My decisions, my healing, my path was made possible by believing in myself. I couldn’t rely on others to approve of or understand me, so I had to learn to trust myself — my own wisdom, my own intuition, my own inner compass. (I was also fortunate enough to marry someone who modeled that strength for me.) Therefore it is not natural for me to depend on other people for the answers because I know the answers are within. I rarely experience cognitive dissonance or feel a need to validate my decisions because I am my own authority. I don’t allow others to force their belief systems on me, so I wouldn’t attempt to do the same.

I am not here to preach about trusting yourself, but I can show you that it’s possible. You have everything you need within. You do not need anyone’s approval to be yourself. Your own approval and alignment is more powerful than anything you can receive externally.

And allow me to remind you (because you already know) that you will make the greatest mark by simply being yourself and choosing your authenticity. Few things are more impactful than witnessing someone choose their own happiness and sovereignty. Think of the resonant effect that has on your community, your children, your family, your loved ones.

Do you want to see the people you love believe in themselves enough to take risks, choose joy, and have the confidence to be exactly who they are? Do you want them to feel more powerful than their fears?

So why not you?

It’s easy to choose fear. It’s easy to choose the reactive response. But it’s also SO easy to choose the arms of love in THIS moment. It’s so easy. Fear says you can’t, but you are more powerful than that. Love is always waiting behind the veil of your beliefs and illusions. She’s always reaching out her hand.

You’ll spend your entire life trying to fill the void. You can build the safest and sturdiest cage. You can control every aspect of your existence as best you can, fabricating futures that will never happen, denying the bliss of the present moment in exchange for the mind’s false certainty.

Or you can choose to stay open and experience your divinity in the omnipresent ecstasy of NOW. To live and choose love and know the meaning of happiness.

The world will exist as it always does. The polarities and the divides can go on. They can attempt to take away your life force. But at least for NOW you and I can choose to experience and live in the reality of love. And that’s enough. It’s always enough. In fact, it’s everything. It’s how we change the world.

It’s a common thing for humans to deny their true essence. Many of us have been ingrained to do so since childhood. There are expectations, learned behaviors, emotional adaptations, and more — all of which create these boxes to protect us, keep us hidden, and help us survive. These boxes become a way of living in and understanding the world. If something goes against what we are comfortable with — ultimately against what the brain has convinced us is *true* based on the information that makes sense to the box *we* created — then our brain will do everything it can to deny, suppress, or fight against it. We don’t know what exists outside of the box, therefore it’s scary, therefore it’s uncomfortable to make space for it, therefore it needs to be proven wrong.

This box that the brain creates becomes so powerful that many of us will choose to exist in a state of dissatisfaction, lack of vigor, (okay, let’s just say it UNHAPPINESS) in order to maintain what is known. But truth doesn’t just go away. The essence of self is something deeper than the biological suit. Denying who you are only delays the process of awakening. And awakening WILL happen. But first, how do you even know whether you are denying yourself? There are certainly the clear and obvious symptoms, which most of us know. But there are some key tells that are a bit more subtle, like:

• Falling in love, intense attraction or infatuation: What is it about the person that draws you in? These intense and often inescapable emotions are usually an indication that there is something about this person reflecting an aspect of self that wants to be expressed. Explore the emotions instead of pushing them away.

• Feeling triggered, annoyed by someone, obsessed with a certain topic: Often these obsessions or fixations are trying to tell you something about an aspect of self that is being suppressed or denied. If you are comfortable with your decisions and world view, then these types of things generally won’t annoy or trouble you. Feeling empowered to change a situation is a much different energy than responding with hatred or obsession over someone else’s decisions. Address it with yourself, first, before reacting and attempting to push your point of view.

• Lack of enthusiasm: Not looking forward to the day? Even on my days off, I practically jump out of bed at 5 a.m., because I can’t wait to start the day. If every day feels the same, if you feel smothered by your obligations, or if you have to schedule things days/weeks/months in advance that you *actually* enjoy, then you are denying your happiness and therefore denying your essence. The natural state is bliss. The natural state is in flow with the cycles and changes of life… not running from them.

I’m not going to delve into depression and anxiety because I’m not a qualified therapist and I won’t pretend to be, but I will talk about my personal experience. I spent many years doing what I thought was normal and necessary in order to achieve a certain standard of living; but achieving a STANDARD is not LIVING. Some mornings, I would be in such deep dread to exist through a simple workday that I made myself physically nauseous. Some days, my anxiety was so intense that I would have to leave my desk, walk, or sit in my car and listen to music just to muster enough strength to continue with my work… just to be able to BREATHE normally. There was a time when I was addicted to news and Twitter updates because it served as a perfect distraction from the reality right in front of me (but now I don’t follow news or watch TV at all). I remember watching the landscapers outside my office building and wondering what I did wrong in life to be locked indoors next to the screen and not out there with the earth.

It wasn’t any one event in particular that was making me anxious or upset (although sometimes it can be masked that way). It was an overall disconnection with myself. I was bored and dissatisfied to the point of misery. The authentic me values freedom, movement, and the natural world. The me I thought I had to be scheduled everything, sat for at least 9 hours a day instead of staying active, stared a computer screen instead of the stars, organized my day based on meetings and menial tasks instead of the sun and movement of planets, and existed inside of a poorly ventilated concrete building instead of being somewhere deep in the woods. Some people thrive in these environments. I am not one of those people. And don’t fool yourself if you aren’t either. There are many stories you can tell yourself to keep a lid on your truth. It’s all (to put it bluntly) bullshit.

This reality isn’t designed to operate in a constant state of denial. You can only push away your desires for so long. If you’re afraid of change, then the best thing you can do is to make the changes for yourself, NOW, before the Universe takes action FOR you. Because what you deny comes back to you with equal and intense force. As my teacher would say, it’s simple physics. The intense anxiety I felt and the mornings when I didn’t want to get out of bed — those were the opposite emotions of what I was meant to experience. When you are in alignment, in connection with your essence, you’ll feel similar intense emotions, but they will be pleasure instead of pain. They will feel natural instead of unmanageable. And sometimes discomfort is necessary in order to come to a state of pleasure. It’s ripping off the cosmic band-aid to heal and become whole again.

And of course, life will still bring experiences or lessons that won’t always be pleasurable. But when you are operating in a state of alignment, then you’ll have the strength and wisdom necessary to navigate these experiences in a way that allows you to grow and learn from them. It’s simply being present with the ebbs and flows, changes and shifts, highs and lows. Everything comes to an end at some point, but since you have the capacity to live NOW, why don’t you?

Awakened

With one look, one memory,

Into a spiral of dharma.

On destiny’s map, I found love

In molten rock,

Monuments and mountains,

Portals and raging waterfalls,

Testaments to the gods.

I found purpose

In bare feet,

Movement of muscles and the glow

Of exposed skin and deep breaths,

Pages upon pages of writings

On destiny and desire.

We stayed within our boxes, but

My walls were crumbling,

And sacred contracts became

Invisible lines. Freedom,

The true love that reaches her hand

Begging you to jump. Waiting,

Always waiting.

Always waiting.

Never leaving.

Yet while this world grows lighter,

Other walls grow stronger.

Somewhere in my silent reflections

On longing,

Duty became an impenetrable fortress,

No longer in my memory,

But deeply in yours.

While I’ve been harnessing power

Within,

Other sources are so freely given,

And invisible lines become stern ships

Making waves

That want to drown me.

I can no longer cross that line,

Nor will I submit to shame.

I took the hand of freedom,

Of LOVE

When I chose ME.

These boxes of separation

do not belong in my reality.

They’re designed to keep you apart

From who you really are,

What you really want,

And can last a lifetime if you let them.

(And you might.)-

But I’m done waiting.

I made my choice, long ago,

The moment I decided to come here

For love.

Cancer. Cardinal Water.

Water is not soft like we assume. It takes enormous power and strength to break through barriers, flow around and through obstacles, surge from the earth by the strength of its own flow.

Water knows itself. Water protects itself. Water protects you. The great mother will wrap you with love in her nourishing goddess-force. She will hold you to her heart as long as you need her.

She will refuse to let you go unless she believes you’re ready.

Tread lightly when you encounter the one who births worlds into being. Don’t underestimate her strength, her ability to love, her ability to destroy that which prevents life. She may keep you comfortable for a time, but that is not the ultimate intention.

The goddess is not the shell you see and accept, it’s the life force within the shell. It won’t reveal itself unless you fully disarm the stories you’ve told yourself since childhood. She will not (forever) accept your false beliefs. She will not (forever) accept your games. She will hold you to your promises.

She sees and knows more than you can perceive or understand.

You may think you know the divine feminine, but you won’t truly know until she emerges from the safety of long-held belief systems and cries out for your awakening like a mother calls for her child.

The comfort of the womb draws you in, but by entering, you agree to be birthed into form.

On this path of life, you will encounter many teachers and guides who are willing to share their personal knowledge to support and/or catalyze your journey.

The role of knowledge is to help you awaken your authentic self, and a teacher in integrity will empower you to discover and harness your unique gifts.

A teacher should not make you feel dependent on them.

A teacher should not discourage you from self-exploration beyond their teachings.

A teacher should not claim to have gifts or abilities that are impossible for others.

A teacher should not make it their goal to achieve something in your practice/life that does not feel authentic and natural.

A teacher should teach what they KNOW, what they practice. The best offering someone can give you is their own creation from their individual essence and unique wisdom — not a regurgitated approach from someone else’s teachings that hasn’t been truly lived and embodied.

A teacher should have your best interest in mind throughout your connection and journey together — not the best interest of their personal ego, desires, business, or profit.

Too often, especially in this age of TRUTH, we see “leaders” knowingly or unknowingly use their gifts and abilities to harvest energy from people in vulnerable positions. It is more important that ever to prioritize integrity and ethics in all manners of teaching — and to teach empowerment over dependency. This is a journey of SELF.

You are your own greatest teacher.

Relationships are sacred mirrors. In the quantum realm, everything and everyone are projections of your co-creation with the universe.

Relationships are vision holders, sparks of inspiration, catalysts for growth, protectors, guardians, guides, agitators, and more — showing you the many ways of existing in this human/earth experience. They teach you about connection, love, and living by being/embodying their individual essence and emanating the different manifestations of creation and life force.

When you play the expectations game in your relationships/friendships, you are essentially shutting down the movement of energy that forges the connection. We all have different ways of giving and receiving love, and embracing these differences expands our own capacity to love. Without expectation or demands, the energy between your connection will flow naturally, as it is meant to. It then becomes easier to know the appropriate and beneficial level of energy exchange and be at peace that everything manifests as it should.

People don’t exist to serve you. They are a mirror of the experience of life and the connection to self. When you push away, judge, criticize, obsess, or feel disappointed in someone else, you are doing the same to yourself. Instead of projecting on someone else, turn that back and ask, what do I need? Where am I not showing up for myself? Why am I triggered by this behavior, and how can I best reflect the energy I want to see mirrored back to me? —> “Nobody owes me anything.” These four words can change your life.

At the same time, it’s important to close energetic connections with those who are essentially draining or manipulating your life force for their own personal gain. Closure is not necessary in these situations. Just walk away and reclaim your energy.

These past few months have been huge testing grounds for relationships. Everything built on an unsteady foundation is coming apart. All of it is bringing you back to yourself — because the only way you can truly LOVE another without attachments or expectations is to love yourself first.

The age of giving our power away is over. This is when we reclaim our self-sovereignty. This is when we reclaim our truth.

No person or institution is going to carry the work for us. No one is our savior. The savior has been reborn within.

The Aquarian age teaches us that our individual experience becomes the collective experience. Our individual healing resonates across the cosmos. One voice can transform a galaxy. Your voice.

You have the ability to choose yourself. To choose not to participate in forces of control designed to subjugate your divinity. To choose to break free from the mind-altering, hypnotic mechanisms of domination and oppression. If we all made the choice to reclaim our power, to reclaim LOVE as the guiding force that weaves the earthly experience — then our experience would be very different. Our world would be very different.

TRUTH is the magic elixir of transformation. Truth awakens dormancy. But we have to be willing to step into the possibilities of awakening and challenge our belief systems. To see and understand both the light and darkness of our reality.

The darkness will continue to become more extreme and obvious until we realize that *we are the ones giving it power.* But we can choose... not to put someone or something else on the pedestal. To put ourselves there. To put LOVE there. Love of self (divinity) = love of existence = love of truth = love of ALL.

A MYSTIC woman is a wild creature. She is made. She is deliberately forged by something mysterious. She is created for a purpose. She spends all her life seeking, for there is nothing else worth doing.

Each time she returns, she is a little different. What she sees must change her. She dies every day. She is reborn in every moment. Can you even begin to understand what such a life can do?

Whatever you have built around yourself to create comfort, it cannot stand in the blazing fire of a mystical woman. She is the seer of souls. She is the womb that births the Divine into the flesh and bone of matter.

She doesn't mean to burn your village to the ground, but she has seen what you are meant to become. You are not a peasant sheering sheep, as you have thought. You are a KING dressed in rags who has amnesia. It is her assumption that you have come to be reborn. If you haven't, turn back now, while the world you know still exists.

If she touches you, and all the voices on the wind go silent, if you feel you are in a snow globe when you embrace her, she is your destroyer. She will destroy the false idol you see in the mirror. She will smash it open, because it is your prison.

If you wish to stay there, she will shatter you another way. She will leave. A mystic may not for long engage with that which is too small for her, unless she is nurturing a seedling into its destiny. But the seed must be capable of fulfilling its own potential.

The Mystery, in its very nature, must show you what has never been seen, never been written, never been known, because before you were forged, it was impossible. The arts of women have been called the dark arts for too long, and they are the keys to infinity. Infinite form. Infinite being. Infinite life.

If your dreams are not filled with the slightest longing of Mystery, you might better leave, because a mystic will see things that are invisible to you. She will feel things that you cannot feel beneath the layers of numbness you have wrapped yourself in. She will call upon your true self, your divinity, and she will sing it down into you, into herself, and life will never be the same.

— Alison Nappi

The experience of beauty, the energy of bliss, is here in the present moment. It’s here when I can witness the moment without expectation, when I can release my shield and see the magic and energy in every breath and blade of grass.

The past is a distant memory to me; has always been that way. The me, here, does not exist there. Everything I was seeking then, is now.

The future is a smokescreen, an illusion of time and the mind. Why plan for it, without knowing anything about it? Why waste our lives for a future we have never met? If current events have taught us anything — it’s that we don’t know, can never know. All that we hope we might achieve THEN, is only NOW. This is the only moment I have.

It all ends eventually. That IS the only truth I know. So am I experiencing the gifts handed to me? Am I creating the dreams and desires that fill the pages of my life? Am I choosing love over fear? And what is the fear?

Am I allowing fear of death to manage my experience of life? Is the ego so sensitive that the choice becomes expectation over ecstasy?

Or is the true fear actually the great unknown — the moment I achieve everything I want, everything I came here to do?

The “work” encompasses our entire existence. This is learning ground; by our mere incarnation as human beings, we are constantly experiencing lessons. It’s the wheel of karma and dharma. By learning, by experiencing, and through self-inquiry and growth, we evolve into a greater purpose on a much larger wheel.

Through the very nature of being human, we are wholly imperfect and always learning. Every day you are learning. Every day you are expanding your perceptions. Every day you are making choices based on limited information. And so is everyone else. So am I. As we shift from energies of individual survival to collective survival, the realizations of the human experience become more numerous and extreme, and the heart breaks open seeking an experience of oneness while still fighting for survival. We are learning so much, so fast, trying to fit every action into a box of right versus wrong.

There are also other boxes to consider. There’s an important box called “lesson.” A box that is simply “information.” A box called “compassion.” A box called “trust.” A box called “acceptance.” There are boxes that allow us to grow and learn without hurting one another to avoid being hurt.

The more time we spend in authentic awareness of SELF, in healing and growing as an individual expression of consciousness, we take the most important step towards the greater work on the collective experience. Going within is the most difficult and essential work. A person prioritizing their healing won’t seek to recreate an unhealed experience. It isn’t a contest. We don’t need to prove anything. Nor is it necessary to shout our progress from the rooftops. It’s a personal journey; we get there when we are ready.

By better understanding the wheel of your individual reality, your karma (experiences) and dharma (actions), the lessons integrated WITHIN then reflect outward into a new reality of expanded awareness, compassion, and LOVE.