Truth

Do I Trust Myself?

I had the most beautiful session yesterday with a client whom I have known for many years. We delved into some deep soul contract work (the subject of December's master class, in case you missed it! See below). As a part of this journey into her soul contract, we examined the idea of who we are in terms of trust.

How do we relate to the idea of trust and truth? How do we trust ourselves? How does that inform our identity, our I AM? In turn, how does that affect the way we live and the choices we make?

It can be easy to trust ourselves when things are going well. But the true test of our ability to ground in and fully surrender to radical self-trust comes when it feels like we have no idea what the heck we're doing. In those moments, we have the opportunity to pause, remember who we truly are, and say, "Yes!" to ourselves and our innate wisdom.

As I reflect on some of my major life events of 2017, I see plenty of places where I was able to drop into deep self-trust.

...and I also see some areas where it took me longer than I would have liked to get to that place, or where I didn't trust myself and my innate wisdom because I wanted something else to happen. In these moments, I ended up wishing I had just listened to that whisper at the core of my being that always tells me the truth.

All of these moments are important. I have learned just as much (more, actually) from those times of hesitancy and resistance as I have from my "easy" wins. As long as we can do so without punishing ourselves or spiraling into guilt, shame or blame, reviewing those times when we didn't fully trust ourselves can provide a tremendous opportunity to alter our patterns of behavior.

The more we can surrender into radical trust of our truest nature, the freer we will be to put it into action and show up the way we want to in the world. Here's to a 2018 full of opportunities to trust ourselves even more!

Journal Prompts:

As we head into the final days of 2017, I invite you to examine your relationship with trust--particularly how you trust yourself (or not):

When is it easy for me to trust myself?
When do I find it challenging?
What are the differences in those circumstances?
What does it take for me to bridge the gap?

Solar Eclipse: Courage & the Lion's Heart

My Heart and I have a pretty good system of open communication. Sometimes she speaks to me in words, using clear, precise language. Sometimes she expresses herself with a tender squeeze, or a wrenching twist of outrage or agony. She'll quiver with excitement, sing crystal tones of joy or hum in general contentment.

But whatever the message and means of conveying it, my Heart always tells me the Truth.

I wasn't always as skilled at understanding the deepest messages of my Heart as I am now, but that has come with years of practice of remembering how to get out of my own way and sit in stillness.

As children, we enjoy a graceful and easy connection with our Hearts and their truths. We are governed by the simple desires to be loved, to be seen, to feel connection... we bare our Hearts and their messages to the world.

I hardly need to tell you what usually happens next. We shut down, we step away from our Hearts and their truths, and we forget how to embody that effortless grace and communication.

But the good news is, we can always return to that effortless space. Our Hearts never abandon us, and even if we have closed ourselves off to hearing their truth, they still whisper in our ears.

Under this powerful Eclipse portal, that whisper is becoming a roar.

Any message of our Hearts that we haven't quite been allowing ourselves to hear or honor will now come blazing through in a way that we cannot possibly ignore. What is required now for us to come into harmonious alignment with these energies?

Courage.

Courage (comes from the root cor, or heart) isn't about being "brave" or "fearless." True Courage means living the Truth of our Hearts, whatever that might be. It means creating space and stillness to rediscover in ourselves that whisper of a message, that tender squeeze or drumming intensity. Courage means perceiving this Truth and being willing to honor it by acting upon the message. In short, this Eclipse Portal encourages us to wear our Hearts on our sleeves.

"But it's not safe to do that! Look at the state of the world! Why would I want to make myself vulnerable?"

Our mind presents reasonable doubts in its efforts to protect us. To that, I answer, look at the Lion/ess. The Lioness is truly the Queen of her Queendom. She is an apex predator whose presence maintains equilibrium for an entire ecosystem. Do you think she has any qualms about living the truth of her Heart?

This Solar Eclipse in Leo invites us all to go within and discover our own Lion's Heart. How can we unapologetically claim our seat on the throne of our Heart and live in total sovereignty as the Queen/King of our Queendom/Kingdom?

From one Lion Heart to another, you look great out there.

Truth Belongs to No One

Originally published on Eagle Song January 9, 2016.

Yesterday I did some deep healing work on myself and moved massive amounts of energy. The session was brief, but very intense. During that time, a past life of mine was revealed to me for the purpose of integrating those energies into my current embodiment.

I saw myself immediately as a young teenage boy (maybe 13 or 14 years old) on a vision quest. I was sitting in a snowy forest at nighttime, singing to myself. I saw that I was practicing trust, but at the same time knew that I was so cold, and felt alone and afraid. But I sat in trust anyway, and I sang.

I’ve been out here for days and I can’t go home. There’s a feeling like I have to prove something, but I don’t know what it is that I have to prove. There’s an element of not being good enough. No one expects me to bring anything home or succeed. Fox appears to me. Fox of the inquisitive mind, of keen observation, of knowledge.

I channeled these messages from my guides, who were speaking to me as the boy on the vision quest (and inviting me to integrate these messages into myself as Michelle):

“‘Too clever for your own good,’ Fox Child. You ask these questions that challenge the system, and so people think you do not believe. They think you will not succeed. People view your questions as a challenge to what they hold dear, and so you are cast aside. But it is not out of malice that you ask these questions. It is out of love and it is out of exploration. When we say it is out love, it is not out of love for the system, but it is out of love for knowledge and love for Truth. And so, Fox Child, we invite you to continue to ask your questions and to trust that the system in which you are succeeding is not necessarily the system into which you are striving to fit. The reason that you feel alone and the reason that you feel cast out from this Tribe is because you are of a new process, a new energy that does not fit the old beliefs. And when you question them out of your love for Truth and out of your love for exploration and inquisition, it is viewed as harmful, and it is viewed as malicious and disobedient. The reason no one expects you to succeed is because you are asking all the “wrong” questions. And so you, yourself, brought on this vision quest. You yourself thought it would be helpful. And yet, there is an expectation when you return to your tribe that either you will have heard nothing because they believe that you do not listen. When they tell you things they believe that you do not listen, and so they believe that you will not hear if Great Spirit speaks to you. They think that maybe you will have learned your lesson and that you will obey and that you will listen.

“But just because you are not accepting what they tell you as absolute Truth doesn’t mean that you are not listening! You must always continue to ask your questions, Fox Child. Because when you ask, you show your love for Truth. And you understand that Truth is an ever-changing entity that does not exist in a static Universe. Truth belongs to no one. This might feel very isolating to you because other people work in service to established ideas. Your tribe exists in service to itself and in service to its established identity. And when you ask your questions, they feel threatened and they feel unstable and they feel as though you are challenging their established identity. They do not see that your inquiries come out of love for Truth itself, rather than an idea which was established by others, long ago. Maybe there is some sadness there for their own lack of discovery of personal Truth.

“And so, at times it may seem a lonely path. At times you may sit out here, in the cold, by yourself, feeling that no one will expect you to succeed and no one supports you. Oh, but Fox Child! We see you, and we love you, and we see that you ask these questions in service to Truth and in service to Love. And we support you. We know that this is not an easy path that you have chosen. There are times when you will not feel us here, watching you. That is because there are times in which you need to know what it feels like to be alone. And yet, we encourage you to keep asking these questions because your work does not go unnoticed and your work does not go unacknowledged in the cosmic context. Oh, Fox Child! We will see that no harm comes to you through this dark night. We will see that you are surrounded and protected, though you will not know that we are there. You will not know, and you will feel alone for now. And you will experience this dark night of the soul as though you were completely on your own in this forest of snow. And you will witness only the Fox, your fellow Truth-Seeker. He will be your only companion for this dark night. But no harm will come to you, and you will sit by your fire. And you will sing your questions.”

These messages ring very true for me through my exploration of my work and of living in service to Spirit through the pursuit of Truth. I’ll be sitting with this information and integrating these energies, and perhaps later I can expound further upon the implications.

Many thanks, also, to Fox. I look forward to getting to know you.