You practice mindfulness, begin to meditate then your world explodes. You don’t understand why doing something supposedly good for you feels like shit and assume those peaceful looking people are actually on prescription drugs. Xanax anyone?

You start yoga only the teacher can’t explain why you’re on the mat crying or raging because he went through some yoga teacher training mill and frankly wishes you’d dry it up over there. Even worse, you’re too embarrassed to let anyone see and stuff everything back down where you think it belongs. This is because you read about yoga in a magazine and no one told you about the emotional and spiritual bits.

You take a chakra class online, read The Secret, start declaring your Core Desired Feelings, use powerful essential oils (not that cheap shit from the health food store either) and read more books. You notice that your life is getting worse by the minute so you feel like a failure and drop it like it’s hot.

This cycle can go on for years because rather large pieces of information have been left out of a lot of ancient and current methods designed to make it easier on you to achieve the things you want. How come some people hook up with a method and this cycle doesn’t seem to happen? I have no idea sweetie I’m talking to those of you who try, try and try and things only get worse. If life is peaches for you I’m not sure how you found this page to being with, stop reading and go enjoy your life!

For the rest of you, you ain’t got enough of your Soul in your body. Sounds like more woo garbage but I’m telling you that the saying you’re a soul having a physical human experience does seem to be true. The thing is we don’t know that we get to control to some degree how much awareness of Soul we’re allowing into our consciousness. We’re certainly not working with Soul or getting trained in how to access it, to be aware of the signature of our energy vs everyone else and what to do about feeling those differences and setting healthy boundaries. 

Without Soul or Essence or Presence, whatever you want to call it, you aren’t aware that when you set a Core Desired Feeling, reach for the feeling place or learn to communicate with the subtle energies of your projects or set a goal of ANY kind the Universe says “Whoopie! Fuck yeah! She’s finally reaching for what she deserves and has denied! Hey Bob scramble the guides, power animals and Devas, she’s ready!”

Annnddd…

There’s whole lotta shit between you and it.

We don’t pick a goal or choose the way we want to feel that we feel already. We reach for something we want and intuitively know we deserve. We reach for what we don’t have but know is True. This means that everything unlike itself has to be cleared away as you begin bringing more awareness of your Soul into your body. You are opening your awareness to intuition at a far greater level than you’ve ever experienced since childhood and holy hell Sweeties, shit gets real, real fast. You are not being punished, tested or judged as undeserving.

Your Shadow comes up for you to see it. Unprocessed Shadow shows up in the form of multiple conflicts, fights with those close to you, sudden flares of hot green jealousy, tendencies to blame everyone for everything not recognizing the world stage is showing you; You. Showing you the parts you have discarded, rejected and disowned through bounced checks, traffic jams and really shitty timing.

Welcoming those disowned parts is part of obtaining your goal.

Increasing energy flows in your body (think Chi or Prana) can make you feel weird, ants in the pantsy, itchy and strange. You aren’t used to feeling in your lower body energy centers and may find old memories and pains arising or feel like you have the flu. If you have significant trauma or can’t seem to find a way to adjust to these new energies a therapist trained in trauma or a highly skilled coach may be necessary to guide you through.

Adapting to the feel of energy moving in your body is part of obtaining your goal.

There is an in between place you must visit. A place of Shadows and conflict and struggle yet if you stay with the practice you just started, it moves right on through. Scattered puzzle pieces form a beautiful picture. Unhealed becomes healthy. Light and Dark find balance and the razor’s edge is easier to stand on.

It’s a significant issue with me that more people aren’t telling you these things and how important it is that you KEEP GOING. Yes you may need to take a break in your personal work but seriously more than a day or so and you can fall back asleep so fast you won’t even realize it’s happening. Having lost your momentum you feel like a failure, again, and decide these things just don’t work for you. You become bitter with every new Facebook ad you see promising 5 or 7 or 3 easy steps.

Let me set you straight: there are this many easy steps – ZERO! None! Every step is varying degrees of difficult. There is no shortcut, no bypass, no easy way out. The methods are simple but they have to be practiced every damn day. This why the gutsy and brave keep coming back over and over. They fall off the horse, dust their asses off and climb right back on because they understand there is order in Chaos when you stay present long enough.

It hurts, it’s harder than you ever think it will be and it is the answer to every single issue you’re struggling to resolve. Every. Single. One. You are not a failure, you are not incompetent and you are capable of learning these things.

Think about it. How many years have you struggled to solve things over and over, suffered mighty agony and created only more pain and poverty? A lot, which means you have a lot of tenacity and the ability to try again the only issue is your rudders are steering you in ineffective directions as you sail the Sea of Self-Sabotage.

You can, prepared with knowledge and practice, steer your boat in a new direction toward new seas.

How many years does it take to set a goal and deal with processing through the shit between you and it? I don’t know but I can tell you it cycles through pain and glory, sorrow and soaring joy and as you become familiar with the unfamiliar it gets easier to swim in these kinds of oceans.

This lack of knowledge and understanding is why you cry on the yoga mat, don’t get results with Law of Attraction and avoid meditation or Core Desired Feeling work. You ain’t got no Soul in your body and you know you’re supposed to have all that and more.

I do this work on myself, with others for a living, have done so for over 20 years now and I only count the years working as a professional. In truth this has been my entire life. This growth cycle is as predictable as cats tearing up the furniture and dogs throwing up on your favorite sweater. It happens, you’ll love the overall scene in time and you owe it to yourself to keep going!

Where are you at in your cycle of growth? How much of your Soul are you allowing to be present?