Playing with Energy for Boundaries and Giving/Receiving

In the complicated yet simple dance of being with other humans,

How we experience centeredness and security in our own selves impacts how we give and receive with others. 

Perhaps you feel the emotions of those around you. 
A potential for overwhelm because there are So Many Feelings run amok.

Perhaps you give more and more and more, hoping for a return.

Perhaps you hide from the world, living on defense, only giving a smidge.
For good reason, people have taken from you. 
Culture, work, family, friends - take and take and take.

Or perhaps you yourself need so much:
From a depth of not enoughness - not enough love, care, attention
When you were powerless and needed unconditional love
That desperation to get your needs met still lives in you.

It's all understandable.
No one is the bad guy. 
We all have parts of us out of balance in one way or another
or many ways.
We all have childhood trauma of one kind or another.
We all see and feel the trauma around us constantly. 
It's the air we live and breathe.

We bring more health by awareness, through play, through curiosity, through our imagination.
We bring more health by healing. 
We heal by attending to our emotions and our energy.

Energy underpins everything. Everything is made of energy.
Emotions
Thoughts
Beliefs
Actions
Matter and form of this world.
 

{{~~ Aura Explore ~~}}

We'll play with energy and boundaries, giving and receiving, imaginal and felt and material.
Chocolate and scarves will be involved, writing and yoga props. Intention and gentle movement. (not yoga, fyi)
A small group - so far we are six, room for up to ten. 

Saturday March 2nd, 12-1:30, Wildlight Yoga
$20
More info and sign up

In practical terms - we all have boundaries. Some of these are spoken, some of them are energetic. If you feel out of balance in your boundaries, your sense of self, your ability to give and receive, Aura Explore is a playground to explore both the concepts and the sensed experience of boundaries. 

I find that the more centered I am in my energy boundaries - the more inner agreement I have with all my parts around such boundaries - the less I need to say. As I grow towards more inner agreement, boundaries exude with simplicity, with being. And then if I need to "set" a boundary, speaking with calm and clarity becomes more natural. Sometimes, these boundaries become explorations, curiosities, a naming of needs and seeing where the needs and requests intersect and can flow together. I'm a work in progress around boundaries for sure, and its a relief to feel that progress happening!

I'm truly so excited to play and flow with some of you on Saturday!
With love,
marta

Photo by Daryl Han on Unsplash

Connecting with the Elements

Like many healing and energy modalities, AuraTransformation partners with the energy of the elements - in this case, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.

These elements provide another way to know ourselves, get a felt sense of balance. As more healing happens, balance becomes its own wonderful side effect.

I find when I'm balanced in my elemental energy, all things feel easier, even the challenges, and I feel more alive and like more of me. I'm grounded and connected to my spirit/higher self. I have the passion and forward direction of Fire, the high vibe emotions of Water, the structure and nourishment of Earth, and clear thinking and divine inspiration from Air.  

Forcing our elements into balance does not work. Thinking them into balance does not work either. Energy and healing practices all lend themselves to the goal of balance in one way or another. 

AuraTransformation offers a path of connecting with our Elements, personally, or in hands-on sessions. In these element balancings, we partner with the Crystal energy which is itself highly balanced. It does not bypass what needs to be healed or learned. It might bring up to the light of awareness that which is ready for transformation and change. 

For example with fire, if big anger comes up on our way to more balance, probably some boundaries need attention, or connection with life force in our life choices. 

With water, if big emotions are present, we do not ignore. Instead loving, healing attention is called for with our shames, griefs, and despairs. Bypassing does not fix, it only postpones. 

And likewise, doing healing work of any kind -- all of this leads to natural element balancing within us. It's a two way, or perhaps many ways path!

In Aura Explore on March 2nd, we'll go through an Element Balancing experience as a group. In addition to Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, we'll also connect with and balance our Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine energies. And we're going to play with sensing our energy field, play with giving and receiving energy. 

With love, 
Marta

Deeper Than Water

What is deeper than water and capable of flowing with all that you bring to this world? In my view - your spirit, your soul, your essence, your Self energy, your Higher Self.

Whatever you want to call it - that which is bigger than your personality, bigger than your wounds, which holds your personality and heals wounds. This presence brings more and more of the real you into this world.

It took me So Long to get a reliable felt sense of this Self/Soul/Spirit presence of ME. In my religious upbringing, souls were paired with a threat - your soul might be damned to hell if you don't follow the rules. In IFS, I did not trust the concept of Self Energy. It did not feel possible that there was something bigger than my wounds, bigger than the parts of me that so much wanted to be heard. 

I rejected 'unblending' for such a long time. Unblending is the IFS term for having an authentic sense that a part is a part of one's True Self, and being able to relate to that part from your bigger Self. For a long time I perceived it as diminishing, uncaring towards my parts/feelings, and with some people, force in trying to make that unblending happen.

Now, after practicing IFS for over 10 years, plus adding in energy work, I totally get how unblending accelerates the healing. For me, the key was patience with my parts, and then learning energy healing, which has boosted my tangible sense of energy and of my bigger self. 

Some days I call it my soul. Some days, it's the essence of me. Today my prayer is "help me remember who I truly am, and what I am here to do".

But how to get there without force and without rushing? 

The power of water comes to mind.
The patience of a river carving the immense gorgeousness of the grand canyon.
The resilience of water carving holes in rock.
The never ending supply of water, recycling, cleansing, renewing.
Our gratitude towards water and all the gifts it brings.
Our gratitude towards our own water element in us, that brings flexibility, intuition, emotions, and connection to spirit.

{Have you seen these amazing photos of how thoughts and images imprint upon water? 
Veda Austin (@vedaaustin_water) • Instagram photos and videos
Facebook}

I regularly turn to the water element to help me remember my flow, my life force, and the power of something so dedicated and yet so flexible. 

Most mornings I stand with my hands over my water glass or mug of tea, and ask water to teach me, to help me remember. This bigger-than-me element communicates well with my spirit, often bringing grounding, love, flow into my body, helping me expand bigger than the moment, and be in the moment at the same time. 

Do you pray over your water, or connect to the water that lives in you?

With watery loving blessings,
marta

PS - Connect with the Water Element in the upcoming Aura Explore class on March 2nd.

Eating My Bandaid

Bandaids are everywhere
Separation   *    Drugs    *    Food    *    Shopping    *   Netflix   *   Shaming and Blaming
BLAME IS A BANDAID
As long as that other person is WRONG
          AT FAULT
                     THE BAD GUY
Then I don't have to feel my own pain and grief
I'm good at that one
But I have made a solemn vow
To keep releasing
                     releasing
                             releasing
The Shame and Blame
If we believe them - Poisons
masquerading as righteousness.

Chocolate:
Lately I've been eating a bandaid for breakfast
Even when I'm not hungry
The signal that something big 
is/was trying to throw up out of my belly
Core wounds spilling out every which way
                                Raw and trying to digest
The pain of the world
My own wounds
Ancestral wounds

My skin is crawling with discomfort
How long can I tolerate?
How do I get to the bottom of this fucker?
Thank god and goddesses and earth mother and father sky
that I have a bandaid
I don't know if there is a bottom 
to this pain
          it's still throwing up
                      I'm throwing up
Sorrow and grief
and powerlessness
Thank you, chocolate, assault my senses
Salty, mixed with my tears and snot.

When our hearts hurt

Dear Ones,
So much hurting these days. 

How do you relate to the extreme situations that pile up in our world right now? 
I know in myself that I go on ignoring or tolerating many of the sufferings in our world, but then the spotlight comes on in certain ways - maybe media or social media grabs a hold of a topic, or somehow a wave that moves through all of us, saying Look Here.

The desperation lives around me daily in Chicago. Children killed through poverty, neglect and gun violence. I can keep my balance around it for a certain amount of time.

And then the events grab my heart - Israel and Gaza, Maui and fire, migrants pouring into Chicago, children begging in my neighborhood street corners - and everything becomes tender. 

AND just like there are unlimited vibrational tones, from the very very low, to the very high, some audible and some inaudible - both incredible, indescribable pain and also intense beauty and love surround us at all times. This isn't to bypass the ugliness and supreme pains. It's to acknowledge all of it coexists at the same time. 

I went for the most beautiful walk yesterday in the woods, where the trees have all turned yellow but not dropped their leaves. I felt totally bathed in golden light, with almost a desperate need to gulp and suck in forest air. Truly stunning and nourishing. 

Can we admit we don't know what to do? I'll admit it - I don't know what to do. If we knew how to 'fix' these problems, we'd have fixed it already. So can we stay open to the very painful not knowing? See what is ready to emerge from the broken places, stay attuned to possibility of what's in this moment, what's ready for the next level of personal and collective growth?

I made two new meditation recordings in the last couple of weeks. 
Letting go of blame, inviting in love is a practice I am committing to. Where am I hardening my heart? Where am I protecting my anger? Can I soften any amount of it? Can I try an experiment of loosening the grip of anger on my heart - and still listen to the anger, still welcome it, knowing it has a positive intention, something it's trying to do to help? 

I listened to the recording last week and thought it was not so great. Then I had a big shame wave the other day, and I listened to it again and found solace and healing. I brought attention and energy to those shame parts and heard them ask "am I really allowed to love myself, even though I got it wrong?"

Yes.
I don't know the way forward, but I do know that hardened shame and blame and anger have not solved my life problems, they solidified my life problems. I'm willing to try this experiment and see what might come from taking the risk to soften, to let go, to allow love into my broken places. 

And of course, some hurts are too fresh or too big and deserve plenty of time and space and care for the anger and rage. No need to push, no need to force yourself into love. That isn't true healing in the long run. Take your time, see what really needs attention, and welcome it all. 

How are you healing and holding your heart these days?

With love and kindness,
Marta

Meditations
Letting go of Blame, Welcoming in Love
Welcoming Despair and Grief

Photo by Dave Webb on Unsplash

Mistakes are Welcome

Making mistakes -- and the TRUTH of our worthiness as humans -- is on my mind and spirit these days. A week ago I made a video called "Giving the Finger to Perfectionism", which I found fun and liberating. Two days later, I made a mistake - broke a rule in fact - and my rental car was towed. 

THE SHAME!

It was the perfect situation for working on all the feelings that go with mistakes. In this case, no one was hurt, I just felt stupid, unworthy, and expected to be shamed. But instead I was met with super kindness from my husband, and I processed and released so many old feelings and energy over the next few days on my solo camping trip. 

The real truth - we deserve love always. That we are worthy as a person with no exceptions. That we are here on earth to have an experience, and we have free will and choice to explore. That when there is no shame or blame, the best learning happens, and our ability to act in a response-able way ensues naturally. Shame and blame are not essential for dealing with the natural consequences. 

With love for the journey,
Marta

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash