can become locked there. Exercise helps release and cleanse on both levels. Aerobic exercise is generally best for this, but mind-body modalities like yoga and tai chi, which are based on opening energy lines and centers through physical movement, are even better. Exercise is also helpful in grounding and connecting with your root chakra, which in turn is essential to being able to enforce energetic boundaries. A great way to make the most of this list (and your time) is to combine exercise with some of the other suggestions on this list – hike in nature (#2), swim (#3), or take a combo yoga/meditation (#8) class.

2. Spend Time in Nature. Nature emanates its own vibration wholly apart from the human vibration that we are inundated with. Connecting with nature – or even better immersing yourself in it for periods of time – will cleanse human vibration from your system. In addition, the lower four chakras are each linked to specific elements – root/earth, sacral/water, navel/fire, heart/air – and so connecting to these vibrations within nature will particularly cleanse and empower the corresponding chakras. However, it’s important to be discerning – heavily populated parks may carry more human than natural vibration. On the other hand, safety needs to be a priority – don’t trek out on your own as far from all other humanity as you can, placing yourself at risk. In addition, some powerful natural spots are not suitable for spending a lot of time. That’s another whole topic unto itself, but in short, if you ever start feeling spacey or irritable in a location, leave. Pay attention to how a place makes you feel.

3. Embrace Water. All the elements have powerful cleansing and healing potential, but water is particularly good for empaths. Water is the element of the second/sacral chakra, which is also linked to our emotional body, so water has a special ability to help cleanse emotions picked up from others from our subtle body. Drink water, sit by water, bathe in water, swim in water – embrace water!

4. Limit Screen Time. Both the content and vibration of what we take in from television, the internet, and even books can greatly influence our awareness and lodge in our subtle body. Pay attention to how something makes you feel, and disengage if it’s not good. Yes, there is a place for discomfort in media, even for violence if it is portraying some truth for a greater purpose, but you need to make conscious choices about when, where, and how much to connect. As an empath, more than anything you need to prioritize the integrity of your own energy body, and give yourself enough time media-free to feel what that is like.

5. Nest. Make your home a sanctuary, a true nest or womb-like space that creates a sense of nurturing, safety, and cleansing. Consciously select the décor, based on the colors and items that create this sense for you. Make sure there is one place in your home – a meditation corner for example – which is wholly yours, filled with only your energy. This spot can become your touchstone, and once you have spent enough time in it, every time you sit in it you will begin to shed any foreign energy lodged in your subtle body.

6. Make Your Sleep Sacred. Sleep is our time to naturally cleanse and replenish, including on our subtle body level. Set yourself up for a good night’s sleep by paying special attention to what you watch or read before bed. Make your bed and bedroom a sanctuary, creating the best possible environment for a good night’s sleep. Bathe or shower before bed if you have had a particularly demanding day energetically. And visualize a radiant light as you fall asleep – intend to connect with deep, cleansing light. Each time you wake up in the night, reinforce this. There is a time and place for dreams, and certainly dreams can be a powerful intuitive force, but the most meaningful dreams will emerge from light. If we do not connect with this light early in the night, we will likely spend the entire night playing out the energies we have picked up during our day instead. Some psychological processing is needed, but cleansing and true rest are needed even more.

7. Get Enough Protein. Our root and navel chakras are most directly involved in our creation of energetic boundaries and filters, and protein can really help to fuel our root chakra. Protein is grounding and provides a density to our energy field that we can use. You can read more about this in a prior post of mine, Eating for Your Subtle Body.

8. Meditate. Any form of meditation will help you to discover the integrity of your own energy field, because you are returning your mind over and over to your own being, from wherever it has wandered. Chakra meditation or pranayama work (breathe based yogic work) has the additional benefit of activating the cleansing energies lodged deep in our subtle body. A chakra meditation with affirmations such as this one can serve this purpose. Of course if you have a more developed meditation practice of any style, build it into your routine.

9. Affirm Boundaries. I have purposely waited to discuss boundaries until #9, because it is difficult to really establish and hold firm boundaries if you are not engaging in self-care along the lines of numbers 1-8. It’s also easy to get obsessed with boundaries and avoiding negative energy, focusing on isolating yourself, rather than on the self-care necessary to enable you to interact fully with the world and maintain the integrity of your energy body. Nevertheless, establishing a sense of energetic boundary can be very useful for an empath, especially if you have internal conditioning that you don’t deserve or can’t enforce bounaries (as is common for anyone who experienced abuse of any type as a child.) I have written about how to establish basic boundaries in other places though, so I won’t go into it here. Try this post, or my DailyOm course, which includes a class on boundaries.

10. Be Like the Sky. The sky is often used as a reference point for meditation, or as a metaphor for our primordial awareness or essential spirit, because the sky is vast and open, and everything occurs within it. You can expend a lot of energy on boundaries, building a defense around your energy body, or you can expend a lot of energy on self-care and cleansing your energy body. But if you are connected to the open, vast spirit at the heart of your being, and if you are identifying with that rather than with your psychological triggers, much less foreign energy will ‘stick’ with or to you. It is our reactivity, our reaction to all that occurs around us, that pushes our internal buttons, causes us to latch on to it, and pulls energy into our being. The spiritual process is one of re-identifying ourselves with our skylike nature, rather than with our conditioned emotional patterns. It’s a lifelong endeavor (or multi-life!) But as you travel along it, as you become more spacious, the need for a certain kind of boundary and self-protection falls away. You still need to care for your body and subtle body, but being an empath becomes something else entirely. So be like the sky!

If you would really like to explore empathy from an energetic perspective on a deeper level, and how to own the related intuitive gifts, Cyndi Dale’s book on the subject is the best around:

A Solstice Heart Opening Meditation (Free mp3)

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. – MLK Jr.

It is the lightest day of the year here in the upper hemisphere, but I think it’s safe to say many of us are feeling the weight of the world’s darkness. The question for spiritual seekers, of any faith, is how to respond? How do we meet darkness, both in ourselves and others? When do we take a stand, and how do we do it in a way that does not just become opposition for its own sake, an ego-driven impulse to fight and be right – darkness attempting to drive out darkness? How do we bring forth the light within ourselves when we are fearful and doubt-filled? How do we respond and act from a place of love?

I’m not sure myself, but I do know that sometimes when we cannot find an answer, we need to drop the question, and just BE. The fear-generated mental activity prevents us from resting in the light and love that is the natural essence of our being. The more we try to figure out how to act from love, the further we get from feeling it. And even feeling it is not enough, for love is not simply a transient state, an emotion that ebbs and flows, it is the heart of our awareness itself. It is that which we all have in common, and is present in every being, regardless of how covered and distorted it may be in any given individual at any given time.

With that in mind I’ve created a free Solstice meditation, a heart chakra opener. The meditation is rooted in white light, the light I work with as the innermost level of the chakras. It is designed to be done for 1 week daily following Solstice or your birthday (a personal ‘Sun’ day), but really you could use it anytime. It has several energy work components:

• Beginning in your heart, you will link your heart chakra energy to the lower chakras and then the upper chakras in sequence, all using white light. This is the clearing portion of the work.
• You will then select a memory that constricts your heart chakra in some way, and imagine it dissolving.
• Then select someone for whom you feel great love, and release the ‘attached’ or ‘grasping’ part of that love, allowing it to be a conduit to a greater, non-specific state of love.
• Then you will practice self-love, generating waves of light to your body.
• Send waves of light and love out in greater and greater circles from yourself, until it encompasses the entire world.
• Center back in your heart and ground your energy, committing to bringing this light into this body, this plane, this life.

May this meditation bring you peace and light, and may this emanate from you into the world.

Solstice Heart Opening Meditation (13 minutes)

Stream:

 

Download (right click and Save As):

Heart Opening Downloadable

Please don’t hesitate to email or post questions. Namaste-

P.S. The next round of my Energy Healing for Sexual Trauma teleseminar is beginning in August, and the next round of my Working with Chakra Levels course begins in September. Information and registration may be found at Enlightened Energetics.

Chakra Affirmations for Transforming Anxiety

Working with chakra affirmations is about the feeling – shifting into the open expression of the chakra’s energy, and feeling it physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far. – Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home

Plenty has already been written elsewhere about the negative health effects of anxiety, and about the value of using meditation to deal with it. In this post I wanted to offer a chakra affirmation exercise for working with anxiety, because so often we have emotional patterns linked to anxiety lodged in our subtle body. The wonderful thing about chakra affirmation work is that it is something you can do in the moment, and even just a few seconds can help you to shift your response to a situation, or to halt the momentum of anxiety as it starts to build in your psyche.

But first, we need to explore two things: What is anxiety really? And what really are affirmations?

Anxiety is distinguished from fear, and from stress. Fear is specific – we fear a specific event, situation, person or object. Stress is an overload of our system in some form – physical, emotional, mental or all three. Either fear or stress can trigger the feeling of anxiety, but anxiety can also be free floating, and in fact can be the foundation feeling that generates states of fear and stress.

In other words, anxiety is often not linked to your external circumstances, especially if you feel chronically anxious. It is an energetic and emotional pattern locked into your being. As long as it’s there, it becomes a lens through which you see the world, and it will attach itself to anything that happens to you, generating anxious thoughts about whatever is going on (or even out of nothing) in order to feed itself. Then those thoughts generate more feelings of anxiety – more fuel – in a self-perpetuating cycle.

The key then is to break the cycle – free up, or transform, the energy locked in anxiety within your being. Because anxiety so often manifests in the form of physical symptoms, many methods for working with it involve physical exercise or movement because these can discharge the anxious energy. Meditation approaches it from a mental and emotional perspective, in terms of learning to let go of the anxious thoughts and feelings as they arise, cutting off their fuel.

Chakra affirmations work a little differently – they are about tapping into the energy as it specifically manifests in your subtle body, and working to transform that energy into a helpful form. Affirmations are not simply words we say out loud – the feeling we generate as we speak is the most important aspect, not the words. As we say a chakra affirmation, we are attempting to fully manifest the associated feeling and vibration in that chakra. This shift in our energy, and thus in our awareness, is the true practice. The words we speak are just part of the tool. We engage our entire mind, body, and subtle body in affirmation work, and this is why for those who connect with it, it can be so powerful a transformative tool.

We all hold anxiety in different parts of our subtle body, and to work with chakra affirmations most effectively, it’s helpful to try to identify your own patterns by thinking about your anxiety response. You may not always even be aware you are anxious, but engage in behavior or thought patterns that are the result of anxiety – for example, binging on comfort foods, getting defensive, or isolating yourself.

The chart below offers the most common Anxiety Response linked to each chakra – essentially the way in which that chakra becomes blocked when you are feeling anxious. Then the Focus section offers you ideas for where to shift your attention in order to begin to transform and free up that chakra’s natural energy and expression. The Affirmations are examples of statements you can use as you attempt to shift your energy into this new place.

Root Chakra

Anxiety Response: Escapism – You seek to escape your anxiety through daydreaming, eating, drinking, watching television, gaming, online activities etc. Addictions of any type may be rooted in this tendency. From an energetics perspective, this pattern involves disconnecting from your root chakra.

Shift: Focus on grounding and presence – staying with reality and breathing into the anxiety – as you focus on your tailbone and sitbones, and/or your connection to the earth.

Affirmation: I am safe. I am supported. I am grounded in the earth. I am fully present to whatever arises.

Second Chakra

Anxiety Response: Rigidity – You freeze up, are unable to adapt to new circumstances or to accept change. You may also have difficulty connecting with sensual and sexual experience. You may hold a lot of tension in your muscles, which can include holding others’ tension or stress as your own.

Shift: Focus on fluidity and adaptability – being ‘in the flow’. Focus on mindful sensual experience – allowing yourself pleasure in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures.

Affirmation: I am adaptable. I am in the flow. I am connected to my body. I am fully present to the small pleasures of my day.

Third Chakra

Anxiety Response: Control – you hold on tightly to your life, attempting to control others and outcomes. This is often combined with being judgmental, including towards yourself. At times, this may also develop into anger or aggression.

Shift: Focus on letting go and acceptance, including self-acceptance. Cultivate a sense of openness and appreciation for difference, diversity of style, and approaches to life.

Affirmation: I am relaxed. I am centered. I am accepting. I am fully present to others, however they express themselves.

Fourth Chakra

Anxiety Response: Self-protection – you build emotional walls, which may evolve into pushing others away and isolating yourself. When feeling hurt or vulnerable, you often either move into self-defensive anger (outward expression) or feelings of unworthiness and self-loathing (inward expression.)

Shift: Focus on self-compassion and staying with vulnerable emotions, as opposed to blocking or fleeing them. Extend yourself healing light.

Affirmation: I love myself. I am at peace. I deserve happiness. I am fully present to my emotions, and allow myself to feel, and when necessary, heal, them.

Fifth Chakra

Anxiety Response: People pleasing – you may overtalk or overshare as part of efforts to win people over, or you may constantly mediate your speech according to what you think people want to hear. You may fear others’ reactions to speaking your truth.

Shift: Focus on moving inward towards who you truly are, and communicating from that place. Let go of fears around how others will respond to you. Imagine a connection between your heart and mouth.

Affirmation: I am authentic. I am honest. I am clear. I am fully present to my truth, and communicate from that place within myself.

Sixth Chakra

Anxiety Response: Frazzled – you have a busy mind, constantly worrying about the future, revisiting the past, or weighing options over and over. You have little connection to your intuition or a sense of ‘knowing’.

Shift: Focus on quieting your mind, and activities that shift your attention away from overthinking – exercise, music, artistic activities, or anything that gets you into your body and/or experiential level of mind.

Affirmation: I am centered. I am wise. I am intuitive. I am fully present to my connection with the universe.

Crown Chakra

Anxiety Response: Doubt – you feel disconnected from your spirituality, or from a sense of connection with spirit or the unseen. You spin in doubt, about self and/or beliefs, or swing between manic ‘forced’ positivity and doubt.

Shift: Focus on spiritual practice such as prayer or meditation, along with questioning or study directly aligned with any faith-related doubts that are arising (as opposed to just ‘spinning’ through doubt and faith phases.)  In other words, actively seek – engage in being an active spiritual seeker, and doubts are ok as a part of that, if they are used to spur you forward towards more seeking.

Affirmation: I am seeking. I am open. I am connected to spirit. I am fully present to however spirit wants to interact with me.

You may recognize yourself in several of these descriptions, as we usually have 2-3 that we cycle through, and they may work together. For example, the third/navel chakra is linked to our mental body, and so anxiety-related patterns of the third chakra and the sixth chakra (third eye) often go together. We may worry and obsessively plan (blocked sixth chakra) in an attempt to control (third chakra) our circumstances, trying in vain to allay our anxiety through this sense of control. The second and fourth chakras also often go together – we may freeze up (blocked second chakra) and push people away through coldness or irritability (blocked heart) in an attempt to avoid any connection that might make us feel vulnerable.

There are really an endless number of ways we might respond to anxiety. In fact, at core an existential anxiety about our separation from Source is the root of the ego’s desire to establish itself as dominant. In this sense,  anxiety is underneath many of our other emotions. When we get to this deeper level and begin to work directly with anxiety, we are closer to connecting with Source, spirit, and our natural enlightenment. Becoming comfortable with this anxiety and practicing relaxing into it is how we let go into light, and a necessary part of the awakening process.

However, in a moment when we are triggered, it is not always possible to access this level, and working with our subtle body through the chakras can be very helpful. You could do all of these affirmations for all of your chakras as a formal sitting meditation, and in fact that’s something I recommend on a regular basis for those working to really shift anxiety patterns lodged in the subtle body. But if you can’t, in the moment when you are feeling anxious, it’s most effective for you to strengthen the chakra directly related to the pattern most prominent for you. Even just 30 seconds of focusing in on the associated chakra and inwardly stating your affirmations while you attempt to shift into that energy will loosen the hold of whatever emotion is arising. Then later when you are out of the triggering situation, you may be able to work with your anxiety on a deeper level through other tools.

Of course you can always create your own affirmations, and add visualizations to help you connect with the chakra energy you are attempting to bring forth. Colors, sounds, nature elements, even scenes of places that you associate with these energies can help (look back at some of the associations in my Chakra Levels series for ideas.) Remember, affirmations are meant to be felt, not simply spoken (although speaking them is a start, and if it’s all you can muster in the moment, try it!)

May this be helpful and healing to you. Namaste-

P.S. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and there are many ways you can further healing for survivors, pursue your own healing, or donate to causes dedicated to stopping sexual violence worldwide. Check out this wonderful post on the importance of a holistic approach to healing for survivors at The Breathe Network, and view their offerings on trauma-informed healing modalities while you are there. Or checkout RAINN or VDay for other resources, and ways to help. I will be offering the next round of my own Energy Work for Sexual Trauma teleseminar starting in July, followed by another round of my Working with Chakra Levels teleseminar in the Fall.

 

 

 

Pythias, Priestesses, Beguines, and Tantrikas – In Celebration of Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month, and so each year at this time I like to add to my Historical Women’s Mystics series. After reading an article about the U.S. Presidency being the final political glass ceiling, I found myself thinking about the religious glass ceiling – all five major world religions, and most smaller ones too, still deny women top level leadership roles. Of course the mystic’s journey is a personal one, and we can bypass religious hierarchy to commune directly with spirit/Source/awakening/God. All of the women I’ve featured in this series did so, and many emerged as prominent teachers and spiritual leaders within their time. But how many more might have followed their lead had more women leaders been present? What message is sent today to the vast majority of women who seek within Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism by the fact that top organizational positions are still not available to them? How many women seekers internalize the message that their relationship to spirit must be mediated by men?

Of course there have always been women’s spiritual communities, with their own leadership structures, many of which existed simultaneously with, or even within, patriarchal traditions. So I decided this month to highlight just a few. May you draw inspiration and guidance from them (and perhaps glimpse a past life!)

Rendering of Oracle of Delphi from vase

The guild associated with the Oracle of Delphi is one of the few Greek priestess guilds we have credible historical information on. The Oracle functioned in some form for well over a thousand years, from approximately the 8^th century BC to 4^th AD. While we think of the Pythia (the Oracle at any given time) as one woman, in fact three women were usually rotating between the position. A guild of priestesses cared for them, while others cared for the associated Apollo temple and trained the novices. The position was an exhausting one, with the trances required to function as Pythia for hours on end wearing on the body. The training was rigorous and esoteric, and only passed from woman to woman.

At its heyday, to be a member of the guild offered a freedom and status not accorded to other women, such as the right to income and property, freedom from taxation, and the freedom to live untethered to any man. This is in fact the original meaning of the word ‘virgin’ – living a life unattached to a man, although it later was extended to sexual virginity. While in its declining years the temple was run by priests, there’s a lot of evidence that for many hundreds of years prior to this the guild was an all-female mystery school focused on divine vision and prophecy. Other such guilds likely existed throughout early Ancient Greek society, particularly in Athens.

Current Flame of Kildare

Another pre-Christian women’s priestess community was that of the ‘keepers of the flame of Brigid’ in Kildare, Ireland. Possibly part of a Druid tradition, or possibly their own independent tradition, the shrine at Kildare served as a training center for priestesses studying the healing and occult arts. A deep connection to nature was at the heart of this tradition, and many of the graduating priestesses seem to have traveled to other parts of the country to tend sacred groves, caves, or hills, or to serve as healers and priestesses in service to the goddess Brigid. Some believe a 30 year commitment was typical, with ten years of receiving training, ten years of fulfilling duties, and ten years of teaching others, followed by the freedom to continue on with the temple or marry and leave.

A sacred flame was tended day and night by the priestesses in Kildare, one that was adopted centuries later by nuns when a convent dedicated to St. Brigid (a Christianization of the goddess) was built. The nuns still tend this flame today, which means it has burned (mostly) continuously for thousands of years.

Painting of Beguine

Christian convents, particularly in the medieval ages, formed their own unique women’s spiritual communities, and many appear to have functioned autonomously from the male-dominated church hierarchy. However, there were other interesting spiritual options for women during this time as well, most notably the Beguines. Inspired by two late twelfth century Belgium women, Ivetta of Huy and Mary of Oignies, the Beguines were groups of women within Northern European cities who belonged to a cloister but lived alone and dedicated their lives to good works without taking lifelong vows. At the movement’s height, a noviate would typically train with a ‘Grand Mistress’ along with other women, and make vows of chastity. After training she would live alone but travel out in the city to help the sick and poor. She might continue this way throughout her life, or eventually decide to marry and return to lay life.

Beguines were one of the few Christian communal structures entirely founded and run by women. The largest beguinage, in Ghent, had over a thousand members at one point. Some were later incorporated into the Third Order of St. Francis, while others eventually developed a more mystic bent, emphasizing mystic experience more than good works as the foundation for the religious path.

Sixteenth century Safed, Israel was site of one of the most important periods in the development of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. Isaac Luria, sometimes called the father of modern Kabbalah, lived and taught there during this time, along with many fellow rabbis and students. But as Tirzah Firestone covers in her book The Receiving, a group of female visionaries also lived within Safed at this time, studying and receiving prophetic visions. Francesca Sarah was the most prominent of these women, and several surviving stories document the tremendous respect accorded her seeing. Other stories indicate that a group of such women existed and that they may have developed their own mystic practices together. In any case, they were definitely central to the development of Kabbalah, which is particularly notable in light of the fact that at the same time throughout Europe women were being burned at the stake for similar mystic visions.

Vajrayogini

I’ve saved my favorite historical women’s spiritual community for last – the Tantrikas of the Pala Period in India (8^th-13^th century.) As Miranda Shaw outlines in her excellent Passionate Enlightenment, during this time Tantric yoginis lived independently and in small communities of their own engaged in spiritual practice based on principles of embodiment, and the sacredness of the senses and all experience. This of course famously included Tantric practices of sacred sexuality, and some historians have tended to see these women as merely sexual partners for yogi counterparts. But in fact the women were often the teachers, and the union (on all levels!) of male Buddhist scholars and female Tantrikas birthed Tantric Buddhism at this time. Women were able to activate the kundalini more readily, and to become a conduit for divine energies. They studied these on their own, living independent lives devoted to spiritual practice, and emphasizing the divinity of daily life and experience, as opposed to considering monastic life the pinnacle of spiritual living. Their teachings and practices heavily influenced both the development of Buddhism and yoga in India at the time.

There are so, so many more fascinating women’s spiritual communities to explore – Ancient Egyptian priestesses, Druidess orders, female Sufi dervishes, Native American female shamans, the female-dominated Japanese religion of Oomoto, among many others. As we continue to surface and retell religious history with an eye to the women involved, may we all draw inspiration from their stories and questing. May it bring us closer to realizing the light within each of us, which exists beyond gender, beyond culture, beyond religion.

Namaste, and feel free to share any information about your own favorite historical women’s spiritual communities in the comments.

Mischief and Wisdom – Finding Your Way in the Year of the Monkey

The Year of the Red Fire Monkey is a year of movement and passion.

We are well on our way into the New Year according to the solar Western calendar, but the lunar New Year, which includes both the Chinese and Tibetan New Years, don’t begin until February 8th. We are heading into the Year of the Red Fire Monkey, and as has become tradition, I’m offering my own look at the symbology of the monkey throughout history in different cultures, along with an intuitive read of how to navigate the year’s energies. We are most certainly already seeing monkey-like energies in world events (think stock market and U.S. elections!) There’s one thing for sure – on both a personal and societal level, it won’t be boring.

Monkeys are known for their playfulness, agility, and speed.

Throughout the world, monkeys are known for their high energy, playfulness, agility, and intelligence, and that is reflected in the energies associated with a Monkey year. This is a year for taking chances, shaking things up, and getting out of your comfort zone. Risk is often rewarded in monkey years, but (and this is a big but) it has to be considered risk, wise risk, not blind or wholly wishful. That is a hard line to discern sometimes, because we are all filled with projections, hopes, and dreams. Finding the balance between taking a chance and being foolhardy is the key to navigating monkey energies.

Mayan Howler monkey god, linked to the arts and music, on the side of the Coban temple

Creativity is linked to the monkey in several different cultures, including the ancient Mayans, who depicted twin Howler Monkey gods as linked to the arts and music. The creativity of the monkey is linked to the ‘how’ rather than to inspiration – the technical challenge of how to create a particular vision, or manifest a dream. This is a year to act, and to experiment with different approaches until you find what works. Give yourself time to tinker, to learn as you go, and to modify your plans as you proceed. This is not the time for waiting to act until you have the perfect plan in place – no matter what you do, things are unlikely to go as planned. But you can learn in the middle of it all – monkey energy is nimble and adaptable.

Thoth depicted as both an Ibis and a baboon

This is also a year for innovation, in technology and science. The Ancient Egyptian god Thoth, who ruled both, had two depictions – one as an Ibis and one as a baboon. It may well be a turning point year in terms of technological innovations to address some of the world’s problems, and in your own life, innovation will also be rewarded. However, monkey energy is known for something else too – mischievousness. Innovation just for its own sake, with no larger purpose,  can cause more harm than good. And on the personal level, upheaval just for the sake of it is often a means of escape, and can cause much damage. Don’t make changes just to do it –  try to discern if they are aligned with your own, and others’, highest good.

Ancient Egyptian statue of Thoth in Baboon form, from the British museum

Thoth is also linked to balance and equilibrium, and in fact throughout Africa, the baboon is linked to wisdom. Symbolically throughout the world, we see this paradox of monkeys representing both mischief and wisdom – a lower and higher self, you might say. Inner equilibrium is key to finding your high expression of the monkey energies – one in which agility, playfulness, intelligence and creativity are used to manifest a reality in alignment with Source. In the midst of all the fast-moving activity and change, make sure you are continually turning inward, to check in and assess. Otherwise, you may fall prey to the more opportunistic sides of yourself and/or others.

In the Thai story pictured here, a well-meaning monkey offers Buddha a honeycomb, but the Buddha asks him to return it to the bees.

Stories featuring monkeys are prevalent in Buddhism, and one of my favorites highlights another key monkey energy – the ability to learn. In a well-known Thai story, an elephant is said to roll a favorite boulder of the Buddha’s daily to the river to wash and cool it, and then roll it back to the Buddha’s favorite sitting spot to warm in the sun in time for him to use it in the afternoon. Seeing this, a monkey who also wishes to show his devotion to the Buddha decides to break off a piece of honeycomb from a local hive, and offer it to the Buddha. The Buddha recognizes the monkey is well-intentioned, but explains to him that removing the honeycomb will harm the bees, and asks him to place it back near the hive. The monkey is moved to a new compassion for the bees, and finds other ways to express his devotion to Buddha.

Like the monkey in this story, we are capable of learning from our mistakes, and of rising into a higher expression of ourselves when we are open to doing so. Whenever you take risks there will be some mistakes, and the key to navigating mistakes this year is to learn from them. Embrace each seeming setback as feedback, and come at your goal another way, based on what you have learned.

The Elephant, Monkey, Hare, and Bird – a story of cooperation

Another defining monkey trait is that of their sociability. Monkeys, like humans, are communal creatures. Both the negative and positive power of human sociability, especially as expressed through social media, will no doubt be on full display this year. Again, a popular Buddhist story featuring a monkey provides some guidance on how to manifest the positive side of community. In this story, an elephant, monkey, hare, and bird are all required to work together in order to harvest a fruit tree for their own survival. Each animal uses a physical ability unique to them to accomplish a key task related to the tree’s care and harvesting. Without any one of them, the tree would not survive.

True cooperation – the highest expression of our social nature – involves a mutual recognition and respect of others’ differences and strengths. When we are able to work in this way, nothing can stop us. When we can’t, we are our own worst enemy, mired in jealousy, fear, and conflict.

Monkey mother and baby, by Japanese Artist Mori Sosen, Edo Era

Another key aspect of monkeys’ social nature is reflected in monkey mothers – they are among the most nurturing and protective in the animal kingdom. They spend hours grooming, cuddling, teaching, and protecting their young, and are devastated at their loss. This maternal energy is something that lies within all of us, and is also a powerful  counterbalance to the less savory aspects of monkey energy. Love is the best compass. When in doubt, ask yourself ‘which is the most loving choice?’ in relation to others, and you can rarely go wrong.

In the Jataka Tales, the Monkey King forms a bridge with his body to save his fellow monkeys from attack by humans

These themes of monkey love and wisdom come together in one final Buddhist monkey story that I’d like to share, the Jataka tale The Monkey King. In this story, a monkey king stretches himself into a bridge that his monkey subjects use to escape an attacking human king. In doing so, the monkey king exhausts himself, and is captured by the invading king. However, the human king is so moved by the monkey king’s selflessness that he spares the monkey king, and a new alliance is formed.

A main risk of fast-paced, smart, alluring monkey energy is self-absorption. We see this all the time in how social media is often used in our culture – a perfect expression of unenlightened monkey energy. But when we tap into selflessness – based in caring, not martyrdom or self-immolation – there’s no telling what this passionate, creative energy can accomplish.

Traditional Hindu depiction of Hanuman with Rama and Sita revealed in his heart

This aspect of monkey symbology perhaps reaches its highest expression in that of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god. The most well-known portrayal of Hanuman is in the Ramayana, an epic Sanskrit poem telling the story of the Indian God Rama. The Ramayana is viewed as depicting the ideals in Hindu relationship – the ideal brother, wife, husband etc. Hanuman is Rama’s devoted friend, protector, and warrior. His devotion to Rama is unmatched.

What does it truly mean to be devoted, in a spiritual sense? To give ourselves over to love to such an extent that we are moved beyond our normal limitations. This kind of devotion is a powerful force, and we have to choose wisely where we place it. What in your life is worthy of your devotion? Do you have something? If so, are you all in? Or is  your devotion misplaced? If that’s the case, now is the time to pull back, before harm is done.

Traditional Thai depiction of the warrior aspect of Hanuman

Hanuman is also known for his bravery in battle. The boundary-pushing nature of monkey energy is bound to generate resistance, and we will no doubt see that on both a social and personal level this year. Humans naturally resist change. Sometimes we even resist it when we’ve set it in motion ourselves! What gets us through is courage, and often what is most needed is the courage to face the parts of ourselves holding us back, or keeping us mired in our less desirable attributes. In some Hindu sects, Hanuman is said to be the only god one may pray to when faced with evil or obscuring energies. His courage and faithfulness can withstand dark forces.

In the same way, let bravery and devotion guide you through any obscuring forces you encounter – inside or outside yourself.

Famous ‘Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil’ depiction on temple in Nikko, Japan

Another famous depiction of monkeys linking them to cutting through dark forces is found carved on a temple in Nikko – ‘Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil’. This piece isn’t meant to advocate repression or sticking our head in the sand. Instead it’s meant to represent our power of choice. We can choose what we put out into the world, and what in the world we connect with and propagate. Monkey years are intense and energetic times, full of possibility and potential. Most likely, whether you feel ready for it or not, change is coming. You won’t be able to control all of it, but you can control your response. Will you respond from the lower monkey expressions of fear, self-absorption, opportunism, or mischievousness? Or will you come from a place of wisdom, selflessness, devotion, and bravery? The choice is yours. And on a social level, ours.

Wishing you much joy, wisdom, equanimity and love as you traverse your Monkey Year!

Enlightened Pregnancy and the Bardos – Interview with Luisa Magarian

For my first post of 2016, I thought it apropos to go back to the beginning – the beginning of our lives, and of all life. I had the pleasure of interviewing Luisa Magarian, author of Enlightened Pregnancy: Connecting with Your Baby Spiritually. This book offers expecting mothers and their family members a way to connect and guide the spirit of their baby during pregnancy. It is based on teachings presented within the Tibetan Book of the Dead on how a spirit transits from life to life. Even if you are not pregnant or planning to be so, you will find this interview fascinating, especially if these teachings are new to you.

Luisa has studied meditation and mindfulness since 2002 and taught since 2008. Although American, she spent many summers in a highland Mayan town in Guatamala, and was recognized there as an iyoom, or sacred Mayan midwife. She also has degrees in Human Biology and Latin American Studies from Stanford.

Here is an excerpted version of my interview with her; the full interview is available as an mp3 at the end of the post.

 So first Luisa, I was wondering if you could describe Enlightened Pregnancy in your own words?

 Sure. Enlightened Pregnancy is a little book for expecting parents to help them connect with their baby, even before their baby is born, at a spiritual level. It contains poems, meditation exercises, and visualizations, among other things, to tap into your own deeply spiritual essence, and use that to guide your baby through his/her experience in the womb.

Thank you, I love it. I got interested in the energetics of pregnancy when I was pregnant, and how it impacts us energetically and spiritually as women, but this really focuses on the mother’s state of mind and through that on helping the baby through this transit, which I find really fascinating. How did you get the idea for this book?

 The idea started with a conversation between myself and my co-author Samvara a number of years ago. At the point that this idea came up, we were both using meditation and mindfulness in support of people facing serious illness and end of life, and found that these were really helpful tools. We started thinking about other times in life when people are going through big transitions, and how these same tools could be really beneficial. Pregnancy came to mind as the next obvious transition to focus on. We started exploring what is out there in terms of pregnancy and meditation and mindfulness, and specifically what was available in Tibetan Buddhism, and bringing these together.

And what led you to focus on the Tibetan Book of the Dead? Could you explain that book a bit for people that are not familiar with it?

 The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a fascinating book, it’s actually one of the most famous and well regarded books in Tibetan Buddhism. What it has in it is a really detailed study of what the spirit goes through at the end of life and afterwards. In the Tibetan worldview, life is cyclical, it is not linear in the way we often think of it, with a beginning, middle, and end. Each life flows into another life through reincarnation. In between lives there is a period of time when the spirit is not in a body, but in a dreamlike existence in between. Tibetan Buddhists have made a very detailed study of this in between time.

What we noticed is that that time – after one life and before the next – we often talk about it when thinking about a loved one who has recently passed away, but it’s also the exact same period of time a being is going through before entering a new life. It’s where, in the Tibetan worldview, the spirits of new babies are coming from. So we decided to look at that text and see what parts of it would be pertinent to pregnancy.

Yes, and you utilize that Tibetan knowledge as a framework to help a woman and her family to guide their baby towards birth. Since you also have a background as a Mayan iyoom [sacred midwife], how did that influence, or did it influence, the work and how you approached it?

It influenced the work more from a background perspective. It has deeply influenced me throughout my life. The content of the book closely follows the Tibetan Book of the Dead in terms of the period of time that corresponds to pregnancy. But having spent this time as a child in this Mayan town, and having close relationships with several of the iyooms in town, what I learned from them is that pregnancy and birth is inherently a sacred time. It is a time when women tap into deeper parts of themselves. So that understanding really cleaved into this book, if not in its words, then in its undertone.

Yes, and we don’t really get that perspective in this culture during pregnancy. Books like What to Expect When You’re Expecting are all about preparing for when the baby is here already, or for the physical birth. There isn’t a sense of bringing a spirit into incarnation, which is part of what’s going on, as part of the pregnancy process.

Yes, and what I’m hearing from women who have read this book is that they are having these experiences already during pregnancy, it’s just not something that we really talk about or focus on, but it’s still part of our experience of pregnancy and taking care of small children. So part of the goal of this book is bringing it more into the forefront of our consciousness.

Yes, and giving us a framework. So in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and Enlightened Pregnancy the idea of a bardo is really central. How would you explain the idea of a bardo to someone not familiar with it?

 A bardo is a state of existence. In the Tibetan worldview there’s this state of existence in between lives, called an intermediate state or bardo. There’s a particular one that a spirit lives in between conception and birth called the sidpa bardo, and that’s what Enlightened Pregnancy is really focusing on – that time period.

You can think of a bardo like a dream, that’s really the most similar thing we can compare it to in our own experience. So you can imagine that when you are dreaming, part of your mind and your spirit are in your body and your bed, but part of your mind and spirit are off having wild adventures. Sometimes they are fun, sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes they are confusing or scary. A bardo can be very similar for a baby in the womb – the body is there, the mind and spirit are kind of there, but the mind and spirit are also having these experiences in the bardo.

So how is the mother – or any family member reading this book to the baby – helping the spirit?

So each poem in the book is describing an aspect of the bardo that a being would typically experience. Through the imagery of the poem the person reading it, as well as the baby they are reading it for, gets a clearer picture. You know how sometimes a dream can be kind of confusing and overwhelming? You’re running around really fast, and things like that – imagine if you suddenly had a map, and you could choose where to go because you can see more clearly. That’s what the poems are designed to provide – guideposts for the spirit of the baby as it goes through these experiences.

What’s so fascinating with the guided meditations , and the various methods of centering that you include, is that it really requires the reader to shift into a more awakened or clear place in order to help guide the baby, so it really is this spiritual process for the mother or reader too.

 I thought it was interesting that you say in the book that any family member could participate in the reading and exercises. How does that work?

 I imagine most of the time it will be the mother reading the book, but I know fathers will be interested in it too. I’ve actually read it for four of my nieces and nephews. Each time I’ve done that, even if they were across the country, I could feel a connection with that spirit from far away. It was a beautiful experience for me, and I trust that it’s provided some benefit for them as well.

That’s beautiful! Do you think adoptive parents waiting for a child could potentially use this same process?

Oh absolutely. I think that could be a really beautiful experience for adoptive parents, especially because it would be a structured way of connecting with the baby before they get to meet it….Adoptive parents often have less ability to support the baby in utero than if they were carrying it themselves. They can’t choose what to eat for example. But they could support their baby’s spirit in this way.

What other advice do you have for expecting parents from a spiritual perspective?

I think noticing what you are feeling at the level of your spirit. Connecting into your heart on a day to day basis, and really honoring whatever you are noticing.

I’m hoping for people who read this book, that since it contains so many different flavors of meditation practices, that they will find at least one in there that really resonates, really feels wonderful to them. And since each of the practices tend to be pretty brief – you can do them in 1-5 minutes – that they will continue to practice even after reading the book, and maintain a practice after birth. That they will continue to connect to spirit, connect to the divine, in whatever way that manifests for them.

Thank you Luisa, for both this beautiful offering, and for speaking with me.

 You can listen to the entire interview streaming here:

Or download here (allow the file to open and begin playing, and then ‘Save As’:

Enlightened Pregnancy Interview

P.S. Thank you to everyone who participated in my Winter Solstice telemeditation and donation drive for The Breathe Network, and in the New Years book giveaway. I will be back in 2 weeks with my annual symbology reading of the Chinese/Tibetan New Year – we head into the Year of the Monkey February 8^th! Also, don’t forget that soon after I will be starting my Chakra Levels teleseminar, based on the series I ran here last year. We will focus on a personal pattern you are striving to change. I hope many of you will join me!

New Year’s Gratitude Book GIVEAWAY!

The end of the year is upon us, and as always I am very grateful for YOU, my readers, clients, and course participants. I feel very honored to share this spiritual journey that we are all on with you, and to be allowed to play a role in your healing, empowerment and awakening process, and to receive from you in return. Many times when I myself am feeling low, I receive an email or comment from someone sharing a breakthrough they have experienced, and my own faith in our innate self-healing abilities and spiritual nature is reinforced. Truly, the potential to heal the world lies within each of us, and your bravery, compassion, and commitment to spirit inspires me every day.

I also appreciate all of your shares and likes of posts here (especially on Facebook which I cannot track individually but can see the impact of in my stats.) The internet is full of dark places and connections, but it is also full of light and love-filled ones, and I’m happy we are all able to connect here. I am not able to spend as much time social networking or commenting on blogs as I once did, but this blog still holds a special place in my heart, as do many of yours.

Books have always been a huge part of my path – indeed my first posts here were book reviews and interviews with authors, and I was first exposed to all of my major teachers and mentors through their books. For that reason, a few years ago I initiated a New Years’ Book Giveaway. Every year, I select three of my favorite books published during the year that relate to the themes of this blog, and give one copy of each away through a comment lottery.

To be entered to win, please comment with a wish for the world in 2016. The wish may be for the entire world, or one sub group (or species!) within it. As you hit ‘post’, align your intent with your wish and send it out into the world from your heart as you send it out to the internet with your click. Be sure to enter your email address so that I may contact you (although that will only show for me.) You don’t have to use your real name, that’s up to you.

On Monday, January 4^th I will write down all of the emails on slips of paper, put them in a bowl, and my three children will each draw one out. You get whatever book I draw for (trust the universe on that) but you can select whether you would like a Kindle or print copy if you win.

Before I reveal the books I am giving out this year, I have a few ‘honorary mentions’ of books that I considered giving away that I would like to mention here:

Breakfast with Buddha, by Roland Merullo – part of a spiritual fiction trilogy (Lunch with Buddha, Dinner with Buddha) that combines road trips to sacred spots around the U.S. with spiritual teachings (Dinner with Buddha was released this year, the first two are older, but you would want to start with Breakfast.)

Enlightened Pregnancy: Connecting with Your Baby Spiritually, by Luisa Magarian – meditations and contemplations based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead to help a pregnant woman (and/or supporting partner or family members) connect with her baby on a spiritual level as he/she traverses the bardos.

Advanced Path: Guideposts on the Radiant Path to Liberation and Beyond, by Mu – lyrical verses to guide you on the path to awakening – or rather, to help you connect with your own inner guidance. A powerful vibration and pure wisdom radiate from this little book.

Rising Strong, by Brene Brown, social scientist and author of Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection writes wonderfully on the art of growing through mistakes, failures, and tragedy, backing up her insights with both research and real-life examples gleaned from interviews of many people. She doesn’t settle for feel-good positivity, but focuses on what works.

And here (drumroll) are the three books I’ve selected for this year’s giveaway (remember you can’t pick which you win, although you can pick Kindle or print):

Chakra Yoga, by Anodea Judith

A wonderful book complete with pictures on yoga asanas and related breathing and meditation practices linked to the chakras, by a reknowned pscyhologist and chakra author Anodea Judith.

 

Bouncing Forward: Transforming Bad Breaks into Breakthroughs, by Michaela Haas

A wonderful book on post-traumatic growth, based in both research and interviews of Maya Angelou,  jazz legend and Auschwitz survivor Coco Schumann, Brigadier General and first Iraq war prisoner Rhonda Cornum, animal behaviorist and autistic author Temple Grandin, co-founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Cindi Lamb, and several more.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Latest from the author of Eat, Pray, Love, this is a beautifully written and inspiring book on what it means to open beyond your fears and invite creativity to move through you. Although she focuses a lot on writing as a creative outlet, this book is really for anyone and everyone.

 

So please leave a comment with your wish for the world below, send it out with intent, and check back on January 4th for the winners! Allow yourself the potential to receive!

Happy holidays and New Year to you. Wishing you much love and light. Namaste–