Tis the season of many feelings

December primes our emotions and patterns to rise to the surface. 

* Feeling worn out by your family and friend patterns?
* Lonely and feeling like you don't have enough community?
* Overwhelmed and struggling with how to say no?
* Feeling obligated to give and give and give - whether that's presents, hosting meals for people, going to all the parties and events?

Whatever way you struggle, it often amplifies during this time period. 

Hugs to us all!! Everyone is trying their best within a broken culture!

Maybe you turn to self blame. "if only I had chosen [xyz] I wouldn't be feeling this way now. if only I were different then I wouldn't be so miserable." 

Or perhaps blaming others - "if my family were just better then I would love this time of year. If they were different I could enjoy myself."

There's no simple answer to whatever you face this month. For many, our deepest wounds become so available at this time, and deep wounds take a lot of care and attention. Not to mention the deep wounds and fractures of our families, societies, structures, and brokenness of so many kinds. 

And then we have habitual ways that we respond to these hurts. These patterns try to be helpful, but they may not actually help as much as you hope. Maybe it's time for an upgrade, new possibilities in how you interact with yourself, your patterns and this heightened time of year. 

 I'm offering a group energy session on December 22nd to bring awareness to our patterns. Bringing relief, insight, potential for changing patterns. Leading to more ease and choice. 

One thing that I'm enjoying about these group sessions is that we don't have to carry the same story or feeling, but whatever is addressed seems to help everyone in their own unique way. 

Revealing and Releasing Patterns
Sunday, December 22nd, 1 pm CST
Approx 60-75 minutes
$25
Free if you've had a paid private session with me in the last 30 days! (You'll receive a separate email from me with the discount code.)

Register

More info here.
With love and good wishes for each one of you,
Marta

It’s the ancestor time of year

Friends, and the ripples of your ancestors,

You come into this life and take up the family legacy backpack, filled with both gifts and burdens. There are many ways into communing with your ancestors - and this is the perfect time of year for it. (Halloween, Samhain, Day of the dead, All Souls, etc)

With Body Code and Inner Artistry, we tune into ancestral issues for potent contact and help. Sometimes we know about the ancestral patterns, sometimes we don’t even know until we find them through muscle testing. The relief from the energy work brings gifts to you, all your ancestors, and anyone who inherited the pattern.

Some things we've addressed regarding ancestry in personal sessions lately:
- a family belief that "if we didn't have bad luck, we'd have no luck at all";
- inherited patterns around grief, abandonment, addictions, emotions, money, abundance, feeling invisible and unseen;
- ancestral mothering lines;
- how and why our ancestors arrived in the United States;
- the incredible resilience and gifts our ancestors want to share with us.

Being with people as we tune into the burdens our ancestors went through humbles me. Every family has a story. Every family line has burdens, some excruciating. I bow to these ancestors that carried immense griefs of their own, and piled up from their ancestors too. And yet, we can transform and release these burdens lighter and easier with Body Code. Freeing you to receive the gifts and blessings from your ancestors.

I completed my certification in Body Code two weeks ago and went through a portal of expansion. This surprised me because usually I have parts that feel rebellious towards certifications. (I don't need an outside authority stamp of approval!) I felt pushed and pulled - I went through a threshold and expansion at that moment. 

And maybe it has something to do with the time we are in, which has a lot of pushing and pulling, and yet great power for growing and expanding. 

Body Code + Internal Family Systems = Inner Artistry
Personal sessions are amping up in their effect. Read more here.

And I get that individual sessions are expensive. Fortunately, I'm LOVING group work. Here's what's coming up:

• Intro to Welcoming Your Big Bold Self -
  Tuesday, October 29th, 3:30-4:30 
  Altar Community. Part of Bring Your Soul to Work day. FREE
   

• Rep Rallies -Group energy process to Liberate your Creative Spirit (open to all humans, not just performers! Limit 6 people.)
  Nov 10th 2-4 pm - $40
  My home, near Lawrence and Milwaukee
   

• Welcoming Your Big Bold Self
  Anne's Haven
  5629 W Irving Park Road
  Combining Internal Family Systems + Emotion Code for your inner freedom.
  Nov 16th, 4-6 pm - $35/two for $60

Thank you for being here, thank you for connecting through this email. We are asked to give our attention in an absurb amount of directions. As I roll out the carpet of these words and ideas, I bow to receiving your attention and sharing energy together in this way!

With gratitude,
marta

Why turn inward?

When the world seems to be drowning in one place, going up in flames in another, and torn apart by wars of many kinds, isn’t attending to one’s inner growth selfish?

Here's a higher vibe reason to turn inward - gifts come from this choice:
 —true empowerment for you; 
 —not being at the mercy of the chaos and outrage filling the air around us;
 —taking ownership of what is yours to heal and address in this world;
 —not contributing to the drama and intensity out there;
 —being present to this world, helping you face any situation with discernment and awareness. 

With true empowerment, even more gifts ripple forth.
You step even more fully into your purpose for this life.
You vibrate at higher levels, helping those around you just with your presence.
Instead of adding to the drama, you bring calm, centeredness, groundedness, peace, and love.

These gifts won’t actually materialize if you bypass the feelings, the trapped emotions, and trapped beliefs inside you. Start from the inside out.
Read more here:
Part 1 - Triggering Season
Part 2 - Stressors and the Gifts They Bring
Part 3 - Convincing others vs reckoning with yourself

May we all be moving in the direction of evolving and growth, for our highest good, and the highest good of humanity.
With love, 
Marta

Photo by Tim Stief on Unsplash

Convincing others vs reckoning with yourself

Dear ones ~
The world = FIRE
Our reactions = FEELINGS + FIRE

How's your heart and nervous system today?

Instead of getting stuck in an activated loop (triggered, on fire, pissed off, blaming), you have the opportunity to empower, heal, and grow.

I'm going out on a limb to suggest that the most powerful thing you can do these days is your own inner work. Take responsibility for your feelings and your reactions to the world around you. 

I was going to say it's more powerful than voting, and then my husband asked me why I wanted to make such a big claim. That helped me realize - it's the same loop - using a polarizing statement/belief to convince YOU that I know something, and you should listen to me.

That convincing energy is sooooo sneaky.....we think we know something better than another person. We get attached to that belief, and it becomes more important than relationships, more important than listening and connection to others.

Trying to convince others creates push back and polarization. 

People react to being pushed, and not in a way that moves towards your goal. Here are some steps that bring more potential for change:

• being present to what is;

• then reckoning with your own feelings - griefs and angers;

• the cleanest way to make requests to others for change is after working on and with your own emotions;

• It's a much slower path, but it is infused with hope and potential for the desired result in this slow-grow-together path. 

• (This is not the path if you are experiencing physical harm or verbal abuse. That calls for an entirely different response and skill set.)

It takes patience to unwind from convincing others. The world would have us believe that fighting and convincing brings change, and that we all better do our best to create change, or else. Even taking stock of those fears and really investigating them, will bring some interesting growth and dividends for you.

It makes me curious right now about the urgency that surrounds us these days. How much urgency has been thrust upon us in the last 5 years? 10 years? Even longer? How much of that urgency is wisdom speaking to us, and how much of it is manipulation? Worthy questions to explore!

Warm wishes for your inner explorations!

Marta

PS - Photo by Wren Meinberg on Unsplash

Stressors - the gifts they bring

Dear ones ~
As we swim through the barrage of pain, suffering, overwhelm, and divisiveness, we can choose to stay as we are, or we can choose to find new ways to address our internal and external choices. 

My preferred way - turning to growing as much as possible, so we can ever move towards love and integrity, in all parts of our personality in all possible ways. 

This is part two in dealing with Triggers. I learned from a facebook friend that a better term is Stressor - trigger most applies to someone with PTSD and a serious reactive response.

Part 1 - Triggering Season

I know you care about the world and the people around you, and perhaps even those people you do not know or see. Your big heart matters, and your response to suffering matters. 
 

The gift of these Stressors - they are not actually the cause of the emotions - but our reaction shows something's stuck. Emotional inflammation alert!

The invitation: look inward and find your personal source of inflammation. 

This personal gift of inflammation-information, how is it able to help you?

• Showing you a time in your life when you truly felt powerless – childhood for example – and today’s event is touching that button?

• Or is it a mirror, to show you how some of your inner parts mirror the outer situation? (This rarely matches exactly, sometimes pointing to ways one does the same thing to oneself.)

• Or a longing of a way to live differently, more in line with your deeper values and purpose? 

What are your thoughts and experiences in dealing with stressors and triggers? How else do you experience stressors helping you?

I intend to send one more newsletter on this topic, exploring more of the power of the You-turn. 

With love for our growing pains and big hearts,
Marta
 

These words by Cate Montana are a wonderful addition to this post:

"That we are at the time and place in history where it's imperative to focus on the only choice that matters: Expanding in consciousness to become the New Human, turning away from factionism, groupism and fear, manipulation and controversy, and, yes, poli-tricks and anything else that creates division, hatred and extremism.

The only way out of the trap that's been set for us is to follow the sage advice of Albert Einstein who pointed out that change cannot happen unless there is a change in the consciousness of humanity.

Divide and conquer is the oldest play in the book."

More about the You-turn coming soon as a way to opt out of the divide and conquer playbook!

(Photo by Erin East on Unsplash)

Triggering season

Tis the triggering season. 

Are you feeling everything amped up in America these days? The upcoming election shines light on our many dysfunctions.

The energy, from where I sense it, is heightened, chaotic, angry, moving fast, destabilizing. It’s easy to get swept off our feet by the constant changes, announcements, attacks, conventions, and social media framing.

This intensified energy affects us all - and has impacts on all our interactions, not just conversations and beliefs about politics.

You, my friend, might be caught up in this too, getting triggered. 

Feeling charge and certainty that others are wrong.

And believing that blaming and shaming others might somehow help.

I hear you. I hear that you care. I hear that you want to help. You're right that our society is quite sick. You are sensing something important. Your experience matters.

However.

 Blaming is a big warm blinking sign, inviting you inward. 

Blaming others is a signal of feeling provoked, angered, and probably also vulnerable and scared

And it’s not effective.

Have you ever been blamed or shamed into a whole new outlook on life? Does that vibe entice you into wanting to open yourself, to open your mind, to change?

I know this position well. I am the queen of blame. I have been self righteous for more years of my life than not. I have felt extremely justified in all my high and mighty positions – those other people are obviously stupid and WRONG. Unlike me, who apparently knew it all. At age 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40...

And then, knocked upside the head by the covid era, that no longer worked for me. The othering and shaming of that time prompted something new in me.

I made a vow to evolve beyond this dualistic way of thinking and behaving, that of good/bad, right/wrong, to find the deeper pattern underneath it all. It doesn’t mean there isn’t evil out there, but there is something more vast than the evil, something beyond the things that I believe are bad and wrong.

I’m realizing just now, that it’s not about completely throwing out the right/wrong concept – but it’s adding the layer beyond dualism. We still need discernment. Not everything is okay or good for a person or for society. It’s building upon the dualism to bring another dimension and another layer to wisdom. 

On a walk just now, I had a little laugh at how I want people to get what I'm getting, to see how they are "wrong" for blaming people for being wrong. Hahaha, it's so tempting, isn't it? It's so very easy to get sucked into this blame game!

I'm a work in progress with all of this too.

To start, just noticing if you are in the blame game is very helpful awareness. Awareness is always the first step. 

Next essay will have more suggestions on what to do when pulled into the blame tornado. That blame tornado has quite the force and the pull. When we take ourselves out of it, it takes some of the energy out of the collective, entrenched blaming too. 

With love for all of us, all of our humanity, and our big hearts that are yearning for the more beautiful world we know is possible!
marta

PS - Photo by Dejan Zakic on Unsplash