​It's ok to stop trying so hard to get it right. Just be yourself.
​
You are already fully awakened, fully aligned, fully attuned, completely realized, ascended and complete. Your perfect, immaculate, divine, sovereign self is here. Now. You always have been. And you are here to guide your human form, body and mind, on its journey. Want to meet your spirit guides? Stand at the mirror and look into your own eyes, Beloved. You signed up for yourself long before the miracle of your manifestation and birth. You created this very human form to be exactly the way you are, with the intention to guide your human self along the way. Remember who you are.

It's ok to stop worrying, Friend. It is safe to lay down your concern. You are never, ever alone. And everything - everything! -  you experience is held in the perfect, loving awareness of the Beloved, which you are and have always been.

So shine a little light on this dear one you have created. Show her the compassionate Way. Give him the unconditional love that you are. When you stop worrying and trying to get it right all the time, he can let go a little bit more. And when she lets go into the knowing that everything is happening in service to her healing, she has space to accept herself, body and mind. Every feeling, every thought, every impulse is allowed to be - and every bit of it is here to help you. With your divine permission, you can see it all as a gift - every bit of it: the anger, the jealousy, the hopelessness, the doubt; the curiosity, the longing, the joy, the passion, the gratitude, the contentment, the accidents and intentions and addictions and collaborations; every time you put your foot in your mouth, every time you're bored, every time you rock your own world, every decision you get to make, every time you hurt, every time you love, every time you gloat and every time you experience humility - ALL of it is here for you to see and to help you accept, with love, your beloved human self on its perfect human journey.

Every piece of you is given permission to be, Friend. And thank you, thank you for being. You are precious, and you belong, and you are welcome here.

You are the light of pure consciousness.
And you, dear human, are loved.

Bowing deeply to your heart,
Aowyn

Creators, I've been hearing a lot of language lately that is calling in exactly the things people don't want. People are tossing around all kinds of "shoulds" and "have-to's." These words are some of the best you can choose to keep yourself stuck in an unwanted reality.

Your words are vibration. Each one vibrates at its own frequency. Some of these frequencies expand, and some of them contract. At the finest levels, everything - not just words and sound, but EVERYTHING is vibration, and everything affects everything else. With every word, you are transmitting signals to your emotional and energetic bodies, your psyche, and the universe.

Take a minute to feel what it feels like when you say these words (really, slow down and check this out):
No, should, hate, can't.
Now take a breath, and say these words, and feel how they feel: 
Yes, choose, love, can.
Got it?

With a deep bow to Dani Katz and her book "Word Up" (highly recommended!), I give you these few quantum languaging hacks:

Should:
This word orders you around, shutting down you as a person and actually turning the thing you "should" do invisible. "I should be eating healthier" - ugh - makes me feel bad about myself. Doesn't inspire me to eat healthier AT ALL. In fact, it makes me want chips and cookies immediately. Right? So here are some languaging options:

• I'm open to considering eating healthy foods.
• I'd like to consider eating foods that are healthy for me.
• I can eat healthy foods. 

Ahhh! Now THAT warms me and opens me to possibility.

Have to:
This bossy phrase denies your sovereignty and your free will. You don't "have to" do anything. You get to choose. You don't "have to" meditate every morning. You choose to meditate because it brings you peace. You don't "have to" go to work; you choose to go to work because you choose to have a steady income. Please try this instead:

• I am going to work.
• I am choosing to go to work.
• I am committed to daily meditation.
• I get to meditate every day.

Yes! How fortunate!

So. You are officially invited to notice the words you're using, and to choose exquisite languaging that creates an expansive vibrational experience for you and everyone and everything.

Here's one more piece from Dani that I personally enjoy: when I hear myself using low-vibing language, I will say, right out loud: "Cancel, delete, erase." and then I say the words that intend my true intention. Give it a try. Yes you can!

Attention determines experience. We attract and affect and create what we focus on, and how we focus. It's all vibration, Friends. Every bit of everything. And our words are powerful creationary tools - ones that are so very easy to choose and use consciously. It's another part of this brilliant human design.

Enjoy!

With love,
Aowyn

​So many of you are at different levels of realizing that you are a creator. This piece of awakening comes to most in flashes and waves of understanding. It's true that with every thought, you are creating. With every feeling, you are creating. With your words - oh lordy, with your words, you are creating. And when you settle in to a sacred spaciousness to experience true intention - whew. Get ready.

You are powerful.

When you align with your Divine nature, you begin to see that EVERY being is an expression of the Divine, including you. They (you) may have suffered greatly, and that suffering may have caused them (you) to become fearful, judging, even hating, even violent - and still, they (you) are in truth an expression of the Christ Consciousness. From this place of alignment to Truth, forgiveness is reality. Compassion is real. What is created comes from our shared Source. And our new collective experience - one that is healthy and cooperative, infused with love, caring and equality - comes into being.

How are you creating?
It's time to set down your judgment. Let go of bitterness. Trash the habitual self-deprecating language.
You are worthy of love. So feel it, Friend.
You are not separate from anyone or anything. You affect everything.
It is time to create with compassion. Create with love. Create with forgiveness. A heart-guided reality is available to you, Beloved. It's leading us back to worldwide harmony.

Thank you for your curiosity, your persistence and your good work. Thank you for continuing to learn. What a bright future we are now sharing! You are powerful, Creator.

With love,
Aowyn

We toss around the word "ego" like it's the enemy, something to be overcome or transcended. But the ego, the personality, the small self, has been created by you for the very purpose of offering you the tools you need to remember who you truly are, and then a way to express that truth. The ego itself is not bad. Allowing the personality to rule your life with identification to past experiences, habitual ways of being, belief systems, appearances, material possessions, etc. stands in the way of your self realization. When you remember, realize, awaken to your Divine self, your personality doesn't leave; it begins to align with that Truth. And because you are a Creator, when your personality (which is how you interact with this human life) aligns with your Divine self, the world you experience also begins to align in this way.

You begin to see through the eyes of love. You do not deny any of your feelings; you welcome them as guests and teachers. You do not stop having a sense of humor; you rejoice in how funny you can be. You do not stop experiencing your sexuality; you embrace your desire and your pleasure as the Beloved. You do not drop out of society, renounce all material possessions, and become a breatharian (unless of course this is your true desire and purpose); you enjoy and appreciate and engage with life.

You might think, "I am a stylish person, I am in control, I am ashamed of my behavior, I am a successful businessperson, I am a cheery person, I am a facilitator, I am a sarcastic son-of-a-bitch, I am a masterful gardener, I am a yoga teacher" - but when you let go of these impermanent identifications and locate your knowing of who you are in your divinity, you simply cannot lose. The Truth of who you are remains, always. You become free, and wealthy beyond imagination. You know your wholeness. The I AM that is your Divine self is expressed through you, effortlessly, and you experience the gift of unconditional love that you truly are.

---

Here is one simple practice to help you relocate to Truth:

Give yourself some space, some quiet. Say aloud a list of things about you (it's important that you actually say these things out loud, not just in your head).

"I am a mother" (father, sister, etc.)
"I am a banker" (mindfulness teacher, grocery checkout person, travel agent, etc.)
"I am an attractive woman, I am a circus performer, I am an addict, I am the president of such-and-such" - let the list come out as it will, according to how you have known yourself.

Then end by saying aloud:

"I am not that."

---

I celebrate you in this moment on your journey of homecoming
And in this moment
And in this one.

You're doing such a good job.

With love,
Aowyn

​So many gifts you keep giving yourself! And by gifts, I mean all these people and situations that keep showing up to trigger you. You are doing such a good job of calling them in to push your buttons. It's a meaningful gift from you to you: an invitation to bring awareness to your inner world. An invitation to love yourself more. May you be blessed with the courage to see what's really happening in you, beneath all your reactions.

Your awareness makes space for love, compassion and forgiveness--which helps you to identify and loosen the more intricately tangled pieces of your patterning. It’s multi-layered, this web of experience. Healing and reweaving our hearts' connection is intricate work. Know that you are not alone in your experience. What is in you, is in many. Wherever you are in this process, thank you, and bless you.

So give yourself some space. Breathe. Love yourself. Really, just say it out loud: I love you, ____. I love you. Shine that lovelight on everything you feel, everything you've been, everything you are. You are forgiven. You are learning. You are loved. May it feel safe for you to heal, friend. You are precious.

Thank you for your beautiful heart. I send you blessings for balance and courage, humor and reverence, grace and love. You got this.

With Love,
​Aowyn

Judgment. Ooh, that sticky monster and master of separation. I've been on both ends of it - the doing and the receiving. I get it. There's nothing like judging someone to help us stuff our insecurities about who we are. Nothing works like judgment to help us feel superior when we feel challenged, uneasy or afraid. Nothing like judging someone in order to maintain control, to squash our fear of what's unfamiliar. No better way to skip over our own uncomfortable feelings, or avoid looking at the parts of ourselves we're not so proud of.

The interesting thing about judgment is that not only does it shut out the one you judge... it harms you, as well. It shuts down your own heart. Puts a thorn in it. Makes your body tense, your breathing tight. It stops you from feeling love.

Another interesting thing is that, as a divine creator (yes you are), you are indeed drawing into your life exactly the people and situations you uniquely require to heal those painful feelings and return to love. You brought those triggering people into your life in order to see what needs healing in you, and to liberate your heart. You called them in to help you awaken to the truth of who you are - to help you practice loving, until love is all there is.

I want to share a tool with you. These are words channeled from Jeshua ben Joseph (Jesus) through the Shanti Christo Foundation (I'm not a Christian, and I'm not religious, but I sure do love and appreciate Jesus). Check this out: 

• "I judge you not." It sounds old-timey - biblical, even - but I'm hard pressed to find a better phrase to communicate its import. "I don't judge you" is thrown around like confetti, but this way has some weight: I judge you not.
• You are only responsible for yourself and your experience. And you're learning as you go. So this: "I extend forgiveness to myself for what I have created." Ego hears that and tightens up, crosses its arms, frowns and says, "Hey, I didn't do anything wrong! I'm entitled to my opinion!" But love says: I forgive myself for creating this experience of judgment within myself. I forgive myself for dishonoring another human being. I forgive myself for creating separation between me and another. I forgive myself for shutting down. I forgive myself for harming myself and my heart in this way. I'm learning. In this very moment, I am learning. I extend forgiveness to myself for what I have created.
• "I embrace you, and I love you." Love is not friendship or even marriage. It is not gifts given and received. It does not require you even to keep someone in your life. Love is bigger than that. It holds everything. Everything! Every bit of hurt and harm done, every aspect of grief, every moment of shame, every regret, every behavior - it even holds every experience of wrestling with judgment! Love holds every learning, every newfound way of honoring, every courageous, vulnerable word. Every realization, every moment of gratitude - all are held in a field of love, until every piece is healed and returned home to the truth of the love that you are. Imagine that! Love Is. And it is here for you - every piece of who you are, every piece of your experience. So this is the new creation: I embrace you, and I love you.
• And then this piece of gold: "I free you to be yourself." When that person triggers you - when they do that very thing you just know they should be doing differently: "I free you to be yourself." They get to be how they are. There's nothing for you to do about it. Let them go. Let them be. It's so different from "Do what you want, I don't care." Here, you let them be free - free! - and you are then free to just do you, to contemplate your feelings, your learning, your healing. This, I think, is the piece that truly delivers us from evil: I free you to be yourself. Such relief. You do you. Just that. What was it Ghandi said? Oh yes, be the change you wish to see in the world. I am only in charge of me, and I am learning to choose love. I free you to be yourself.
• "I bless you with the blessing of Christ." It doesn't matter who you are; this blessing of Christ is yours to give. It comes from our divine unity, the ocean of awareness we were all birthed from into these human bodies. The infinite field that holds every bit of everything. It is your truth, your home, your source. This blessing is for everyone, including you, to give and to receive. I bless you with the blessing of Christ.

Please, breathe. If you know you've been judging someone, bring them into your awareness, and with mindfulness, let these words wash through every bit of it:

I judge you not. I extend forgiveness to myself for what I have created. I embrace you, and I love you. I free you to be yourself. I bless you with the blessing of Christ.

Go on. Try it. You got this. Thank you.

Love,
Aowyn

​Thank you, Friend! More and more, you are placing yourself in the situations and surroundings that best serve your heart and your purpose. The more you actively place yourself in high-vibration fields, the more you become who you really are. You’re seeing how low-vibration thoughts, images, ideas, food, conversation, media and relationships have a negative impact on your being. More and more, you’re spending time with the people and experiences that encourage you to feel, and to feel what's true for you. More and more, you’re choosing to immerse yourself in the energies that weave a bright and loving experience for you as an awakening human; and as you surrender to this field of your creation, you soften and connect more obviously with pure awareness.

You are beginning to really understand that you are a creator. Your life is a reflection of your inner experience and your unique expression. Thank you for doing your part to heal yourself, your relationships, and this planet. Threads of trauma and woundedness are being cut. The patterns that used to run as a result of those wounds are ready to be cleared out and replaced. What was frenetic is becoming calm. More and more, compassion and gratitude are flowing within and from you. The struggle for purpose gets replaced with openness and availability, acceptance and devotion. Congratulations on your abundance! Thank you, Friend, for your persistence. You are such a valuable part of the whole!

Fear rises up. I won't hold it. I breathe it out. Take in the good, clean air these life-giving trees are making for me.
​
I know these threads all too well: a tendency toward isolationism. Judgment. Competition. Separation. -isms. Control. A tendency to cut off what I perceive as having "hurt me", to avoid what's challenging. A tendency to build walls and box in to an unexamined life. These things I've seen, I've healed, am healing, in me.

So when the things happen, like Alabama - as they are happening more and more, almost every day, it seems, these past few years - my initial want is to flee. To leave the country, find a new bubble - or at least, find a quiet spot on a tropical beach... and what, hide? Numb myself with alcohol? I don't drink, so that's out. And the shining clarity of sobriety won't let me rest. Running away would mean living with denied truth lodged in my heart like a festering splinter that can't be found. The truth comes instantly, every time: Staying is unavoidable.

After that momentary desire to flee is this: Being in love and continuing to heal is all there is.
Heal it in me. Help others heal. Heal it in me. Serve.
These past few days I've watched the old play of wounding in me. In my personal life, parts that were healed were tested. I don't even listen to the news anymore; I know our connection, so I just watch what's happening in me, and I breathe, and I love and I forgive. I come home.
The process isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it stuns me, knocks me to the ground. But this good ground has her roots in me; she receives my hurts and holds me up. I am devoted. I learn. I return to love.

It's why I'm here. It's why I stay. It's why I return: to love.

Memory of the fires and of not being burned. Held captive by a man who knew me - felt the truth, longed to live there - but wrestled with his internalized fears that belonged to the men around him. Knowing the truth, but pulled by the lies they told about me, about the tribe of Woman. I was held captive. Hidden. Not burned. Protected. Grudgingly, painfully, vitally trusted. He understood my connection, had felt it himself, felt the deep divine love administered to his hurts and his heart through the portal of my earth-womb-heart-hands; but the fear taught him to control what was free and good, wild and alive; so I was punished, all the while holding space for his struggle. Rooting to the earth; disconnect impossible. Rooted and receiving - fortified, blessed - watching him long to rest in his heart's knowing, watching him trying not to fall in line with the fear and the lies, watching him hating himself for not being able to just be. He beat me to punish his own weakness, his confusion. But while others burned, he did not give me up. I tended my wounds and I tended him, holding space for his process, giving him the medicine of lifetimes. Seeing clearly in him the truth he longed to remember, beneath his anger and suffering. Loving him toward his return to freedom, to peace.

So I stay.

Flee, stay, and next comes the relief that I don't have children who will inherit this mess. And then the sharp ache for the little ones in my life and the lives of my friends. And then these children's children, and on and on. Grateful for their courage, their emotional intelligence, their independence. Praying they are taught above all else to listen, listen, listen to their hearts. To love and honor themselves and all beings.

And then the knowing: I inherit this. The current embodiment has never been and will not be my end.
I've been here before. I'll be here again. Healing, healing, healing. Rooted and receiving. Fortified and blessed, in service.
Love lives. Love lifts. Love is. I am here.

"I am resilient.
I trust the movement.
I negate the chaos,
Uplift the negative.
I'll show up at the table again and again and again.
I'll close my mouth and learn to listen."
-Resilient, Rising Appalachia

​I'll be announcing dates for more Clearing Ceremonies next week! Space is limited to 6 participants.

I'm in awe of how this energy medicine gets designed specifically for each person. It's like they are a tapestry, and the medicine unties knots, repairs holes in the fabric, and weaves together the field... all perfectly timed and in the doses for which people are available.

This is not Reiki (although Reiki was my introduction to energy work), and it's not Pranic Healing, or anything else I've heard of - although the modalities all connect; they all have flavors of each other. The medicine that flows through me has not yet shared its name (although I'm starting to know who/what it is). It is energy. It is Spirit. It has its own intelligence. We collaborate, and together we serve. I continue to learn.

It's historically felt uncomfortable for me to market this work. I'd been doing it almost secretively for years. Last Fall, a wise man said to me: "Do you think God wants you to just sit around and hope people somehow magically know about this? I'm guessing the Universe wants people to receive this healing. You're going to have to tell them you exist." Smart, huh? (I can think of a few other healers who might take those words to heart.) So I opened my mouth about it, and now more and more people are accessing me and this medicine. More and more people are being helped; more and more people are receiving upgrades from this particular consciousness. I'm the human one in this sacred collaboration, so I'm doing the human part of spreading the word, finding the venues, creating the containers and delivering the medicine. I'm so grateful to be in this sacred partnership! Whoop whoop!

I'm happy to be going offline for the next few days. I'll have ceremony dates and info for you next week. 

Warmly,
Aowyn

​Sometimes you just know the answer. You don't know how you know, and what you know goes against what your mind may be telling you.
I wonder what it would be like to trust your knowing - to let your heart drive the decision making, even if it's unlike what you've always done. Even if it makes no sense. Even if there are a thousand reasons to make a different choice.
Because something in you just knows.
I wonder what it would be like to create a soft spot in the back seat, where your mind's reasoning can take a rest. Those parts of you deserve some love and gentleness; they've tried so hard to serve you over the years. And it's worked out pretty well, for the most part. You've certainly been kept safe - or at least, things have stayed the way they've been. Thank you, parts of you, for trying.
But there's something that's more... right. For you, I mean. You know what I mean.
Your heart knows the clearest path home. And it so loves to drive. Best driver on the road, you might say. Knows how to navigate around all that noise and traffic. Never bothers with detours. Takes you to profoundly familiar places you've never been.
So take a minute.
Breathe into it.
Your heart speaks your deepest truth.
It's what you know.

Yesterday I got this message from God:
Aowyn is my co-pilot.
Cool, huh? Try it. Fill in your own name and say it out loud:
_____ is my co-pilot.
Can you feel the truth here?

As you awaken, your perspective shifts so you see from the I Am, and your human self becomes the co-pilot - a learning, feeling, experiencing, physical expression that lovingly serves our shared divinity by living a heart-guided life.

We hear that word a lot these days - "awakening". It means a lot of things. Humans are waking up to our own shadows, the dark sides of our personalities. We're learning about how we’ve agreed to a life of discontent, and how we hold ourselves back from true freedom. We're letting go of identification with this or that. We're waking up to it all, and we're letting go. This is what I mean when I talk about "homecoming." We're coming home to our truest selves. This is the awakening process.

We're coming home to the truth of our divinity. As we self-realize or "awaken" to it, we begin to experience and live from that divine connection. As we each heal the wounds we carry - the things that have kept us believing in separation as reality, we start living from our heart. We come alive in new, timeless ways. We begin to heal our communities - the harms humans have done to one another out of a sense of separation, judgment, and I'm-right-you're-wrong. When we reconnect to our divine selves, we can love our human selves and each other. We stop needing to fill our emotional holes with addictions and consumerism and competition. We stop harming ourselves, each other and the planet, and we return to the harmony that is our true nature.

_____ is my co-pilot.
(Go on, give it a try. Right out loud.)
(Put it on your fridge. Say it often.)

_____ is my co-pilot. They’re aligning to become more heart-centered, more lovingly skillful, more surrendered to the ease and simplicity and flow of living in truth with What Is. A co-pilot who's realizing that they are a creator, and they're ready to create harmony in their own inner experience, their life, their family, their community, and the entire world.

And so it is. Blessed be.​
​

Congratulations on your abundance! More and more, you are investing in the awakening of your own heart, knowing that you are responsible for your own evolution. Bless your curiosity, your willingness to listen and to honor differences. Thank you for not needing to be right all the time. Thank you for courageously shining light into your own darkness in order to root out and heal the beliefs that separate you from your true self and others. You're beginning to choose acceptance over judgment, truth over lies, love over fear. May you be mindful, and may you practice being gentle with yourself. Remember: no shame, no blame - just clarity. May you accept and forgive and emerge aligned, with integrity and dignity, more honest and more humble and more truly powerful. Thank you for doing your part for our collective healing. May you embody the knowing that we are all connected. We are the One. We hold the wisdom and the guidance to heal our very DNA, all beings, and this planet. May you be a graceful beacon of truth for others’ unique homecoming. I give thanks for your courage and your healing. I give thanks for the ancestral warrior within. I give thanks for the light and the shadows, and the balancing of all systems. Bless you, Friend. You’re powerful, and you are doing this, in your perfect way. I'm so thankful to be here, now, with you. With delight and gratitude, I say: Aho!​

​Mythologies and stories, deities and energies, multidimensional beings, ancestors and revolutionaries of the past and present, and all guides and guardians who stand with us in the highest good of all: Thank you for uniting and joining us as we navigate this momentous death/rebirth, to aid in the healing and transformation that is required and is happening, every step of the way. We welcome and thank the ascended masters of mindfulness, love and healing. We welcome and thank you who shine light into the darkest places for the sake of our understanding. Thank you for your protection. We call on the warriors who will firmly establish in us the strength to fight. We give thanks for the brilliant light of Truth as it radiates from our hearts. We give thanks for our shining love and its joyful, passionate, creative expression. We invite inspiration, courage and manifestation of the highest good from those who will help us to create, midwife, birth, mother and shepherd our new way of being into this culture and the world. We thank you for your assistance, and welcome you to the circle.

​

There is nothing more freeing than the gift of being lovingly seen and accepted exactly as we are. Nothing compares to the clarity of our hearts - or the feeling of being invited to listen to our heart’s wisdom by someone who cares. To be who we are, by following our hearts – it’s life changing. It may be the greatest gift we could possibly give or receive. 
 
What would it be like if we held our friends that way – with spaciousness, free from judgment or comparison, with a gentle, steadfast clarity and presence like light?
What would it be like if we held our family members that way – if we stood gently with them and allowed them to be, however they are?
What would it be like if we held our enemies like that – with acceptance, with trust in every heart’s essential truth, with a spaciousness that allowed the heart to be seen?
What if we made space for the people who hurt us – the ones who hurt our families, our communities, our planet – what if we gave them space to return to love? What if they received it?
What if we held our own hearts with pure, humble gratitude and surrender?
What kind of expression would emerge?
What profound joy?
What peace among humans?
How expansive could our love become?

​

When we are at peace with what is, when we remember how to honor our hearts, when we know how we feel, when we feel our feelings, when we breathe it through - when we breathe;

When the thing we incarnated in order to heal - that thing we worked with for so many years, and finally there came lasting spaciousness - when the thing we incarnated in order to heal is healed;

​When the layers have been peeled away until the core is gently revealed and lovingly seen, honored with acceptance and Love from and for Thy Divine Self, from and for Thy Human Self - 

Then we know that everything is truly ok.
Everything.

We find the place where divine purpose meets human function.
It looks nothing like what we thought it would look like.
It is better than everything we could not previously conceive of, but can now.
​It is more true, more full, more right, more simple than even that.

We are released from our armor to reveal our strategies of protection, our wounds and our misconceptions, our vulnerability, our growing clarity; we trust and we persist with our healing, and we stay in our relief and our gratitude for our Light and our Love. We feel the depths of grief and the heights of bliss, and it is all the same. We breathe it all through.

We live in a human body as the divine flow.

We see. And we accept and we receive the blessing of every single thing we experience. Our existence is the healer, the teacher. We let go in order to truly live, and we bow with humble gratitude for the gift of our surrender. We generate, cultivate, and radiate Love. With our healed and healing existence in the here/now, and by living a heart-guided life, we manifest a new world for future generations. Here and now - across the mountains and valleys of duality and disconnect, from within the rubble of evolution's destruction phase - we see the light of homecoming.
The Return. A Remembering. For All.

We align with Source, which has been in us all along. The living, breathing process of becoming is innately ecstatic and, finally, obvious. Available and generous. Magical. And normal.

Our alignment is a middle-ground Medicine Way of Being.
This Way holds the Heart as the Queen, the Jewel, the Divine, the Source of All Blessings, the True and Trusted and Only Guide. It is the Medicine Way, the Way of the Medicine that we are and that heals all.

We exist in this Way where whatever we truly want or want to create, we can and do create.
With deep respect, we are creating a new world - by following our heart's guidance, which is the guidance of Love, which is the Source that lives in every single one of us and will always show us our truth.
We trust our hearts. and so we move in any direction we are pointed.
With a Presence that heals. In wider and wider circles.
One by One.
All Healed.

We release the constructs, the imagined boundaries of our minds.
We are open, and we listen, and we witness the simple brilliance of finally and always following our hearts.

We take every opportunity to share our Love.

The Medicine Way is alive and wondrous, even in the dark.
Its perfection amplifies our devotion to it.
We live mindfully; we listen to our hearts' knowing, and we manifest its intention.
Anything that appears to divert the path is a blessing that makes the road even more expansive as we hold space, give space, invite space, and bring Light to the space, whatever space we're in.

We integrate, and we align.
It looks everything and nothing like what we thought it would when we began to know our purpose. It can look like anything we want; our loving presence is our service.

​We are here to be.

Heart: This is what I want.
Mind: Hm, that is not what I have been planning for the last two years.
Heart: I know. Listen. Feel.
Me: (hearing) How can this be? It doesn't make any sense. I want to trust, but this just isn't what I was expecting. At all.
Heart: It's ok. I love you so much. Here is the light.
Mind: But that just isn't in the plan we have been discussing all this time. It's the opposite of what we have been thinking about. It looks nothing like what we've been doing and getting so much out of. It makes no sense! How can that new way possibly be a part of this evolutionary path we are on?! I completely disagree with this whole thing.
Heart: I love you. See this light? Feel the way you feel right now while you let it bloom in you.
Me: That feels amazing. It feels RIGHT. I can't deny it. I keep looking away, but I literally cannot deny the rightness of what you are saying, Heart. Yes, I think I can... I mean, I want to trust... but I'm afraid. I'm struggling. I'm trying. I don't want to resist. I want to trust you, Heart. Can you help me?
Mind: I've got one million reasons why that is the wrong thing to do.
Heart: Beloved, you don't need to know. You don't need to know anything. There is nothing you need to do except listen. Feel. You can let go. Let it in. Listen.
Me: (silence) (stillness)

(silence)

(stillness)

(listening to the heart's song)
​
(surrender)

​(exquisite, familiar light...
simplicity, peace...
the knowing of rightness...
bright, shining gratitude...
a settling in to the experience of alignment)

Mind: But this is totally in contradiction to your heart's desire!
Heart: Um, hi. Heart here...

So then the piece of writing just gets silly, but you get the idea.

Personally, I cannot deny my heart's voice. It will not let me go. I listen to my heart, and I utilize the strength of my mind to support my heart's guidance in the material world. I may be quick about it at times and slow at others, but in the end, there is no longer any choice but to follow my heart. Thank God. Thank Love. Thank you, Heart. Thank you, All That Is, for speaking through this point of light inside me that I can actually perceive. ​

This post feels so pertinent and so important that I'm just going to be quick with the delivery:
​When your friends are in crisis, SHOW UP. 

People are moving through big transitions right now. I've witnessed job loss, marriage failure, death of loved ones, and home relocation all in the space of about three weeks. This Fire Monkey year continues to stir things up, enabling us to get clear and get real and activate the life changes that inevitably empower us. But the transitions aren't always fun. Sometimes they're incredibly painful - sometimes they are what we call "crisis." It's hard and it hurts and sometimes it rocks our world so intensely that we don't even know how to ask for support. When you know someone is being put through the ringer (no matter how good the outcome looks), it's important to be a real friend and show up.

Just be there. 
Your friend's dad dies? Show up. Bring food. Be of service.
Your good friends are having relationship problems? Show up. Send each of them a text telling them you love them.
Your brother's dog goes missing? Show up. Help with the search.
Your niece is physically abused by her boyfriend? Show up. Make sure she is safe. ​

​Life seems so blissful and peaceful and easy. When I don't leave the house, that is. As soon as I start engaging with other human beings and the world in general, all kinds of crazy shit comes up. Because it's all about relationship, isn't it? That's where the juice is. That’s where we are triggered, and it’s where we get to observe ourselves. It’s where we get to discern whether or not we’re in alignment.

​We humans take things so personally. We are quite beautifully sensitive – much more than we give ourselves credit for. Sometimes we are co-creating a painful situation, and sometimes it truly is not about us at all. It takes mindfulness to witness our inner world. It takes courageous vulnerability to accept – or release – responsibility in our relationships.

For example:
A long term friend and I recently experienced an opening in our relationship where we each lovingly acknowledged some things that have stood in the way of our closeness. For my piece, I revealed that I greatly admired her skill as a therapist and agreed with what she had taught me around a certain topic, but I had felt watched and judged by her for years, which had triggered feelings of insecurity. As a result, I learned to protect myself by withholding what I valued most - I diminished my spirituality, a core piece of my existence - in her presence. In response, she revealed that she had indeed been judging me - and that her judgment came from being triggered due to some extremely harmful experiences from others' spiritual bypassing in the past. This was a huge revelation for me! I had made the assumption that because she's a brilliant woman and a skillful therapist and communicator, she must be operating from a place of wholeness at all times (an extremism that holding on to false beliefs about myself can bring).​

​It’s easy to idolize people and think that everyone but you has got their shit together - so it must be something you're doing or saying that's wrong and is causing your suffering. Take that one step further, and you stop letting your heart guide your actions, deferring to others’ opinions instead. There are so many powerful people in the world! So many people who appear to have it all together in one way or another - whether it be in their skill set, their social confidence and connections, their thriving career, their ability to state their needs, their successful marriage, their spiritual path, or the way trouble rolls off their back like water off a duck. So many beautiful, amazing people. And all of them are HUMAN. Which means that they have things to deal with - different things than you, but just like you all the same... and their stuff can come out in ways that perfectly trigger YOUR deepest stuff. Welcome to relationship, my friends. ​Welcome to your opportunity to see yourself more clearly. Welcome to the opportunity to shed the strategies you’ve designed to keep you safely disconnected. Welcome to your opportunity to be who you really are.

​As I laughingly said to my husband earlier this evening, some fucked up thing in you attracts some fucked up thing in another person, and you are drawn to each other to learn and to heal (totally uncouth, I know. I’ve learned the value of levity).

​Here’s another situation:
You are the executive assistant to an internationally recognized motivational speaker. He has helped thousands of people to witness their inner experience and transform their beliefs in order to manifest the lives they want to be living. You love your job, you get along with your boss, and all is well... except that today, he has completely turned on you. He seems to be searching for things to correct or criticize. Each time you pass each other in the hallway, you feel a thick tension in the air. You feel edgy and you start combing your behavior for errors. What have you done to negatively impact the business? Why is your relationship with him suddenly in the garbage? You breathe and take some space, finding stillness and then flow. You soften. Without judgment, you witness your behavior and discover... nothing. You are doing your job as well as ever. There isn’t even anything to forgive. You recognize that his behavior is unusual. Later, you find an opening and engage him in authentic, heartful conversation about something meaningful to you – gently engaging the trust you know exists between you - which changes the energetic charge in the room and slowly rekindles your connection. After a few minutes, he reveals that he'd had an argument with his partner just before he came to work… where he saw you… and he’d pointed the blaming finger away from himself for relief. You rest in your knowing of your self and hold a spacious lovingness for his experience to unfold. He thanks you, apologizes for unjustly blaming you, and makes use of your offering to process his feelings. The air feels clear again.

​Every interaction is a gift from God. And when I say God, I mean your Higher Self. I mean Source. I mean the One who takes every opportunity to steer each of us back to our innate wholeness by way of triggers and awareness and courage and vulnerability and healing and LOVE.

Humans are human, including those people who seem to everyone else like they've got it all figured out (like you, perhaps). Sometimes we aren't seeing something about ourselves, even though we are affecting others by our unconscious behaviors. It takes slowing down to understand what’s going on. It’s a combination of slowing down, looking at what’s being reflected back to us, witnessing our inner landscape and our behavior... and then, even when our behaviors and the beliefs that cause them are conscious, it requires great courage to acknowledge what's happening. Vulnerability with ourselves and others can open wide the doors to personal healing and reparations.

Every single one of us is worthy of love and compassion: you, me, that coworker who flew off the handle again today, the helper who's great at healing others but can't show up in relationships, your lover who can't relax into physical intimacy, your parent who can only connect on the surface level, an acquaintance who entices you to want to spend time with him but always waits for you to initiate a get-together. Our best work is to be exquisitely mindful of our inner selves and how we do and don't show up in the world. Our best work is to love ourselves. Our best work is to give everyone a break. We’re all doing the best that we can with what we have or haven’t learned and what we have or haven’t healed and how we are blindly bumbling along or choosing to show up in life. Wherever we are on our path, every interaction has something of value, and every single one of us is worthy of love and compassion while we interact with and co-create this Great Mystery.

Blessings on your exquisite journey.
​Love,
Aowyn

Hi Sweet Hearts. I just wanted to post a quick note about receiving good medicine. The prescription is short and sweet, but it can have a profound effect on your experience of life. Check this out:

Things like this happen all the time. Everyone has medicine, and they are all great opportunities for sparking some amazing things in you. Truly receiving love medicine can help to heal past wounding. It can bring you right home to who you really are. It can actually change the neuropathways in your brain - moving you out of habitual ways of experiencing life into new, beneficial ones. It can help you to believe in yourself. All of which can have dramatic effects on your entire experience of life.

I’ll just offer one more example from my own life. I hope this is useful to you; it sure was for me.
​
My husband Peter (back then he was still my boyfriend) and I were going to change both tires on my bike. Actually, he was going to teach me how to change a tire. You see, when we met, I hadn’t ridden a bike in over 20 years and actually had to re-learn how to do it (I can assure you, it wasn’t like riding a bike). I was out of practice riding and had never done any bike maintenance at all. Peter was going to change one of the tires to show me how, and I was going to do the next one myself. While he was changing the first tire, I started to have a mild panic attack. The panic attack consisted of these ingredients: I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed. I felt stupid. I was sinking into an old belief that I was not a handy person, that I wouldn’t be able to do it, that I was too slow, and that I’d be judged and chastised for all of that. Tears were silently rolling down my cheeks. All the while, Peter was happily changing the tire, talking to me and paying attention to the task at hand. When it came my turn to change the second tire, Peter looked at me and asked what was going on. I didn’t explain to him that as a kid, there wasn’t a lot of patience with my pace of learning. I didn’t explain that I felt humiliated before I even began. I didn’t explain that I hated doing things like this for these reasons. I just said, "I don’t know if I can do this. I need your help." A moment passed. He said: “You’ve got this, baby. I’ll help you if you need. Just take your time.” I paused for a minute to take that in - to take in his MEDICINE. He was encouraging me. He was being patient. He was going to help me if I got stuck. I felt all of that. I looked at him – really looked at him. My boyfriend. Now. Today. Right here, in our backyard of the house we live in together on this gorgeous, sunny day in my adult life. I took in the fact that there was all the time in the world for me to do this. And I felt a sense of trust that allowed me to begin. I felt challenged a couple times while I worked, and the panic flared up again. Each time, I just stopped and breathed and got present to what was actually happening right now - as opposed to how it was in the past. I wasn’t being rushed. No one was annoyed with me. It was ok to not know how to do this the first time I did it. How could I? I had never done it before! Yes, it really was ok to not know how to do this the first time I did it! I asked Peter which tool was best, which angle. I stopped and sucked my finger when it got pinched. He waited. All of this I soaked into my cellular structure by being mindful of my experience: I am doing this for the first time, and it's ok. I'm right where I'm supposed to be, and there is all the time in the world for me to do it in. And I got that damn tire changed. That awesome new tire on my kickass mountain bike that I love. Yes I did. And each time I tried to do something that required tools or building or fixing, I let myself feel more and more worthy of time, attention, and skill-building.

​So. All of this is to say: be mindful, people. Everyone around you – every single person and every experience in your life – has medicine to offer, whether it's about changing a tire... letting go of a beautiful but boundaried identity... supporting another... or anything else you may be healing in yourself. You can pay a skilled therapist to see this stuff in you and guide you toward healing (I will always recommend Hakomi therapists). You can come see someone like me who will work mindfully with you to make change by the grace of the shamanic realms. AND, most importantly, you can know that every single person -  every experience in your life - is here by your choosing and your creation (consciously or not) to show you where you need healing and to bring that healing on, if you are willing to go there. The only thing standing in the way of you receiving the medicine is you. So be mindful. Slow down. Take your time. Take it in. Feel gratitude. There is love and healing for you. It abounds. The Universe is conspiring for your healing and your total experience of freedom, if you want it (and you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this right now). Open your eyes. Listen. Slow down. Take the time to let the medicine move through you.
​It is yours, if you will have it.

We are all on this journey toward who we really are. We are all coming home.

Loveblessings,
​Aowyn

Every once in a while, big themes make themselves obvious in our community. When common threads start weaving their way through our web, I think it's worth talking about. Big things come up for healing in waves. We are all in this together. All part of the web. And lately, people are suffering from unsuccessfully dealing with being triggered by their partners. I'm thankful for the friends and clients who have honored me by sharing their experience and allowing me to see the commonalities. Let's talk about it (ok, I'll talk about it since I'm the one writing). But first, let me say that this blog post is, as my dear teacher Carla would say, "dog shit real" ( referring to the everyday chore of picking up your dog's poop). It's practical. You can do all kinds of therapy to uncover and change unconscious beliefs; this post is not about that. It's about the practical, dog shit, here-we-are-being-triggered-and-what-do-we-do-about-it-in-the-moment stuff. So let's talk about it:

Your partner says something like, "I can feel myself getting worked up because of what you just said." Or, "let's talk about what's happening between us lately." Or, "it didn't work for me when you did XYZ." Or, "I need more XYZ from you in our relationship." Or, "I feel like our sex life is dead." Or, "I haven't felt our connection for a while." Or even, "I didn't do that thing you asked me to do." They may say any number of things, and BAM - your heart starts pounding, your temperature rises, you may even start shaking. You shoot through the roof with feelings of anger and resentment. Or your chest gets tight and you feel accused, get defensive, and harden to the horrible interaction you feel is suddenly underway. Or you feel like you're in a glass box - separated, deaf and mute. Whatever your reaction, you are in survival mode and no longer available for connection. It's possible that past trauma has been triggered. Even if not, your response has come from a place of fear instead of love.

My husband Peter is pretty masterful at this whole thing. Actually, in the course of our 10 years together, we've both figured it out (for our relationship, anyway). I should ask him to write part of this. He's got a much more masculine perspective than I do, and so has something different to offer. Peter?

PETER: 
One of the favorite pieces of relationship advice I like to give is the "whatever, man" lesson. We/I/all of us tend to take things way too personally. So fragile we all are - and so important. Acceptance and openness is what is needed in times of conflict, but it is so hard when we feel loathing or react emotionally.

Loving Aowyn has taught me the beauty of acceptance. Acceptance is a win-win. For a combination of reasons, we are good at accepting and are blessed as a couple; but admittedly, there have been times when I couldn't accept, which is where "whatever, man" came from.

"Whatever, man" means:

• Suck it up and just do whatever is requested. Know that whatever it is, it's a much bigger deal to her than it is to me.
• Don't dwell on it or don't take it personally if your partner becomes insane for a moment.
• Recognize that there is an order or a reason that you don't understand, but it is very important.
• Cultivate the skill to assess: "Does this conversation/reaction/point REALLY matter?"
• Know that all things change in time and living is a bizarre experience where anything is possible.

If I can't accept right away, I try "whatever, man" - and interestingly, I usually snap very quickly into love and acceptance. "Whatever, man" is a warm shelter of good vibes. Yes... it sometimes takes swallowing a bitter pill to get there. But the benefit is very sweet.  A happy partner is a happy relationship is a happy me. Aowyn does a lot of bending and accepting of me too, and we both get to express what doesn't work for us... humanely. We bend for each other and we both see it, which inspires more bending and more communication and more desire to satisfy each other.

AOWYN:
So this is a really small but kind of perfect example. I read what Peter wrote and right away I'm like, I can't post that. Whatever, man? Really? But I breathe into it and I remember that this is Peter's way of softening so we can continue our communication, and I trust him. I know it works for him. And it actually works for me. It really does work for the health of our relationship. I inhale. And good lord, do we adore each other. We openly, genuinely appreciate each other throughout the day, every day, even when we're working through something that's really challenging. I exhale and my heart speaks. We may have different ways and different explanations for what we're doing internally, but the end result is connection and acceptance and as a result, productive, transformative communication. Ah, there's the breath.

For me, the key is mindfulness. "Mindfulness" is not just a trendy word. It is a real thing: the ability to watch my experience at the same time as I'm having it. Sometimes Peter triggers me. There is always the option to shut down, to go into "poor me" mode, to heatedly blame him for whatever's handy at the time, or to assume this is unsolvable and withdraw or leave the room. At this point in our relationship, I'm glad to say that none of those are actual options for me. Instead of reacting, I literally witness my internal experience. I watch myself as my breathing becomes tight, my body tenses, my impulse to clarify or correct comes up (there's a survivor part of me who needs to be seen accurately and a perfectionist part of me who needs to feel superior)... I watch feelings of insecurity, or watch myself feeling bad about my behavior... any topic or category of experience can come up. I watch it all arise in me without reacting (similar to Peter "swallowing a bitter pill."). I breathe. If I'm struggling with being mindful while the conversation continues, I might say, "hang on a sec," and because he sees I am working with something and probably can't hear him, he becomes silent and holds space. I watch the thoughts and feelings arise and recede in me. I breathe, soften my belly, and feel into it all to decide whether or not my heart needs to speak up about something (this is Peter's "does it really matter?"). I get present again. I am in this moment with my husband who loves me and who I love. I respect his feelings and I know that he is describing his experience of whatever is happening, which is innately different from mine (here's Peter's "there's an order or reason you don't understand"). And I know that his communication is loving - because we are addressing something, because we both care about our relationship and want it to be the best it can be. And we continue the conversation, as Peter says, humanely. Lovingly. With care.

We do our internal work in the way that helps each of us to chill out and be present so we can actually hear each other from a loving place. We are a married couple. We are not identical spiritual and emotional twins. We have different karma, different pasts, different wounding, different healing, different genes and DNA and personalities and needs and interests, etc, etc, etc. We are never going to handle things exactly the same as each other... but we have both persevered in finding ways that bring each of us back to love, a willingness to try, and acceptance of WHAT IS.

So how do you get to that place? I'll use two M words: mindfulness meditation. Go ahead, groan if you must (or nod in total agreement). Daily practice will truly change your experience of life. And then there's remembering to breathe. And there's slowing way, way down and making space. And I'm sure Peter would have other things to say. This might easily turn into a book, but this is just a blog and you have things to think and feel about. So go do that. I'll be back with more soon.

Love and Blessings from a "Dog Shit Practical" and Deeply Spiritual Path of True Awakening ~
​Aowyn

Sometimes the sweetest healing is not when things change, but when you feel like everything’s all right anyway. Not when the problems are fixed, but when you feel ok even though they’re here. You no longer fight or avoid or complain about it. You feel loving acceptance of what is.

Even though your life looks different than what you wanted. Even though you just did that old pattern of behavior again. Even though you fell off the wagon. Even though your son avoids you. Even though your friend takes but doesn’t give. Even though you’re bored with life. You look at yourself and your troubles, and you feel love. You accept that this is what’s here, now.

The troubles are still there. It’s your experience of it all that’s different… lighter... accepting. It’s not a closing off, a hardening, an avoidance, a “screw it” attitude. You experience joy and openheartedness, even when the things that used to bother you (inside or outside of you) are still happening. 

Not that you don’t take action to create the life you want, but your experience of the way things are right now is different. Your loving acceptance changes you.

Maybe you see the problems for the opportunities that they might be, and the way you take action changes.

You trust that while you may never have all the answers – you may never figure anything out (in fact, maybe you don’t need to) – it will all unfold perfectly, likely in ways you never expected (in fact, maybe it already has).

Have you experienced loving acceptance of what is? How does it feel? How did you get there?
Do you feel that acceptance helps or hinders progress? Is it an end in itself?
Do you resist acceptance? Why?

To be continued…