How to Save Thousands of Dollars on “Self-help” and Find Liberation Instead.
An Invitation to do “nothing” to get everything.
My name is Jodi and I am an expansion “junkie.” Cue your response… “Hi, Jodi.” As far as I know, they don’t have Anon meetings for this. Maybe I should start one. Instead of donuts and coffee, I will serve Kangen water and jackfruit tacos.
Out of all the things I’ve done, the lesson with which I have had the hardest time is being with “what is” without trying to change it. I am more than willing to sit in the “fire” of my emotions but only “in order to” make it go away — or get “something.” I conditioned my willingness on trying and change myself, someone else, or a circumstance — I found no serenity in any of that.
My expansion addiction ensued. I don’t know about you but I have tried every program, cleanse, supplement, retreat, any and every modality or treatment to “heal” and be “better.” This created a glut of books in my library with copious notes taken on the (literally) hundreds of workshops, webinars, podcasts, retreats and videos that I have imbibed like an alcoholic guzzles vodka. Fix, change, avoid, look for rescue. Outside, inside, fling it off, run. Can you feel that energy? Do you recognize it? The hope at the beginning is the “high.” I shudder to think how much money I have spent on “chasing the dragon” of healing and well-being.
I constantly looked everywhere and to everyone to avoid being in the only place it mattered. With MYSELF. Within myself. I kept looking for rescue in everyone and anyone I thought “got it.” I kept searching for a savior. Now, I keep coming back over and over to the message that, like Dorothy and her red shoes in the Wizard of Oz, “I have always had the power.” The “power” is the courage and the openness to be present with me — not to fix or avoid or change — but to Be.
I have often felt alone. Even though I am surrounded by people I love. Even though I am blessed to have an amazing family and a plethora of great friends. I have felt alone and unable to fully trust anyone or anything — including God/The Divine/Source. How can I trust when I constantly run, hide or numb out? How can I trust anyone when I don’t trust myself?
Until recently, if you pointed out my unwillingness to be with “what is” I would not have believed you. I would say, “Of course I am! I journal, I cry, I feel my feelings, and then some. I even feel other’s feelings for them.” I willingly expressed my anger, my sadness, my frustration, and my numbness with practices like dance, breath, self-pleasure. But my actions were conditional. Just when I would get from the place of “no/thing,” to the place of the unknown, my mind/ego would kick in. “Okay, enough of that. Now do something.” Or it would complain, “I sat with myself. I felt my feelings. Where’s my stuff? Where’s my proof? Where’s my output?” Then my ego would scream, “Where’s my clarity?! Everyone has a path except me. Everyone knows what to do except me!” Then my victim consciousness would arise. My lack of worthiness. “It’s not fair. Why doesn’t it work for me?” The “I’m broken” and everyone else can “fix themselves” except me.
So back to the drawing board I would go. Letters to my inner child. More books. More actions. More sitting with myself. More classes. More coaching. But still doing all these things with conditions. I will do this in order to… rid myself of it. I will do this in order to… fix myself so I never have to experience this again. So I can be better. So I can feel whole and complete. So I can be a success. Have the things I desire. Then I got to the point where I understood that I was already whole and complete but I understood it “intellectually.” I still thought of it as a destination at which I needed to arrive by excising my feelings of unworthiness or victimhood or lacking. I didn’t understand that those feelings are part of the whole and just want to be met and integrated. They can even be there forever and I can be with them without becoming them. Does that feel true to you? I am not asking if you understand it in your mind because this isn’t a mind concept. Your mind, like mine, will balk or try to figure out, or try and control it. But the Truth with a capital T will feel light and surrendered. I can know with my entire being that I am not a victim and I have never been one and still allow the aspect of me that feels like a victim to be there. I am the Witness. The frequency of Love is like the most unconditional love there is… a willingness to accept what is as it is.
Right now, so many people are suffering. Because they are putting conditions on what is. I will be happy when “so and so is or isn’t President.” I will be okay when… racism, sexism, poverty and climate issues are fixed; when my mother heals, I get a new job, I have more money…whatever it looks like for you. I will allow myself to enjoy myself after work and my chores are done, when I’m on vacation… Or there’s “I will rest when I’m dead.” That may be an exaggeration but it’s an expression for a reason.
It’s a conditional way of living that we are taught from almost the beginning. I am not “okay” because… This is not “okay” because… Or the opposite is also true. When kids fall and hurt themselves as children so many well-meaning parents try to reassure them, “You are okay.” What they mean is, you are safe. You aren’t really injured. But what kids can hear is, “Don’t feel your feelings. Even though that really hurt or scared me or both, Mommy is saying I am okay so I must act okay to please her.” Then we learn to brush our feelings aside or numb them out to “be okay.”
I often witness people feeling what they feel and then flinging the energy off as fast as they can. How many times have you seen someone (generally women) start to cry and then flutter their hands in front of their eyes to “stop it.” Because they learned somewhere it’s not okay to cry. Or it’s not safe. Or it shows weakness. I know for my own self that I hate to cry in front of others. Even when it’s “warranted.” Even when I’m with loved ones who want to comfort me. So the Universe likes to put me in situations where I end up crying in front of relative strangers. Because it’s an old pattern that wants to be met with acceptance.
Or someone will share something that is hard for them in the present moment but then immediately launches into, “But I will be okay” or start sharing something “positive” they are doing/experiencing or promise that next time they won’t show up that way. They are running from what is present for them or viewing it as wrong or bad or weak. I know this place. I know it well.
What if all those feelings you run from feeling were actually gateways to miracles? What if we revered what we call our “negative” emotions as much or more than the ones we think of as “positive?” What if we were excited when they arose because they are actually signposts and directions toward the parts of us that just want to be held and healed? What if our shadows were just parts of us that we banished when we were little out of self-protection and it’s time to invite them home? All these questions are actually true.
Aren’t you tired of controlling everything and everyone outside of you in order to feel safe? I know I am. It’s exhausting. I only get to feel shreds of happiness and pleasure when outside circumstances are “right.” And then it’s only momentarily because I’m worried about maintaining it or when the “other shoe will drop.” I’m sick and tired of giving my power away to outside circumstances. It’s literally making me sick and tired. No more.
A Course in Miracles (ACIM for those in the “know”) teaches there is only God or Love. Everything else is an illusion or a call for Love. The often referenced Albert Einstein quote says, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” So why do we all look outside ourselves for answers to something happening within? Why do we meet ourselves with fear and guilt when we want to feel loved? Why do we forsake parts of ourselves and then are surprised when we feel fragmented or have low self-esteem?
Ironically, there are coaches, tools and techniques that can assist you in “meeting yourself.” Because I have done so much healing and seeking, I can share some of my favorites if you want some guidance. One of my favorite mentors, Genevieve, a Somatic Sexual Shaman of sorts (say that 5 times fast) just wrote a book with the titillating title “F*ck Yourself Open.” In it, she details how to meet the parts of you that are in physical and emotional pain with pleasure to create the life of your dreams. She taught me that pleasure is not just bliss and orgasms but being fully present to and eventually being turned on by EVERYTHING that arises. It’s about diving fully into what is present in our bodies and meeting it completely with acceptance and even celebration. I use the example of a toddler having a tantrum. If you try and argue them out of it or even soothe them it often just lasts longer. But if you sit by them and meet their tantrum with love they feel seen, heard, and accepted and it will fizzle out. When you touch your body to find all the places where pain resides and you are willing to sit with it like a tantrum-ing toddler, the pain then feels heard and seen and no longer needs to scream. When you can meet it fully, it can integrate and even turn into pleasure - just like a toddler can start laughing seconds after the hysterical tantrum.
I just completed an extraordinary program called “Be the Medicine” with Kim D’Eramo, DO. Dr. Kim was an E.R. Doctor who realized all of the patients she saw with chronic illness had a component of emotional and mental energies keeping their disease state in place. When she herself was told she had an autoimmune disease that would never get better, Kim was unwilling to accept that as HER Truth. She KNEW her body had an innate ability to heal if she was willing to slow down, be present with herself and her emotions. Dr. Kim wrote a book with an accompanying program called “The Mind Body Toolkit.” Kim teaches clients and practitioners how to soften and allow what we are feeling rather than force and struggle. By softening, you are able to access a higher knowing and intuition and integrate the emotions that have been held and repressed by the body which is only trying to heal. Kim has assisted many people, including herself, to heal from chronic and acute dis-ease. Just listening to Kim speak is “the medicine”. So many well-meaning practitioners try and help people heal from fear based places. “Don’t eat this…Beware of that.” Kim comes from a higher knowing that transmits in her words and presence so that the listener/client can tune into their own higher knowing.
Another way to presence what you are feeling without repressing it (which just gets stuck in the body and creates dis-ease) is by engaging in Somatic Movement or Breathwork. I was attuned to teach a powerful Somatic Movement called Femme! created by the resplendent Bernadette Pleasant. Femme! is a movement experience that fuses primal movement, sensual dance, meditation, creative visualization, and celebration of the human form. Femme! is inspired by African, Tribal, and Free Dance interwoven with the somatic and primal healing arts. Femme! takes participants through an “emotional tour” so that one can bring up, meet, and move through emotions using the body rather than the mind. While the mind will throw up roadblocks to healing because the ego wants to “protect us” the body doesn’t lie. The best part is, you don’t necessarily need to relive old memories like in talk therapy. You can clear it from the body with movement and sound. Bernadette has created a powerful way to release stuck energy so you can be more fully embodied in yourSelf.
I do not share these teachers of mine for any other reason than in my experience they can assist you in meeting your pain, your contraction, the parts and patterns you haven’t been able or willing to meet so that you can integrate and move into living with more ease and grace and lightness. Truthfully though, you don’t need any tools or techniques. I’m not going to lie, I will continue to work with these coaches and mentors of mine because it’s fun and they create environments of unconditional love. Who doesn’t want more of that? But good (and ethical) teachers like Genevieve, Dr. Kim, and Bernadette will tell you upfront that you don’t really need them. They will assure you, as I am assuring you, that everything you “need” is already within. You do not need to seek what you already have. It is simple but it isn’t easy. It takes courage to meet all of yourself without judgment.
So for my Self and all of you, I am committed to being present and willing to meet what is Arising with love. With compassion. Not to fix it or transmute it or change it or get somewhere or get something. Not so I can come back to you and tell you, “I did it.” I am willing to meet “what is” because I am Whole and Holy and whatever is there is also Whole and Holy. Because I Am willing and able to see there is no Broken or Unworthy that is separate from or less than Complete and Perfect. That is duality. God/Source/The Light is not fragmented and neither am I. I Am Whole and Perfect and broken (only in my human experience) and Complete just as I Am. So are you. If you forget just ask me. I will reflect it for you. When I forget, I will look at you in your completely imperfect human Perfection and Remember. I AM You, You are Me, We are One, All Is Well.
If you liked my work and want to connect, I invite you to find me here.
