Dear traveler of life,
It has been a bit of an uphill battle for many of us over the past few months. Even with the immense beauty and warmth of summer, it can feel like there is something “off.” I have certainly felt this way. It’s almost like a cruel joke when it’s so gorgeous out but your internal state of being doesn’t match the external.
All summer, leading up to the Lion’s Gate portal of 8/8 (as I shared in my last email), there has been an incredible amount of light coming in, blasting the shadows at us.
Transmuting the Shadows
At any rate, for me, this light coming in has been about illuminating self-doubt. Yes, even with things I have accomplished and achieved, sometimes I still doubt myself and my abilities to keep going. I wonder if I’m doing enough, or if I’m doing “it” right. There seems to be no conscious reason for this. It’s just old stuff, from childhood and past lives.
Many of us can feel like there are two parts of ourselves, one part that knows that moving forward is what’s best, and another part that isn’t so sure.
And with all the inner work that so many of us put into ourselves (myself included), we may wonder….
How can we still feel like this? Does this stuff even work?
Yes, I too question it all. I have crises of faith at times. Sometimes I feel very disconnected from my guides. I know they’re there, but I don’t feel them all the time. Then I wonder if I’m doing something wrong.
And yet, the wheels of dharma continue to turn. As wise Buddhist masters have taught, suffering is inevitable in life.
Earth is a difficult school. We are here to work on a lot of lessons. And the learnings, through situations and relationships with others, will continue to ebb and flow in our lives. Coming and going. In our face and then retreating. Like waves.
We just want it to be over sometimes. We just want to be done with the lessons and the learnings and just float along.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
But that’s not why we are here. Sure, we get times of respite to integrate. And this is very important – allowing ourselves times to rest.
Yet, our Higher Selves set up our soul contracts ahead of time, along with the Council of Elders in our Akashic Records, to work on karmic pattern-breaking. (In my time in the Akashic Records, I have yet to see a soul contract be changed…. although I’m sure it’s possible.)
We Make Assumptions
If we are struggling with something, we often jump to conclusions about why we are having such a hard time. These assumptions can be really negative ones – like that we must have done something really bad in a past life, that God is punishing us, or that our spirit guides have abandoned us.
Instead, can we ask ourselves this: I may not understand why this is happening, but I ask for help in getting through it.
Prayer is so powerful – asking our Divine helpers (especially angels) can really start to shift the energy so we begin to grow and learn, even in the midst of pain.
As for the all the inner work actually making a difference, ask yourself where you were a year ago today. Do you feel better now than you did then? If you’ve been helping yourself you’re your spiritual tools (meditation, releasing emotions, digging into and separating from ego, connecting with higher guidance, etc.), then I’m guessing the answer is yes.
(Pssst… all those tools I just mentioned are in my book Tools for the Awakening Soul.)
Use Your Tools to Bounce Back
It’s just that we are taught to expect to feel good, all the time. And that’s just not how life is.
Thankfully, what is true, in my experience, is that we move through the hard times more easily with the tools we have learned. When we remember to apply them, we move into a state of peace and trust much more fluidly that we would have in the past.
A number of trees were cut down this past winter in the land behind ours. There are hundreds of stumps of what were once trees scattered around. It was painful for me to walk back there and see them (I touch the stumps as I walk past, thanking them for their life whenever I can). But now with the growing season of summer, so many of the tree stumps have saplings growing from its sides. It’s beautiful to see the life returning to what seemed to be dead. The tree is resilient and comes back to life.
Maybe we can be the same. Just like the cycles that continue to go up and down, we can get cut down and still come back.
And, when all else fails, we can keep few things in mind.
One is that the only certainty in life is that time passes and change in inevitable (which can be really good in some circumstances!).
And the other is the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Flowing right through this with you,
Rachel
P.S. I have been meditating on giving back more, which is something that is close to my heart (and what I used to do in non-profits). I would like this spiritual work to be accessible to anyone who desires it. For those with financial need, I am now going to be offering one guidance session a month (Akashic Records reading, intuitive life coaching, or hypnotherapy) at a sliding scale rate. Please reach out if that is you and I can share what this might look like!
by Heart Light Digital