My Soul Journey

I went away to spend time on the river and I fell in love. I went away to spend time on the river and I had a love affair with myself and the natural world. I went away to spend time on the river and my animal body came alive in wild nature. I went away to spend time on the river only to discover that the river already lived inside me, dammed up by years of concrete walls erected so long ago that I had forgotten they were there. I went away to spend time on the river, to have its flowing waters nourish me in landscapes that had been parched, to reopen my own inner tributaries, to allow the waters to flow freely again. I went away to spend time on the river and found Mother Earth patiently waiting for me to flow back home to myself.

My time on the flowing waters of Green River, winding through 86 miles of ancient canyon and cottonwood groves cracked open my own inner wellsprings. It will take time to process and integrate all that I experienced, but I wanted to share while my time on the river is still fresh in my memory, while I can still hear the rushing waters of the river’s flow constantly in the background, while I can still feel its lapping waters brush against my body in the hot sun, while I can still see the towering canyons clearly in my mind’s eye, and while I can still feel Mother Earth embracing me in her arms.

I went away to spend time on the river, away from modern civilization. No cars, no cell phones, no motors, no lights. I fell in love. I fell in love with the natural world. It is a love that has been patiently waiting for me to return to it, to realize it has always been there, waiting for me to spend time exploring its plethora of delights. My first night camping on the river, I felt strongly called to sleep outside my tent, directly under the open sky, just like the trees, plants, and rocks that surrounded me, with no barrier between myself and the world I inhabit. I didn’t sleep very much that night because I spent so much time staring up in awe at the dazzling sky enveloping me. Miles and miles away from city lights, the darkness of the new moon set the stage for the expansive universe to present herself to me in full glory, like a proud jeweler displaying everything in her collection, not for sale, just for beauty. At one point, the infinitely sparkling night sky transformed right before my eyes into a floating river of stars and I had the distinct sensation that our planet was a beach ball and I merged with it, rooted firmly in the center of the sphere, turning on a shared axis, as Gaia and I rotated through the starry universe. In that moment, there was no separation between me and Planet Earth. I was a part of her and she was a part of me. The contours of my own body were the contours of her landscape. Blood flows through me like rivers in her canyons. My love for Gaia is the same as my love for myself and I will care for her the same way I love and care for my body.

Mother Earth is a patient lover. She holds no jealousies or resentments for how long we have left her. She is always waiting to welcome us home in her embrace, whenever we are ready to return to her love.

Our children have a way of reflecting to us our own truths. Last night my nine year old son was telling me how annoying he finds his six year old sister to be, “Neli stands for Never-Ending Loud and Impatient girl,” he proclaimed as I was putting him to bed. He was pleased with himself for making up the acronym. I asked him to try and be kinder to his sister and he said point-blankly, “We all have positive qualities and negative qualities. I’m just telling the truth.” For some reason, at that moment, I felt called to ask him, “Sebi, what’s my negative quality?” Without even skipping a beat, he immediately blurted out, “You’re no fun.” Ouch, that one hurt. First, it hurt to hear that this is how my son experiences me. Second, it also hurt because I know that at heart I’m a really playful and fun person by nature. It was sobering and sad for me to acknowledge that my kids don’t get to see that side of me, and for me to be reminded of how difficult it is to allow that part of myself to come out, especially in the trenches of parenting. “Really?” I asked, trying to salvage some sense of self-esteem. My son is really intuitive. He probably picked up that his comment affected me, so he hedged it by responding, “I mean sometimes you can be fun, but sometimes you aren’t.” My daughter then chimed in, “Plus, you’re tired all the time.” Oh boy, your children really know how to call it like it is.

I do take things way too seriously. I work hard. I’m focused, I’m disciplined, I’m organized, I stay on task, I plan ahead. I’m also constantly reminding my kids to do their homework, practice piano, start their showers, brush their teeth, put on sunscreen, finish dinner, clear dishes, etc, etc. This doesn’t leave very much room for me to be fun, spontaneous, or playful with my kids. What my soul evolution is asking of me right now is to let loose, allow myself to play, and find the lightness and joy in the journey. To be less outcome-oriented and more present in the moment. To relax, to take the pressure off of myself to do it just right. It was ingrained in me growing up to focus on work first and to play later. The playful girl inside me has been neglected for a long time, so long that sometimes she finds herself asking if she knows how to play. But I know she does, it’s a part of her true nature. She just needs the time and space and permission to come back out and play. I’ll be going on a river rafting/yoga/soul journey trip down the Green River in Desolation Canyon in Utah in a few weeks and the playful little girl in me can’t wait to surrender to the magic of the river and allow herself to FLOW like water. She wants to have a lot of fun, and she wants to bring that fun back to her kids and her family and her household.

To end on an uplifting note, I wanted to share the Mother’s Day card my son made for me this year. The acronym he chose for MOM was Magical, Open, Miracle. I know moms already deal with too much guilt. So it’s good to remember that even if our kids don’t always see us as being “fun,” they also see our other amazing qualities as well. We don’t have to be perfect for them to think we are the best. In fact, it’s probably better if we don’t aim for perfection, but merely to be truly ourselves, and open to hearing what they have to say to us.

I’ve been sitting with and observing my relationship to my ego. As I have followed my inner guidance to become more visible in various ways over the past few months, the process has shed light on parts of my ego that may not have surfaced without experimenting with visibility. I find it difficult to define terms such as soul or ego, because my definition and relationship to such concepts keeps evolving as I evolve, but if I’m going to write about the ego, I at least need to share how I currently am using the term. For me right now, when I talk about the ego, I am referring to that part of myself that is still attached to my smaller identity, that part of my self that still feels insecure about her intrinsic worth and thus seeks validation from others, or compares herself to others and external measures of success to make herself feel worthy, that part of myself that still clings to the illusion of separation between myself and others and the collective.

I have been intentionally devoting myself to loosening my identification with the ego and strengthening my connection to my larger identity, what Ariel Spilsbury calls our mythic identity, or what Bill Plotkin refers to as our mythopoetic identity, the bigger story of our lives that we are all born into, and that can not be reduced to mere titles or roles or success as measured by income, Instagram followers, or books published. Our bigger mythic identities are usually best captured by images, metaphors, stories, dreams, symbols and archetypes that want to be expressed through us and how we embody our lives. So it is with humility that I acknowledge that in writing these blogs and posting my videos, there was a part of my ego that was still wanting validation for who I was and what I was doing. In this age of social media and digital overload, it is so tempting to fall prey to these illusory measures of self worth. I am questioning myself even as I write this post right now, what is my motivation to share my writing with others? Am I being hypocritical by publicly posting about how we shouldn’t need to rely on external measures of validation? Am I still seeking some validation by sharing this? I am still living into these questions. I know that my larger mythic identity wants to express herself and to be seen, and I also know that my smaller ego still rears her head and photo-bombs me from time to time. But mostly, I write today to share the message that our true worth is an intrinsic part of who we are and not something we have to prove to ourselves or others.

I was chatting with someone recently about the dilemma I face when people ask me what I do. On one level, I can simply answer the question with, “I’m a psychiatrist.” But I increasingly find that narrow description of what I do to be inadequate to describe all of who I am. Perhaps the question itself is telling. For so many of us, our professional work is what we predominantly identify with, because it takes up so much of our time and energy that we have little room and space to develop other aspects of our being. Our conversation went on to dive deeper into the topic of identity and how our view of ourselves drives most of our actions in the world. For example, if I view my identity primarily as a doctor, a mother, and a wife, then these roles direct the decisions I make and how I lead my life. On the other hand, if I also view my identity as an eternal being here having a finite human experience, then my decisions of how to lead my life would look radically different.

I will share with you an anecdote to illustrate this point. I recently met some lovely new friends just a few months ago. They have only known the more recent version of me, the one that has gone through major personal excavation to uncover more of her true identity. When one of them asked if I would be interested in leading an opening circle for a monthly community Village Dance he started, a part of my old identity laughed at the idea of what could I possibly offer to such an endeavor. But then, a newer part of my identity tingled with both nervousness and excitement at the invitation. This newer part of my identity is claiming that she can hold sacred space, that a large part of who she is is someone who simultaneously straddles the physical world and the spiritual realms. That she is a leader, and that she has a lot to offer her community besides her psychiatric skills. So that part of me said YES to the opportunity and YES to nurturing that growing part of my identity. That was yesterday. It felt GREAT showing up as another part of me, to allow another part of myself that I don’t usually let out to SHINE in all her glory. And the best part about it, was that my daughter Neli was there to witness me. She’s only 6 years old. She doesn’t know everything that goes on in my head as I navigate through this life journey. She only sees how I show up in this world and I was proud to show her this part of my identity. It is my sincere desire that in some conscious or unconscious way it will register inside her little body that she has permission to show up in her life in ALL different ways.

I have been sitting (and standing and dancing and playing) with ALL the different ways I identify myself. I am embracing that there is so much more of me to express and it is my desire to become the fullest expression of myself that is possible in this lifetime. Identifying myself primarily by what I do for a living would be like using only one color in the Crayon box when there are so many more to choose from. So how do I answer the question of “Who am I?” Here are my current responses: I am human. I am more than human. I am a limitless, energetic being here in human form to experience all of what is possible as a human. I am a mother. I am a creator. I am a wife. I am a student of love. I am a daughter. I am part of a whole. I am an artist. I am a writer. I am a storyteller. I am a psychiatrist. I hold sacred space. I am nature. I am a river. I am a flower. I am beauty. I am love. I am a warrior. I am a graceful warrior. The next time someone asks me what I do for a living I will answer them, I am a graceful warrior.

https://youtu.be/m21q_K97N38

We all have our money stories. Fears about not having enough, not making enough, running out, needing to make a certain amount to prove our own self-worth, fearing financial success or failure, etc, etc. Many of these stories aren’t even ours, we just inherited them from our upbringing, society, and the collective consciousness. Money is a construct, a means to provide us with security and happiness.  But instead, it has caused most of us fear, anxiety and insecurity.  The fear around financial security is the biggest deadweight in the field of unity consciousness that perpetuates the false illusion of separation and holds all of us back from knowing and expressing our true selves.  Each of us can play a role in releasing our old money story, scarcity, and separation consciousness around money to create a healthier and more harmonious relationship to the true abundance around us, of which money is only one form. In this video, I share a simple ceremony a friend and I did to witness each other releasing our old money stories to make room for a new relationship with money.

Today I want to talk about how our own field of consciousness contributes to the collective field of unity consciousness that binds us all together. We are all part of one whole. The more aware we are of that, our whole perception of reality shifts. We move from just being one individual doing our own thing to more of an awareness of being a part of something greater than ourselves, of contributing to a larger picture, like a piece in a mosaic or mural. Managing our own energetic vibrational field of consciousness is the greatest contribution we can make to our own reality and the future of our children and the planet. 

The more peace, love, joy, gratitude and awe that we can feel in ourselves, the more of that energy feeds into the field of unity consciousness that then gets reflected back to us and also becomes available for others to access.  There is an exponential amplified effect.  On the flip side, the more negative energy we feed into the field of unity consciousness – vibrations of fear, anxiety, greed, anger, resentment, the more that contributes to the density of the field, the “consciousness cap.” There is no doubt that our collective human consciousness is rising. The more conversations and interactions I have with others around this topic, it’s undeniable that more and more people are feeling the same call to make changes in themselves, to move from denser contracted vibrational states of being to lighter more expansive states of being. It’s a beautiful individual and collective transformation to be experiencing and witnessing at this time in history on our planet.

https://youtu.be/sRLzx6yKhGI

I’m going to try this again because apparently the video didn’t get included in my last email. I’m hoping it works this time. Thanks for witnessing my journey of learning how to share myself and my messages.

https://youtu.be/GF7AGSyuxu8

With the encouragement of some friends who are reading my blog, I have upgraded to a paid site membership where you, my treasured readers, will no longer be subjected to ads about weight loss and cryotherapy at the bottom of my posts. Upgrading my site also allows me to post videos directly to my blogs. So here I am trying out something new by uploading a video directly into my post. Figuring out all this technology doesn’t come naturally to me, so don’t expect perfection. Instead, see me in all my creative mess as I continue to show up expressing myself in all the ways I feel called to do so.

https://youtu.be/GF7AGSyuxu8

I have a lot more experience tending to inner gardens than I do at real gardening. I’ve grown a few tomato plants here and there, and mostly have gravitated towards the care of plants that do well with hands-off attention and watering like orchids and succulents. But this season, I felt compelled to try my hand at my first edible fruit and vegetable garden. Like any good student, I did my research, prep work, and bought my supplies – soil and plants. But I also know that my learning style is best suited to learning as I go along. There’s only so much information I can absorb until I actually try something out, so I plunged straight ahead into planting some strawberry plants. I had been told that strawberry plants are easy to grow. The person selling me the plants informed me that the plants hadn’t been out of the greenhouse yet, but assured me that they were ready to be planted. So I went home and excitedly planted them into my new garden beds. The new tender green strawberry plants looked so beautiful in the fresh soil. I admired my handiwork and felt proud of myself. This was last Sunday. If you live locally in the Davis/Sacramento area, you know it was kind of a blustery windy week. On Tuesday, my strawberry plants didn’t look too hot. I watered them and they somewhat perked back to life, but I could tell that the wind and the elements were taking a toll on them. I had a busy day on Wednesday and didn’t even look at them. By Thursday, when I took a look at my garden bed, all of the strawberry plants had completely wilted. There is nothing more depressing than seeing the young plants you just planted not doing well.

To me, they looked beyond saving, but I decided to reach out to my neighbor who is a master gardener for help. She graciously came over to my backyard to assess the situation. The first thing she did was feel the soil and tell me that it was way too dry. You need to water these plants right away she told me. Can’t you tell? she asked instructing me to feel the soil. Obviously I couldn’t. She told me that my soil hadn’t been properly prepared, that I hadn’t watered the soil enough before planting, and that taking the plants straight from the greenhouse to the garden bed without hardening them to the elements first was probably too much of a stress for them. OK good lesson to remember for next time I thought to myself. But what about these plants? Were they going to make it? My learner’s ego had been bruised and I was already thinking that I would just replace them with new plants. You can’t give up on these plants that easily, she told me. They’re just babies. After a thorough soaking, I woke up the following morning to see how the strawberry plants were doing. To my great surprise, some of them had already perked back up. It’s a truly amazing feeling to see something you’ve already given up hope on come back to life. I was humbled by these little strawberry plants. It was almost like a children’s book story, but in real life. The adult in me had already given up hope. But the child in me lit up when I saw that miracles do happen.

These are the lessons I’ve already learned in my first week of gardening that I will apply to life in general – 1) It’s important to properly prepare the soil. 2) Pay close attention to new plantings. 3) Ask for help when you don’t know what to do. 4) Don’t give up hope. 5) Be humble as a beginner and keep on learning. I can’t wait to see what my next lessons in gardening will reveal to me.

As I continue along my spiritual path, my soul journey home to my true self, my essential nature, my core essence, the message I keep hearing over and over again is to love myself. I notice my impulse to want to gloss over this stage, to jump ahead to the next step – what am I supposed to be doing?  How am I supposed to be serving? But my inner guidance keeps sending me back to loving myself even more. She gently reminds me, this lesson on unconditional self love IS the lesson to keep practicing until it is mastered. How much more support and nourishment can I let in?  How much more resistance to love can I let go of? My pattern is to prematurely cut off and separate from this experience of love, whether by habit, or fear. My mind tells me that’s enough love, that’s enough support, you can get by and keep on going and manage with just this much. My soul wants me to keep surrendering to the infinite supply of love and healing on a daily, moment-to-moment basis. She wants me to remember what it’s like to be swaddled up in love again like a newborn. Every time I fall back into fear, anxiety, judgment, anger, disappointment, or confusion, bring myself back to the experience of being held by love. There is no greater lesson beyond the lesson of learning to love myself so wholly and unconditionally that nothing is left out, to allow myself to sink and soak in this truth so fully that every one of my cells marinates in love long enough that it can’t forget what it feels like as I move through the inevitable ups and downs of life.

So I will keep surrendering to this lesson of learning how to love myself even more, to become an open conduit and vessel for the Universe’s love to flow through me and into the field of unity consciousness that connects us all.  My mind keeps wanting to add “so that I can serve others,” as if I have to justify spending so much time loving myself, so that I don’t feel selfish about it. But can I give myself permission to leave that tag line off for now? To allow myself to fully receive the infinite supply of love and support of the Universe just for myself, because it is my birthright and because the Universe wants me to feel it?  Can I just let myself fully surrender and enjoy it?  If I did nothing else in this lifetime on Earth, it would be enough if I experienced the fullness of my own love and the Universe’s love for me, which are one and the same.