Jessica Shepherd's Blog, page 9

In this blog, I answer a reader’s question. Enjoy!

Hi Jess,
Thank you for everything that you have given to those that are attracted to your work. I have some transits coming up this year which seem daunting to me. Neptune opposition Uranus to name one and the other players are along the same lines. My question is, is there a way to soften my outlook about astrological events /transits and progressions I often have a feeling of overwhelm when it comes to some of the more powerful challenging transits and progressions / squares and oppositions with major -planets outer planets. Would you please suggest a more balanced way of looking at astrology. So that I can use astrology as a helpful tool and not become so entwined in it fearing future events and becoming anxious as they approach. Many thanks.

Hi there, I love how you are asking for a way to soften your perspective instead of remove the dread and overwhelm you sometimes face around future-gazing with astrology. Because as long as we have hope and fear, built into being human and having an Ego, when we look at astrology we will have a range of feelings containing both.

With that understanding, how to soften? How to be gentler and kinder and more helpful, toward yourself? Several things spring to mind. One is to simply hold that intention. If you are looking at the astrology and notice fear, put it down. That indicates you are being taken out of the present moment, which is a given when looking towards the future. The future is full of what-ifs, and engaging the question “what if?” is very anxiety producing. I consistently encountered this fear in others when I was doing full-on astrology readings.

Another thing that has helped me is getting very clear on what having the knowledge of a future astrological transit can tell me, and what it cannot. It cannot reliably predict. Think of it as a weather forecast. When we see the sky looking a certain way, we surmise there is a probability of rain. But will the grey sky always bring rain? No. Sometimes it’s just a cloudy day. If I see a grey sky and know that sometimes that means rain, I’ve made a correlation. If I think because the sky is sometimes grey when it rains, that it will rain when the sky is grey, I’ve made a prediction. Astrology is much better at correlations than predictions.

Astrology does well at making correlations of a certain kind, and so using it in this way can be very helpful. Saturn transits bring a serious mood of hard work, maturity, and often the necessity of making a change brought about by this recognition that we are no longer the person we once were. Pluto transits bring an intense mood toward radical emotional honesty, wound healing and transformation. Sometimes transitory events occur in the external life but not always. It can happen on internal levels. This is true for all transits.

I’ve always found it quite reassuring that my worst fears for astrological transits have been unfounded, and likewise, for the times when “I didn’t see it coming”- despite being a masterful astrologer and having the astrology at my fingertips. Life is infinitely creative at “SURPRISE!” I am grateful for this. As much as my Ego goes through periods of wanting the answers, I love Mystery more. I don’t think the Creator created astrology for us to know our destiny. It is something to play with. Keeping a light spirit of play has been essential for me.

Finally, if astrology is the equivalent of weather, and moods, are you the weather or the mountain? Because when you allow yourself to get pulled into, wrapped up in, the transiting energy of astrology it is exactly like putting all your energy and attention into the weather and forgetting your eternal nature. You are the mountain. You are the strong, grounded and stable mountain. On any given day, you may feel rain or sun on your surface. On any given day, you may be a mountain full of flowers in bloom, or a mountain of barren, leafless, trees. Or, since we have simultaneous experiences, both at once. You are still the strong, peaceful mountain.

Be the mountain. Nourish the mountain. You may experience many changes over the course of your life, but YOU, the magnificent eternal and Divine Soul you are, do not change. Do things and engage in activities and ideas that support remembering the Real you — the Divine You who is permanently well, whole and good. In every moment, you get to decide whether to nourish the mountain or the weather with your awareness. 

Is focusing on your future astrological transits helpful for this Divine You, in this moment? This is a question each of us must answer individually. You get to define your own relationship with/to astrology, and it may change over time. You may discover there are periods when you need to pull your energy out of the weather, and back into YOU. You may discover, at other times, astrology to be helpful, validating and enjoyable.

My growing predilection for placing my awareness on the mountain (I AM) instead of the weather has certainly affected my astrological practice, and is a reason why I don’t make astrology the core of what I do any longer. I still use it; I also understand it’s limitations and how easily it takes a person out of Presence. I’ve discovered my preference for using it changes depending on the day’s mood, quality of energy, or who I’m with. On those days when it is easy for me to get caught up in the weather, or when I’m talking with someone who is caught up in the energy and weather, it often isn’t the right choice. It isn’t helpful. Instead, I will recenter in embodied and cognitive practices that help to come back down, into this moment. Into the peaceful mountain

The post How Can I Look at Future Astro-Transits Without Triggering Anxiety? appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

Vision boards are synonymous with New Year’s traditions, the time of year when we resolve to do things differently, or manifest what we want to happen in the coming year.

Yet when a friend exclaimed “nothing on my Vision Board came true for 2020!” I began thinking about how, like many things now, Vision Boards just don’t work in the same as they used to.

In fact, we may need a new vision for HOW we envision our lives, our future, our wishes and dreams, ourselves.  A new vision for those beloved Vision Boards.

Surrendering 2020

Not so long ago, if I was having an experience in my life I did not like I would deny its power over me and affirm the experience I wanted to have instead. Denial of the reality you don’t want and affirmation of what you do is basic Law of Attraction work. My Vision Board might have included pictures of things I most love and want, for instance. I’d focus on those, and perhaps employ practices, like affirmations, to change my vibration to resonate with what I wanted. It (usually) worked.

Yet over the past years we’ve been working a different spiritual lesson plan- All of us. Instead of denying what we no longer want to experience, we have been learning to sit in the center of it. To feel it all, surrender to all. Truly, to transcend and potentially transform our current reality we must fully feel, see, accept reality As it is…in its tangled complexity, with all of the human reactions it triggers. Instead of asking for reality to show up in a different way, we’re being asked to surrender totally to it.

Here’s the interesting thing. When we can do this, it creates a sense of Compassion, Peace, Divine Grace within What Is. Within this Grace, when we are experiencing the sense of sitting right here in the center of it, there is nothing to change or to become. Nothing to manifest or want, no new car, job, mate or role, because Grace IS the realization that we already have everything to feel and be complete and whole in this moment. Grace is Radical Presence with What Is. It doesn’t mean we don’t want other, new, experiences; but the realization Grace allows is knowing inside that All is alright, right here and now. There is nothing to change.  You just know: Change will occur when It is ready, and so are you. In time, that change will become as intuitively obvious as a doorway appearing before you. You will know when it is time to walk through it because whereas it was not available to you before, now it is. Beyond this, there is nothing to “do”.

When we can embody the Grace of Radical Presence, we feel marvelous! The world, our life, could change, or not. We are still okay and good. Ironically, paradoxically, we sense when we truly become Grace things finally could change.

New Vision in 2021

Honestly, I stopped collaging Vision Boards a few years ago. It wasn’t for lack of Faith. I felt “the rules of reality” changing. Nothing worked the same as it had. I couldn’t affirm or collage my way into a new experience anymore than I could deny the weather. When the work is coming fully into the present moment, the future… falls away.

As things shifted, I noticed how the goals I used to have about “what I want” became “who I want to be… no matter what is or is not happening.” Essentially, it was: I want to embody an experience of myself right now, quite different from “I want ABC to happen for me”, which was feeling increasingly disconnected from the Present.

Now I focus on who I want to be, and how I want to feel: in my own energy, present, in alignment, kind toward myself, self-honoring, abundant, inwardly connected to Source…

Instead of aiming for goals about where I want to be out there, now I feel into the Truth of my experience in-here right now. My new Vision Board is in my body, grounded in the Now. If it brings me the connection & Presence I want, I do that thing- an energy practice, for instance, or getting off social media. If It brings me inner kindness, I do that thing- maybe shift my attitude or recognize old conditioning and let it go. If it brings me self-honoring, I do that thing – draw a boundary in a relationship, for instance. In the details of how this all plays out, I am open to the Universe leading me moment by moment.

Is there anything else to be at this time but open and flexible, allowing the Universe to lead us, moment by moment? As what once worked may not work in the same way any longer, Life is teaching us to find our center within the Present.

If this resonates, you can try on your 2021 Vision in a very practical way. You can make your Vision Board, or your list, of who you want to be going forward. You can perform a ritual around it by lighting candles and incense at the right time. I still love doing that.

However, the two questions that have far more Universal permission to expand you are:

Who do I want to be, how do I want to feel?

What does the Truth of this Present moment say about this?

I take a belly breath and connect inward before asking these questions. This process goes something like this, and each answer will be unique to the moment:

I want to be kinder toward myself. What does the Truth of this Present moment say about this? I want to take a break. I want to do something else now. I want to judge myself less.

I want to feel valued in my work. What does the Truth of this Present moment say about this? I want to do something that I value – make some art or work on a book.

I want to feel more expansive. What does the Truth of this Present moment say about this? I give myself permission to explore some curiosities that light me up.

As you can see, this is less about putting a Vision Board down, sprinkling magical mojo on it under the right lunation cycle, and tucking it away until it manifests (like it used to be)… and more about doing what it takes to feel good and connected right here and now.

At core, within your goals, wishes, hopes… whatever does or does not happen in 2021…you still get to be You. You get to decide every. single. moment. If a storm veers your external goals in a different direction, instead of paddling your little boat against the current, instead of struggling against What Is, you can decide to ease into and become one with this moment. You can decide you will be okay within whatever happens. You get to manifest the life you want day-by-day, by becoming more intimate with who you are, inwardly, and dialoguing in the Now about what you most need and want.

As 2021 begins, many of us aren’t where we thought we’d be. It Is What It Is. May what we’ve been integrating throughout 2020 become the Grace we experience in 2021!

The post The 2021 Vision Board appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

Sometimes it is difficult to see beyond what we have experienced in the past. This happens in everyday life. But also during eclipse season (which is now) I’ve noticed a higher frequency of the illusion of “history repeating”. As unique situations arise, we unconsciously run them against our traumatic history and as they say, the rest is history. Or, so it appears.

I recently decided to explore a new healing tool, for instance, and it felt right to reach out to a new healer with experience in this area. My gut said “all go- green light!”. Then self-preservation (fear) kicked in. My mind started objecting, “well maybe we should go to Yelp to confirm this idea/person”, which I knew would only open me up to a host of strange external energies. Gathering opinions from people I don’t know is a good way to work a triggered Mind into a frenzy.

When I asked myself what was happening I realized my Ego was trying to protect me from past bad experiences. Here’s a sample of those:

-“You are from another planet that isn’t like Earth at all. Wow. You must be very lonely, here.” (a psychic)

-“If you hadn’t come to see me you may’ve had an accident with your hands that resulted in permanent damage.” (a healer)

-“Your mother’s spirit wants the happiness you have in your marriage. That’s what’s causing you trouble.” (energy healer)

…There are more. On the upswing, hearing utter baloney uttered from the mouths of healers has strengthened my compassion and integrity as a healer myself. But since history has repeated, many times, it is understandable that this fear would arise, or stop me altogether from reaching out to someone new.

At the core of all of this, a belief: there is something wrong with you. That was the conditioning, eerily reinforced. It began in early life and was reinforced by New Thought/New Age movement which often blames the victim. Whether through law of attraction, ie, I was attracting healers into my life who reinforced being wrong or broken, or whether this idea was so insidious in the New Thought movement that we were all swimming in the same paradigm of lack…when we are in a trauma state we adopt beliefs about ourself to help us survive. When these beliefs aren’t accurate, if left unchecked, instead of protecting they threaten our survival. My survival logic was: there must be something wrong with me and that means I can fix it. This gave my Ego the illusion of being able to control the uncontrollable, which helped for awhile. I held onto this belief for a long time.

As believing oneself to be broken will do, it led me on a long hairpin journey to attempt to fix myself. From healer to healer I went. I learned much in the process, but the belief was toxic and had to go. Eventually, I realized that my experiences were different from the norm but they didn’t make me wrong. Recognition was the first step. Nothing changed until I deeply, totally, became and embodied the new and accurate belief about myself: There is nothing wrong with me and there never was.

Triggers Happen for a Reason, So Acknowledge Them

Conditioning is the interaction of environmental factors (social, familial, religious) overlaid onto our life experiences. When the Ego needs a belief to survive something traumatic, it finds one – no matter how faulty. Like a computer program we download a belief without fully questioning its validity. We do so because it’s there, and we need it. This perception, unexamined, can run roughshod over our life. It can prevent us from having new experiences, or keep us in old ghostly loops from the past.

How do we work through such deeply wounding conditioning when it arises? How can we release it so we can allow each fresh experience to be uniquely new?

The first thing to recognize is when we are triggered: it is happening for a reason. The racing heart, heightening of our senses, feelings of foreboding or excessive thinking… all ask us to pause and integrate what is happening into our awareness, with the wisdom of our Self, today. We might think, holy hell why am I having such a strong reaction? The Ego is self-protective. It doesn’t throw up roadblocks to thwart us; it is trying to help us survive. Even if that thing we are trying to survive happened years ago, if we have more to integrate around it, a reaction from decades ago can happen now (especially under a Pluto transit!).

It’s the way a friend doesn’t return a call, and you take it personally and feel abandoned.

It’s a feeling of overwhelm and threat of full on collapse at a seemingly minor event.

It’s a racing heart when (and endless analysis after) you talk to a relative.

All are signs pointing the way back into our felt senses for deepened awareness. Despite how uncomfortable it is, with loving-kindness and conscious awareness, the repetition of old/ancient triggering responses always present opportunity true healing. I like what my former astrology teacher Steven Forrest has said about Pluto transits. I think it applies, here: ‘When you have a Pluto transit it means you are finally ready to heal.’ If you are being triggered, you are finally ready to heal.

Commit to Being in the Body

How do you work with a four alarm fire in your body? A feeling of the bottom falling out? A full-on shutdown? As the adage goes, the only way out is through. These triggers don’t just “go away”. The challenge is staying present to the feelings and finding some neutrality. When these sensations come up, it’s vital to stay in your body.

For me, becoming really present to the moment I feel triggered, and deciding to experience this in my body, is key before I cognitively address any of the energies and feelings arising. I will lay down and feel into the stable and impersonal energy and support of Mother Earth. I set the intention to slow my energy down. I wait to feel connected to the Earth and to the Now. I may look around me while feeling the stability underneath. I am incredibly patient with myself.

Only once I am grounded in the Now do I feel safe enough to explore what’s arising. I identify the sensations in my body, which are considerably less now that I’m in my body and the Now. I allow the feelings to arise, identify them, and I bring in my own present-day understanding and wisdom to them. I might say to myself: “Since something traumatic happened in the past, it makes sense I’d feel this way.” I pay attention to the feelings: hurt, abandonment, helplessness, betrayal, sadness, overwhelm, anger… and I also try to ask my body if it wants to do anything. Shake, yell at an imaginary person, punch into the air etc. all have been helpful.  Trauma is easily trapped, and stays, in the body through conditioning that tells us we can only have certain responses, ie, “don’t cry, be strong” “don’t be so dramatic” “anger is bad” etc.

For instance, I was doing this exercise and I felt some anger arise surrounding an ex from many years ago. The triggering emotion and event was feeling unsupported by others. I recognized this was “out of time” (that is, I could see that while the triggering event could perhaps be perceived as neutral, my emotions about it weren’t). Then this guy from years ago popped up. As I finally felt the depths of not feeling supported in my experience back then, I also realized I was too busy care-taking his response toward our breakup to experience my own feelings. I hadn’t been there for me! I felt the fierce, repressed, desire to be dramatic and loyal to my own experience – unconcerned about others feelings, to be utterly “selfish”. This reflected early conditioning where I learned to put my parent’s feelings, first, to survive.

To move past old wounds, integrate and finally heal, it is vital to create the internal space in our self, and find the space in our daily life, to feel what we feel, fully and completely. Without judgment, without shaming, without a mental story.  Otherwise, it is easy to overlay an old traumatic story onto a neutral experience.

What is the Condition of your Conditioning?

“I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in

I watched myself crawling out as I was a-crawling in

I got up so tight I couldn’t unwind

I saw so much I broke my mind

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in…” -Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) by The First Edition

So, what’s the condition of your conditioning? Most of us need to keep working on it throughout our lives, in varying degrees. As I’ve mentioned, Pluto transits stimulate our core wounds, as well as our ability and strength to finally, truly, heal from them. If you are Plutonian, or having a Pluto transit, life often feels like peeling a never-ending onion, the layers just keep coming! Yet if you’re committed to becoming aware and awake just the awareness of what is surfacing is most if not all that is required of you.

On that note, I will leave you with a story. Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter transiting my fourth house has kept me busy on fourth house matters (home, psyche integration). I have been dealing with a maggot infestation in my carpet. Yes, it’s disgusting, and understandably triggering especially because an easy resolution (one that doesn’t harm my family or ruin my carpet) is not within reach. The only thing I’ve been able to do, so far, is to deep clean the carpet and keep on top of the situation as it unfolds.

At first, I panicked because I wanted those worms out right away and no one and nothing was coming forward to help (how Plutonian is that!?). The exterminator had no ideas. The solutions I researched, boric acid and diatomaceous earth; the latter questionably works the former could cause harm to my pets.  As I went into the feelings of it, the helpless feeling of being out of control, surfaced, triggering that ancient trauma “no one can help me”. As I allowed those to be there, the panic dissipated and I wondered: since there was nothing I could do, could that be the solution? Awareness, acknowledgement and presence were the solution(s). It often always is.

This is often the place I end up with clients, too. Only by becoming aware of a dynamic that has been operating underneath the threshold of consciousness, in the precise moment it is happening, do we have the power to change it. Always, presence, witnessing. Coming back to the body, into the Now. It’s how we change the condition of our conditioning.

much love & aloha,

Jessica

The post The Condition of Your Conditioning appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

After going retrograde from 9/9-11/13, Mars in Aries remains in a post-retrograde shadow phase thru the end of 2020. Translation– in English, please? The astrology supports boundary work, understanding what they are, how they feel in your body. I’ve been working with people on their boundaries. I had a series of dreams this week all about boundaries. My dreams featured boundary after boundary, in their messy, glorious and myriad forms. So, let’s talk about boundaries.

There are many types of boundaries. Like:

Boundaries of time– your sense of timing around what feels good and safe for this moment. This can change moment by moment.

Boundaries of space/awareness– literally, knowing where your consciousness is right now. What you are thinking about and resting your awareness upon. Are you present, or are you elsewhere?

Physical boundaries– your awareness of what’s inside you versus what’s outside. Skin holds your organs inside your body, for instance. Or, your body as distinct and separate from another’s.

Sexual boundaries – your awareness of sexual energy, and what you choose to do with yours.

Psychic boundaries – your special psychic extrasensory sensitivity to yours, others’ and collective and external energies.

…and more.

Boundaries might alert us to them through: a prickly feeling on your skin. A dislike. A registering of dis-resonance with a person or an environment. Anxiety. Feeling unsafe. Nausea. Shooting pain. Anger. A dropped out feeling in the gut. And more…

The equivalent of a red flag, check-engine light, or low gas tank warning, it’s vital that you learn how you, and you specifically, are alerted to a boundary. Your signs will be personal. This first step, then, is to understand your particular signals and signs that you’ve reached an edge. Only you can know how and when YOU are alerted to a boundary. Your body is an excellent resource, here.

Next, what is it (that prickly feeling, shooting pain, nausea, triggering strong emotion) saying?

Finally, you must ask the all-important question: Now that I’ve recognized this, what do I need to DO about it?

Why do you need to do this? Your Ego relies on your very well-honed ability to listen and to act upon what you want and need, in any given situation, so that you know you are safe, secure and protected.  If you do not, you will not feel safe, secure and protected. You can open yourself up to all kinds of crazy. How crazy? If you have a habit of dismissing your boundaries, pretty darn crazy.

Now, some of you won’t need to read beyond this point. Lucky, fortunate, you. You do this naturally. But some of us must work at it.

Because of my massive boundary work for myself, I’ve had the synchronicity of attracting a handful of clients who have come to me with a particular and confusing issue. They complained about being stalked, harassed, bullied, persecuted, by one person or many. Naturally, all of my clients felt extremely confused and afraid. At first, I genuinely doubted I could help these women! But quickly I noticed a pattern. All clients all had a habit of ignoring their Self-knowing.  All had a dangerous habit of ignoring that little voice that said, “No. This is not right for me.” They heard the intuitive voice (we always do). They just persisted in willfully ignoring it.

How It Can Be Dangerous to Ignore Your Intuitive Knowing

In Follow the Moonlit Path I talked about a client named Marie. She hated the state in which she lived, and had for many years. She felt unsafe there, but she didn’t move out of state. Then, she started noticing weird things: half drunken milk she didn’t remember drinking left out on the counter (she lived alone). People ringing her doorbell… and when she’d go to answer it no one would be there. She moved one town over. “They” found her, there, too. Crazy, right? All of my clients with boundary issues are intimate with feeling crazy. Another client was bullied, for years, by people at her workplace and struggled to be believed by loved ones. Another attended a school where she felt persecuted during the entire time of her graduate work. All of these women identified their environments as dis-resonant for them, if not altogether toxic.  Yet instead of drawing a line, honoring the Ego’s desire to be safe (not to mention happy!), they stayed put, out of fear. Fear of change, of being deported, of not having enough money…

And what followed was way too much trauma, pain and confusion.

The common denominator? Ignoring what I know to be true and right for me. Boundaries exist to keep us safe. But we must learn to listen to and honor them, otherwise they can’t do their job. I often use the glyph of the Sun as an example for the way we must respect our own inner listening and knowing. The Sun’s glyph is a circle around a dot. The dot is the I AM, the Self; the circle is the boundary.  We must recognize, get really familiar and intimate with our boundary. It is what protects us. If we don’t honor our hard No’s, our firm edges, everything and anything can seep into our personal space. Similar to the way a runny egg white exists as a cushion to its yolk, we must respect our edge. Otherwise, the yolk (the Self) is unprotected and exposed to all kinds of calamity.

Conditioning Teaches Us Bad Boundary Habits

If you are in the habit of ignoring your boundaries, say, you are a compassionate and understanding person who has learned to put understanding others shortcomings above your own desires and needs… If, in childhood, you were taught to put everyone else’s needs first, your boundaries were repeatedly denied, overlooked, trespassed…or perhaps you were punished or ignored when you put your foot down and said “No,” you have strong conditioning against forming healthy boundaries.

It’s imperative to recognize this. It’s not your fault! People say, “Ugh, I know I have a hard time with boundaries. I just don’t listen to them.” Yes. But you were taught to do that. You were taught to favor that compassion muscle of yours, and to under-utilize the boundary muscle you do have (but haven’t been using) because you were taught to ignore/deny your Self.

This can change. Your habit of ignoring yourself formed because once it was safer to be fuzzy and deferential to others than to draw a hard line for you. Trust me, I know this song and dance. I wasn’t allowed to say No as a child; my boundaries and agency were not honored. This is why it has become so imperative for me to learn about boundaries. Stuff gets REAL when you need to learn such a core lesson. Every single time I ignore that voice that tells me No, this does not feel right for me…certain calamity follows. That’s how I’ve known how important it is for me to learn about boundaries; I get the one-two punch every time I ignore my inner knowing.

I have many stories but one that stands out involves traveling in South America with my husband. John really wanted me to attend a business dinner with his friends. I did not want to go. I was tired, we both were. We fought about it. I went anyway. The dinner dragged on and on in that way European dinners often feel to Americans. At one point I got inexplicably angry, so much so that I had to excuse myself to the restroom and calm down. Later, I recognized that was the exact moment my boundary said: “Enough is enough. You need to go home now.” But I didn’t. What happened the next day was typical for boundary-ignoring; my husband and I both got really sick and remained so for the rest of the trip. When my Intuitive Self knew everyone was overextended and we needed to go, my back went up. Anger, even if it’s out of context and doesn’t “make sense,” is a major check engine light for me.

How to Set Healthy Boundaries, Simplified

Boundaries, the whole subject of them: how to lovingly set them, how to know what feels truly right, when to bend versus when to practice a hard NO, even understanding where your edges are and what those feel like, can feel so darn complicated, confusing and overwhelming for someone who has been conditioned to NOT have them. Here’s a way to break it down.

In a nutshell: Boundaries always alert you to what your Soul truthfully wants to be doing… who it wants to be with, where it wants to be doing this thing, what it wants to be thinking about or focusing upon… at any given moment.

Boundaries tell you what you really and truly want, and honoring what you want will always protect you. Period. End of story.

Therefore, when it comes to boundaries the only question you need to ask is: What do I TRULY WANT right now?

For many, this question leads directly into an inner conflict between the Self and Fear, or the Self and Conditioning, or the Self and the many arguments of the Mind (fear, really). At this point you do have to dig a little deeper than you have been — to get passed the thick layers of conditioning, the Mind’s objections, or the fear of what will happen if you really do let yourself do what you want.

It can feel scary to listen to yourself, to honor yourself, to listen to your Soul’s bottom line Truth, if you’ve been punished or hurt for doing so before. It can feel scary to put yourself first, if you’ve been taught this is wrong and it will cause you pain.

Yet this work is so worth it. Trust me. This, right here, is the beginning of safety, of self-trust, of the kind of confidence and self-honoring and authenticity born of awareness and presence to what’s True for this unique being you are.

How About No?

I remember once reading a tip about how to create boundaries when you’ve struggled to do so. “No” is a difficult word for many of us to say and use, especially if you were conditioned to put others first, or you were not allowed to say it- as is often the case with sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Culturally and socially “No” also has a negative connotation for most of us.

The advice was this: instead of regretfully apologizing for your No, say No with the celebratory enthusiasm of a YES! NO!!! I cannot do this thing! (with big smile, happy energy) Truly, smiles all around for me and you, because I’m celebrating my ability to draw a boundary which is huge positive growth. Around this time, I came across this great sweatshirt, pictured. I immediately bought it.

Like the word “No” written and worn over the heart, your No is deeply loving and self-honoring.

Your boundaries are messages from your Soul. Your Soul only has your happiness at heart.

Listen to your heart.

Such exquisite inner listening relies on your self-honesty and commitment to listening to what you know, see and feel. No matter where your edge is surrounding what feels right and what feels wrong to have healthy boundaries you must commit to inner listening and honoring what you hear. To have healthy boundaries: you must feel that edge, know that edge, and be honest that it’s there.

‘Tis the (astrological) season to strengthen your boundary muscle.

You can do this.

Love,

Jessica

The post How About No? appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

When I saw this SNL clip the other night it made me think: Ah, yes, this is exactly what stress looks like under COVIN (yes, I know its COVID but you’ll get the joke when you see the clip). Meltdowns, and less resilience to stress and trauma, are symptoms of social isolation.

Not to mention the wine-drinking.

In astrology, connection (and shared pleasures) are ruled by the planet Venus. Venus offers soothing balm to life stressors, the ahhhh that allows for relaxation and release of tension. Here’s something you don’t often hear: Venus also helps us to feel safe and secure.

Connection & love doesn’t just make the world go ‘round. Our social nervous system requires connection to self-regulate, feel safe, calm.

Feeling safe, relaxed, secure largely relies on our ability to connect with others, our environment, the world. When we get a mismatch, we get nervous! There was a famous experiment that showed cooing, happy babies being received by expressionless faces of caregivers. They started to cry!

Reliable forms of ongoing connection create a baseline for our nervous system to return to after stress. Whether we get it from Zoom, text messaging, social media interactions or in person, we all need to experience nourishing connection. When we regularly hear the sound of a soothing, familiar, voice, and we are around people whose nervous system(s) resonates with ours, these things offer a feedback loop of connection that, according to polyvagal theory, stimulates our vagal nervous system — the part of our socially evolved nervous system that helps us feel relaxed, safe, at one with others and within our self. That lovely self-aware and relaxed experience of seeing your life with possibility and curiosity is facilitated through our social nervous system.

Since social distancing isn’t going away anytime soon, and we’ve entered the holiday season, a time we’d normally see family but this year less, and possibly some not at all, I’ve been asking myself: How can I stay connected? Do I want more experiences of connection with certain people (and less, with others)? How will I create that cozy and connected feeling?

It’s good to think about your anchors. In her book Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection, Deb Dana says certain people in our lives serve as reliable supports who hold a connection to safety when experiences threaten to pull us into stressful responses. Different people  serve different needs (professional support or personal, for instance) which by naming we realize we have support to draw on. We also have non-human anchors that bring us back into that desirable relaxed state- even simply remembering them creates resilience. For instance, a time of day (early morning with our hot beverage), cuddling with a pet, preparing a meal for a child, or looking through old photo albums can be anchors. Acknowledging and relishing in these anchors, times we experience that lovely sense of self-integration and calm, is helpful.

More ideas to build our capacity to withstand stress and create resilience:

-listening to music, humming a tune to oneself, playing music. Hearing pleasant sounds and self-vocalization stimulate the vagal (calm) state.

-being in calming, beautiful, still environments and opening our senses to them.

-smiling. When you are smiling, even if it is just a cheesy fake one at first, your nervous system receives the message “I’m okay.”

-creating art, cooking, eating -any activity that brings you into pleasurable presence.

-somatic experiencing (committing to being in the body, with ALL of its sensations and feelings). All stimulate that nice feeling of ahhhh….

One anchor that has helped me through this Covid time is dressing up for dinner. Initially, I felt sad that I had nowhere to wear all of my lovely dresses. I missed the ritual of transition from mundane things of daily life in to a more relaxed, social time. When I started changing into a different dress every evening before dinner I began to feel more centered in myself, and more like myself (Downton Abbey? Yes, please!). Over time, this ongoing ritual has become an anchor that signals the transition from day into the evening, elevating my sense of Self and mood.

Who, where and what are your anchors during this time? Is your nervous system feeling tuned-up with adequate levels of pleasure and connection? Are you feeling safe and cozy? If not, what will you do about it? These are Taurus (Venus-ruled) Full Moon fueled questions, and since it’s a Taurus Full Moon don’t be surprised if these questions are “up” right now!

Love,

Jessica

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Friends forever stand by you in good times or bad…so they say.

Forever bonds that stand the test of time are beautiful and deserve to be celebrated.

But not every relationship falls into this category.

What if it no longer feels good to have a relationship with a person we still care about or love?

It happens.

-Maybe you’ve made a transformative change in your life and the other no longer matches where you are, energetically, spiritually, geographically.

-Maybe they’ve changed, and you’ve found their new changes do not resonate with your values, or how you want to feel in this relationship.

-You’ve REALLY, really tried to make it work… adjusted yourself, tried to make it okay…only to realize, over and over again, that you are trying convince yourself all is okay when it isn’t and hasn’t been for a long while.

One of the immutable and difficult realities of being human is people change, and not always at the same rate. Some relationships are lifelong. Others are not.

That’s where seeing our relationships with one another as a GIFT (versus something we can control with our will), is helpful. Sometimes connections arrive in our life very easily. Other times, it feels like we are in a perpetual barren winter.  With anyone, we cannot control how long we are together, the nature of our bond. Or the duration and seasonality of our winter of solitude, or bountiful springtime of connection.

This is the mysterious Nature of relationship. We choose to love as we love a flower, for as long as it holds vitality. We learn to honor the cycles of that particular connection, and to listen to Truth carried on the winds of our heart. We learn when to love, and when to let go.

And still. Why are we still having difficulty letting go?

Guilt. One of us doesn’t feel good but the other of us is seemingly okay. They may insist they are happy, there is no problem (whether or not this is True is a whole other subject!). Then begins the guilt. We don’t want to abandon, hurt, disappoint or be their source of suffering – all normal and natural reactions…but it is important to recognize when guilt is the main driver of our connection.

Cultural programming. The conditioning around sticking with another person through thick and thin, is real. It’s imperative to recognize when this is damaging your ability to be neutral. In a culture where loyalty, monogamy and self-sacrifice are rewarded norms, leaving a relationship makes us a “bad person” or “selfish”. But maintaining a relationship out of loyalty is truly not good for either of you. It does not model integrity or authenticity. If you think it is, do you want to be known as a Martyr in this lifetime or for living your Authentic Truth?

Good times. How can good times keep us from moving forward? Joy makes a relationship last! It is cosmic sticky glue. Remembering joy, however, is not the same as living it in the Now. When we get attached to what was, not what is, we are not living in the present. Questions I consistently ask myself: Is this relationship joyful, on the whole? Does it feel good to me? If it is consistently bringing me more distress than joy, it’s a sign that it may not be meant to continue. Plus, the question alerts me to boundaries I may not be honoring in myself.

Fear of being alone.  “I’ll be alone forever” is a common fear that can keep people stuck and deeply lonely. Conversely, others easily say “I’d rather be happy alone than unhappy together.” What’s the story? Our human condition is interdependence and connection at core. Honestly, we would all be in very dire straits without one another- from our grocer, farmer, handyman, librarian, to the birds, bees and butterflies. Reflect on the many lives and beings invisibly and meaningfully contributing to yours on a daily basis to feel a richer sense of inter-relationship to Life. From the sidewalk we walk on to the food we eat and the electricity we use, none of it is made possible without others. We are more connected than we think. Acknowledging how connected you already are alleviates much of this fear -and- always, by the Grace of the Law of Attraction, the energy of feeling connected opens up opportunities for even more experiences of connection.

A note about family relationships: There is a popular belief that we incarnate with our family for a reason. While essentially true, self-sacrifice, guilt, obligation, and learning to transcend abuse so we can stay in relationships with people we don’t like are NOT Spiritual reasons nor apart of the Divine Plan (perhaps this was once true; it is not any longer). We don’t have to be in any kind of relationship with people who are abusive or toxic, even if they are biographically or genetically related. Divine Consciousness wants nothing more than our liberation and happiness! There is only one reason to stay in ANY relationship: it feels Right, in your Soul, to be in a relationship with them. This Rightness of Soul reflects your true and heartfelt desire to be here, and is not an Ego construct.

This Halloween marks the six-year anniversary of my book Karmic Dates and Momentary Mates: The Astrology of the Fifth House — my most popular book yet (at least, according to Amazon). Whether you need support and permission to outgrow a relationship, to release shame about past relationships, or you’d like to gain greater self-understanding about your own relationship patterns…it is a wonderful resource.

Release yourself from the burden of carrying the cultural myth of All Relationships Are Supposed to Last Forever.  ‘Tis the season!

Love,

Jessica

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The energies are intense out there right now. It is full on election season in the U.S., Mercury is retrograde in dramatic and intense Scorpio, the Libra New Moon is rather, ahem, interesting with Pluto and Saturn nearby, the pandemic… and really do we need another reason?

Sometimes, everything I feel out-there gets magnified in-here simply because the world’s volume is louder. Other times I notice everything I feel out-there is magnified when I am in conflict within myself. When things that normally feel intense but manageable become abnormally intense and untenable it may be a sign is something else going on underneath.  A choice I made, or recent experience I had, that didn’t fully resonate is compromising my energetic field, making me more vulnerable. Perhaps something has been bothering me which I haven’t fully acknowledged, taken time to relaxed-ly inquire into.

As it lingers in my field, awaiting deeper acknowledgment from my consciousness, I progressively get out. of. center.

A curious, lighter approach to what I’m feeling, and what I need, is exactly what’s called for. Drifting into deep presence in a relaxed way, lightening up, allows the Guide within to show me exactly what’s up.

But I cannot do this if I have become so thoroughly out of my center, feeling too much, too quickly.

The catch-22 is: When I am this triggered, it is challenging if not impossible to be relaxed and curious, since things are amplified toward heavy and intense. The question becomes, then, how to get back?

When things get turned up in my emotional body and nervous system, how do I come back to center, come back home to myself? Well, one of the very first things I have learned to do is slow down and be much kinder to myself…

Slow it down. Anxiety is speedy. Relaxation is slow. Whether that means stopping to water the flowers, laying down, or changing my plans and clearing time in order to take care of me, that initial step of setting the intention to/actually slowing down and being gentle with me hinges entirely on being present to the fact that I’m feeling out of my center, I’m feeling too “fast” and I’m going to slow down.

Then I ask: Where Am I? This is a powerful question for coming back into this moment. Here’s a few places I might be: In the energy of a client, or my husband? Am I in the energy of a worry? Am I in the past or future? Am I avoiding doing something I don’t want to do? Am I creating a story? Is my consciousness even in my body? Since consciousness is not tied to time or space, Where am I? When I ask this question I may discover: I’m in the energy of a website or former conversation. Sometimes this is all I need to ask to get back to center.

Ask: Am I safe?  This next question responds directly to the feelings of being unsafe that anxiety, dis-resonant energy, being overwhelmed, stuck in a loop of fight/flight/freeze response, or being in inner conflict with yourself will often create. Many things can stimulate the fight, flight or freeze response. It is not imperative that you figure out what got you here, right now, and chances are high that you won’t be able to anyhow. If you feel unsafe you are also not grounded, rooted or centered so this is the moment to ground, root, center. Feel your feet on this stable earth. Connect with your environment, the stillness of where you now sit. If you are breathing rapidly, watch your breath rise and fall without trying to change it. Ask the question, Am I safe?, but from the perspective of concrete actual facts (not how you feel). You may feel like the house is on fire but, wait, look around and you can see that it is not. Take some minutes to truly feel the physical reality of “I am safe” in your body. You might try naming objects, sights, sounds and senses of touch within your environment. Allow “I am safe” to arise from feet to legs to pelvic girdle, where the energetic root chakra of safety, security, and our power center, resides. You may also want to sigh a little when you start to feel a shift, an ahhhhhh with your exhale, since sighing signals “it’s okay to relax” to the nervous system. (If needed, reverse the order of Am I Safe and Where Am I?)

Once I get a sense of being in this moment, and the safety of this moment, I begin to ever so gently notice the feelings.

Ask: What am I feeling right now? Sadness, anger, fear, grief… I allow them to be named. They are often not my feelings/energies. I may not know whose they are. But I still need to acknowledge their presence in order to allow release.

I drop into the Real Feelings in my body, not the story about them in my mind.  When I am present I can become aware of the difference between “feeling” and “thinking.” If I say “this thing terrifies me” but I’m in my head, I’m not feeling it, I’m telling a story about the feeling. It will stay stuck and not shift/release. But if I allow it to drop into my pelvic bowl, the ugh, the awful, the sad, the desperate, the “I really don’t like this at all” now I am really feeling. Acknowledgement will dissipate ANY energy or feeling. Or, said in another way, the Truth will always set you free. But you must be willing to feel the penny drop… to actually feel the Truth of the feeling land in your energy body. This is not about dropping the thoughts but dropping in deeper, going underneath the mind’s story, and into the feeling and sensing body. So: Let go of the story and just be with the sensation of it. Breathe. Stay connected to your present environment, grounded. Be willing to see the difference between telling a mental story about a feeling or energy and actually feeling it in your body. 

I become willing to stay with the sensations in the body until I feel a shift. This means: Don’t push away the intense feelings and energies. Often we want to run away from discomfort, so we don’t really feel, not fully, so we suffer. We think about our feelings, we tell a story about the feelings, which can be ways to avoid feeling them. Or, we start to feel a little better and then start to distract our self with thoughts or schedules, instead of waiting for a deeper release or acknowledgement. Many people are afraid to feel the intensity of their feelings, in the body, because of the powerful story they have built around the feelings. Feelings and energies cannot harm you. You can experience them in your body as sensation. Then, you will realize a) you can survive intense feelings b) you are built to feel anything; you can handle it, and c) being in your body with intense feelings allows you to release them, and is very empowering.

Often, at this point, I can ask myself if I need to do anything else to feel better and receive good inner guidance about that. A shower or bath, hot tea, shaking, movement or other practices. Come back to center and I am clear enough to be helpful to me.

And sometimes, I get back to center just enough to feel okay. I don’t always get resolution, here. I get presence. Then I commit to gently, curiously, waiting, and with time and with patient and gentle awareness, energies will release, or my emotions will tell me what I need.

If you get stuck around these last two prompts, you may need to examine the beliefs keeping you from fully feeling.

Like:

Recognize if you shame or judge yourself for feeling what you feel. This is a difficulty many of us face, especially healers. We shame our self for: a mis-step or are self-critical of a perceived mistake, for disappointing others, our sensitivity, needs and desires… or any number of reasons. We might shame our self for experiencing intense anger, or for the way we behaved during a moment. Shame and self-judgment are conditioned responses that we have learned. Cultural/familial conditioning against feelings, emotions, vulnerability and sensitivity is REAL. This is why it can be revolutionary to: Allow your Authentic Feelings to be 100% Legitimate and True for You. Your feeling responses are natural and okay. They don’t make you weak, no matter how vulnerable you feel when you are having them.

If our experience of a strong emotion has an element involved that feels out of alignment for us, it can stimulate inner shame and self judgment. For instance, if we don’t like how and where we express anger. It’s not the anger that feels bad. It’s the fact that we don’t feel in alignment with our self around its expression. Our Soul has a preference for its expression that will feel just right.

Trust me: It’s the judgment you have against the feeling that is creating those amplified sensations of suffering and deep anxiety. It’s not the anger you feel. It’s not the grief. It’s not the vulnerability. It’s not the sadness. It’s not the feelings.

In my experience, it is impossible to get back to center if shame or self-judgement is present. This is probably the most entrenched conditioning I’ve had to work with. Self-compassion, holding and witnessing the negative voices or energy within, in an extremely gentle way, will slowly ebb away at this. Releasing old conditioning does not happen overnight, but with time, patience and grace.

More examples of beliefs that block releasing energy:

I shouldn’t be feeling so vulnerable. I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I don’t want to be feeling this. I’m crazy for feeling this.

Remember:

There is nothing wrong with you, for feeling what you feel. You are allowed to feel all of it.

You are not broken because you feel strongly. You are allowed to have feelings.

Sensitivity is just another word for awareness. If you are very sensitive, you are simply very aware of energy.

Acknowledging what you feel, in your body, will resolve energy and bring you back to your center.

I hope this has given you a few ideas to play with the next time you are feeling out of center and need to come back home. As you give yourself greater permission to feel and explore intense feelings you don’t like, you will more easily be able to move from distress back to presence. And the more deeply you sink into these ideas and practices, the more peaceful and resilient you will feel within yourself!

Jessica

p.s.- feel free to share how you get back to center, below. And p.s.s.- there is a wonderful online free workshop taking place right now with some great (and so many!) speakers, sharing tools for healing from trauma and embodiment. The Embodiment Conference.

The post How I Come Back to My Center appeared first on Jessica Shepherd.

“What did you love to do as a child?” I asked my Leo Sun husband. He instantly replied: go to Radio Shack and get the battery of the week, then figure out where to use it. He loved leatherwork (he and I both. I, too, enjoyed visiting the “Tandy” leather store). He also loved to take apart televisions. He majored in electrical engineering. Today he is a physicist.

What we loved as a child is what comes naturally to us. It speaks to WHO WE TRULY ARE.

You know, before you became indoctrinated with the “shoulds” about who you are supposed to be, or not be.

I was thinking about this as I was outside painting a trellis. I could smell French toast wafting through the air, from someone’s Sunday morning late breakfast. I loved French toast, as a child. I would make it often. The great thing about growing up poor is that we always had stale bread on hand! I enjoyed cooking …and creating.  But it wasn’t just one thing, for me.

I was resourceful with what I had. I enjoyed starting small businesses, making art, playing dress up and boutique. I enjoyed packing off on adventures just down the road, to the neighborhood creek. I loved reading mystery novels, putting on dance recitals and plays for the adults, starting a summer school for neighborhood kids. A latchkey kid, I was often alone, and before technology, it was just me and my imagination. Boredom was another word for just not being interested – and I was.

It was having the options, to explore my imagination and curiosities, that I really dug.

This is something living in Hawaii has given me, that connection to that part of myself who enjoys meandering and learning, creating, discovering, and simply discovering stillness within. I’m more of a generalist than ever before- learning a little bit about this, a little of that, even if conditioning occasionally argues that I should focus on just one thing, which is what culture taught me.

As adults we look for a sense of purpose, meaning, mission. Then, seek experts to help us figure out why we don’t feel strongly or passionately about something “out there” but we do feel something “in here”, like a love for animals, or the pleasure we take in solving mystery novels.  Maybe our quest has been off mark.  As children, we did not need a reason for doing what we were drawn toward, naturally moved to do.  We don’t question our different-ness from those around us till we are taught to do so.

We didn’t ask our self to justify our life, demanding PURPOSE and PASSION.

(can you see how the “New Age?” movement has its own conditioning to unravel?)

We didn’t demand specialization, getting good at just one thing and sticking with that.

(we were more like butterflies, as children. Engaged in exploring our environment.)

We didn’t have to prove our worth, that we deserved to exist, to be who we are as we are.

(way back, daily corporate life left me feeling I had to justify my very existence, monetarily)

We simply followed our curiosity, trusting that to lead us to everywhere we wanted to be.

In Follow the Moonlit Path, I asked the question: What do you like to do when no one else is looking? That is your True North, your key to centeredness, inner stability and contentment.

It may or may not appear to be the same thing as your calling but is intrinsic to it. Just as a tree cannot flower for the world without having a well-nourished hidden root system, everything we do that is “invisible” to the outer world, but nurtures our Soul within, supports all that we are. Reading, exploring, creating, engaging our fascination…fertilizer for a full, rich, flowering.

This pandemic time has been especially potent opportunity for reconnecting with what truly nourishes our Spirit(s). Disruption has a way of opening doors for new ways of being to surface and finally breathe. I’ve been giving myself more and more permission to be exactly where I am. To the tune of the go-go-go manic energy outside of me having necessarily slowed down, the neurotic voices that tell me I should be elsewhere quieted down, as well. I’m getting softer, more allowing towards myself. I’m indulging my love for stillness and solitude. I’m giving myself greater degrees of permission to do and receive the things I enjoy; I give to myself for no other reason than to experience myself receiving what I held out on, longed to receive, for so long.

I’ve also decided to be lighter in Spirit. Yes, I’ve decided to LIGHTEN UP. I am not taking things so seriously nowadays, mostly in my inner work, but I also notice it is transforming everything. This decision is transforming how I respond to my partner, his stressors. I’m not being so reactive. I’m lighter toward myself. It truly is a decision anyone can make —  it is only a decision away!

I’m not complaining about what I don’t have, what’s not in front of me. I am not lamenting what I can no longer do. I am relishing in what I’m being given. I am doing the things that I was too distracted to do when I had so many options, or other people around me created a level of distraction that kept me externally focused. This feels against the grain. Many do not feel this way (I also acknowledge that my health and resources have not been impacted; I speak only from and to this perspective.)

If you do not… spend a little time ruminating about what you loved as a child. There were so many good options then, as there are now, when you choose to see through these eyes. There is something to invent. Someone to become, in your imagination. New streets to explore. And oh, the limitations of childhood – scant resources, no way to get anywhere, and often no playmates- gave rise to creativity, and some of the happiest times many will ever know. That, and the suspension of forward moving time…the feeling that time is slow and drawn out… is something we all acutely felt as children. Yes, we have that now, too.

What did you love to do as a child? This week: can you give yourself permission to do a few of those things? Can you lighten up?

With very little worth paying attention to in mainstream culture, when you think about it, there’s no better time than this very prolonged pause to sink into the rich, moist fertilizer of your Soul and check out what’s been fermenting there while you’d been too busy to look…May you give yourself permission to explore and be the person you have most longed for: YOU.

Love,

Jessica

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Every birthday, a Spirit Animal chooses me. An out of the ordinary animal crosses my path in the time around my birthday. It’s a tradition I have. This year, though, after two years running of Black Witch Moth, I decided I would choose it, sight unseen. Two creatures came to mind, one actual and one mythical: shark and mermaid. When I told John that Shark was one of my Spirit totems for the year, and would bring me a sense of connection and lead me into deeper awareness of myself, Shark medicine, he was surprised. I didn’t feel so comfortable with my choice, either. It was a nervy one but I’ve learned to honor what comes to me.

Then, I forgot about it.

But not really.

For the past few weeks every time I snorkeled in a certain Waikiki cove I began to abstractly wonder about sharks. What would happen if I encountered one?  I wondered mostly whether it would change my perception of the sea, or make me too afraid to do the thing I most love.

I am a mermaid at heart. I love the sea. I love snorkeling and being with the fish and creatures. I’ve always felt at one and at home with the water, perhaps because I am a water sign. I’ve always felt essentially safe, even as I wondered about the unseen sea creatures around me. But sharks? They were abstract. Mammals I saw on television, or in an aquarium, safely, from a distance. Even swimming in the sea, I never quite could grasp the reality of actually being in shark infested waters.

Last week, I went to the cove. The tide wasn’t incredibly high, but it was up, so a little choppy, which clouds the waters slightly, not ideal for snorkeling but I decided to take a peek. Still standing in the shallows I put on my mask and dipped under. Wow! I was surrounded by thousands of silver fish! The mermaid in me became entranced, even as I did have the light thought, “these fish look like they’d make good Shark snacks.” The thousands of shiny, silver Sun dappled fish easily accommodated me and we drifted together. I decided I would swim with them and let them lead me to some potentially interesting reef.

As we moved together, the water periodically clear and then not, my mind replayed a story I had recently read in the local newspaper about a 70 plus years old woman living on the Big Island who was attacked by a shark. Despite being a marine biologist and snorkeling frequently for most of her life she had never seen a shark in the wild, until the day she was bitten.

Why was my mind replaying this, right now? Actually, this is how intuition works. When I sense an energy, my mind matches it with a familiar story, thought, image. It’s how mediums work, and truly anyone open to the psychic sensitivity of their awareness.

As I’m becoming aware of the shark story replaying in my mind, I’m also noticing the water has become very low visibility. The fish are moving a little more erratically, too. I’m now thinking about how this was something the woman in the article mentioned. She said that right before she was bitten, the water became murky, and that’s when she felt “this is probably bad.”

Suddenly, the fish who had been moving with the tide start scattering in different directions, moving so quickly that I can no longer discern them individually, so fast they look like light tracers. I look down to see the source of their distress. About six feet below me, a shark. My mind, in a millisecond of disbelief, wants it to be a dolphin. No. That shape, that signature sway and whoosh of its tail. It is quite large, the size of my arm, leg, perhaps larger, but I am not thinking about that. Only: Swim FAST!!!

Paddle, paddle, paddle. I feel I’m moving way too slow. I remember another item from the paper: when the shark bit her, she kicked it as hard as she could with her flippers. I keep my flippers moving as fast as I can. I’d use them as a weapon, if needed.

Then, I remember to look up only to realize I’d been swimming the wrong direction, away from the beach! I course correct, and fortunately I’m really not that far away from the shore. Heart pounding, I swim closer to the beachgoers area including a couple of women in my path. I am now very concerned for everyone else’s safety, too. Their innocence, the laughter I hear, suddenly strikes me as naive. As I frantically swim by, I say “I just saw a shark” and they of course look at me in surprise and start getting out. I arrive on the beach, never so relieved to feel the warm sand underneath my feet. Now, we three are on the beach, and as I am trying to catch my breath, the woman asks, “You saw a shark?” I try to speak but nothing is coming out yet.  Then she says, “Consider yourself lucky! Most people never get to see a shark in its natural habitat.”

I realize, in the ensuing minutes and hours of sharing my story, she is right.  Very few people do, and far, far fewer are attacked (only three attacks in Hawaii this year. And according to the blasé lifeguard I spoke with, there has never been an attack in Waikiki – despite the fact that “there are sharks that live in this cove, for sure. They sleep over there (points). They love the little fish and sea lions.” As I calm myself and prepare to leave I suddenly find myself unusually talkative (it’s the shock talking). I see a woman who looks like a serious swimmer and snorkeler, a weathered, wise beachgoer.  I ask her if she had been snorkeling. She said she swims here every day for 20 years. “I have never seen a shark,” she says. Then, “But today I noticed all the little fish, and the lack of clarity in the water and had the thought, maybe I won’t go out so far…Talking with you, I’m glad I didn’t.”

In the next day’s newspaper, an article said that there were 3 sightings of four-foot sharks in that cove, so they did decide to put up signs on the beach. The following day a six-foot shark was sighted in the same cove. My neighbors ask if I had called the local news (I hadn’t), as a newscaster relayed what sounded like my exact story. I also discovered these were white tail sharks, and that this particular species can be aggressive to humans when around prey or feeding so are sharks to avoid at that time.

The Truth About Intuition and Fear

I can feel this encounter changed my consciousness. How do I describe encountering an animal like this in the wild? It is indescribable. I realized, for weeks now, I had been energetically sensing sharks in this particular cove because I had been thinking about them when I hadn’t before. Not in a fearful way. Fear is not intuition. But in a curious way. Wondering.

Well, you might ask, if my intuition had been fully online wouldn’t it have kept me out of the water entirely, out of potential danger? Spirit works on a need to know basis. When I arrived at the beach, I looked at the water, noting its unsettledness. As I went into the water, I still felt safe, as I did while swimming with the fish. At the point when my mind began matching the energies around me to the story I had read about the shark attack that’s when I needed to know/have that information. I was remembering the story of the woman because there was a potential for danger; the shark(s) were feeding nearby. Even in potential danger, Spirit does not alert us through wild fearful thoughts, but through calm directives in a language we can understand.

I have also since sorted out more truth about fear. The lifeguard told me that were I to encounter sharks again I should just stay calm (I don’t believe that in and of itself would’ve been the appropriate response for this particular situation). The truth is, humans have no predators, and so no animal truly wants a bite of you. I understand the only reason sharks bite humans is to explore their environment (apparently, we taste bad to them), if they get tangled up in a surf leash for instance and need to figure out what it is, or if your foot gets caught up with their dinner. Any aggression towards us is conditioned/learned behavior, just as we humans have– but a result of the abuse we’ve inflicted on them (If you’d like to explore this topic further, and through the lens of intuition, I recommend watching these fascinating videos of Anna Breytenbach, an animal intuitive, links here and here. There are also many great videos to explore about some beautiful connections that humans have with sharks, like here and here.)

So, fight, flight or freeze? I can now say from personal experience that your amygdala, the animal brain in your limbic system, will sort that out for you. No need to think about it; there is no decision to be made with the mind. You can’t anyhow, since that’s been hi-jacked. For instance, flight was appropriate in my case. In another situation, say you are dolphin watching at the bottom of the sea and a shark cruises in, freeze would be – just be peaceful, let them continue on. Fight was appropriate for the woman who, once bitten, needed to defend herself. For some animals, defecation is the immediate response; that keeps the predators away.

Shark Medicine

Every birthday year an animal imparts it’s medicine to me. I didn’t know how, when or why… but I just knew shark would be meaningful this year in some way. Here’s a little bit of poetry about my astrology, for you astrology lovers: I am on the tail end (pun intended) of a ten-year period of receiving Pluto transits to my personal planets. Transiting Pluto, planet of Truth, is opposing sensitive Venus in Cancer, my chart ruler. In that singular encounter, I took shark into my consciousness. Ingested it. It has been changing me ever since. I can feel it working its way around my being, asking me questions, integrating, deepening.

I feel really graced to be where I am in my expanded awareness, to have received guidance at the moment I needed it. I’ve always taken time to center before entering the ocean but this has now become a more conscious ritual. Not as a fearful practice, but as a way to acknowledge that I enter the water in full awareness, respect, and peace and love.

I’ve also had to be with the very human part of me who is afraid of getting eaten!  Ask anyone what shark medicine imparts and you will hit on fearlessness. I did some gentle trauma release techniques and rebounding to help my nervous system release the fear, not of the actual moment (which wasn’t fearful, but acting in self-preservation) but of replaying and reliving that moment where my mind kicked in and told me that my life could be in danger. I’ve been allowing all of these feelings be true, to feel it all, this understandable fear and desire to stay alive. For me, the only way to work through this fear is to allow and feel it all.

I will be honest, I had some real hesitation about going back into the ocean again. How would I feel now? As we paddled our kayak out to a sandbar yesterday, I told myself I didn’t have to go in if I didn’t want to. But I did. Getting into the water felt different this time. I felt I was entering as a respectful guest of a great mansion. This mansion would have many doors closed to me, much going on behind the scenes, that I would respectfully float on by. But some doors would be open to me. As I swam through the water I kept checking in with myself, staying in tune with the environment (how are the fish moving? is the water clear enough?) and how I was feeling. Since animals and mammals pick up on our energies, and fear is a predator/prey energy, I want to make sure that I am feeling peaceful. I was essentially relaxed. Then, I spied a 3 foot long turtle watching us from the sea wall, just a few feet away. I love sea turtles, but it surprised me! That element of surprise made me decide to head back to the boat.

I am being radically compassionate with myself, and being radically truthful with myself about how I feel in every moment. I think anyone who loves the ocean and is consistently in it, eventually comes face to face with their own fear about sharks– whether through someone you know encountering a shark, or having your own experience. Personally, it has deepened my commitment to get to the truth of fears, be they “what if…?”, my own, or other’s fearful energy. I choose to not let fear make my world smaller.

I’m realizing I have a desire to be in a more expansive connection with all of life forms around me. My curiosity about all non-human sentient presence(s), particularly the energetic, intuitive, aspects have thus become a source of fascination! It is something I haven’t explored very deeply until this point. When I inquired into the meaning of this encounter, with my own direct Spirit connection, Spirit told me that this experience surprised my limbic system in order to wake me up (sounds Uranian and Plutonian, doesn’t it?) and had it not been so dramatic, I would have ignored the message. Paradoxically, Spirit said, this jarring encounter was designed to allow the gentle awareness of other life forms embrace me, and my gentle awareness embrace them.

I began thinking about other times in my life when I have been jolted out of my ordinary reality by a surprise or shock in order to encounter deeper Truths about myself, the world, or my next step…and that’s when I remembered the card. Last Spring, while working on the Intuitive Energy Divination cards deck, which uses the symbolism of the sea and Hawaii, the image of shark showed up as a symbol for the Truth card. Yes, I had already written the below text and chosen the symbol many months before this event! Well, well, well. I just love the magic of life. My intention for creating this deck was/is to more deeply integrate the spiritual work I am doing. I will share this with you now, to tie up this amazing and wondrous experience.

Love,

Jessica, the mermaid

Interpretation: Why does Truth so often feel scary? Because we are all conditioned by a paradigm of lack. To the Ego, admitting a Truth may mean it could lose something, or have to give something else up that it thinks it wants or needs. Even the phrase “truth bomb” suggests Truth can shatter in resultant changes, yet “the truth will set you free.” What’s the Truth about truth? The irony is, Truth always gives, it never takes away. Truth only ever offers a greater sense of freedom, happiness, abundance, alignment for you. The Truth will set your Soul free, and so any changes it asks of you will only increase that. This card suggests you are receiving, or about to receive, your Soul’s Truth. It may feel like a punch to the gut. It may feel shocking, but in a good way—like receiving a surprise you didn’t know you wanted. It may feel temporarily destabilizing, as Truth asks you to reorient yourself around something that will be better for you. And, because you have an Ego, you may have temporary discomfort or resistance to these changes! Take some time and care with what you are feeling, while honoring Truth’s message. If acting on your Truth will involve other people, who will have their own responses, ideas, feelings that have nothing to do with you, remember to stay in your own energy. After all, this is coming from your Soul, which means what is good for One is good for All. Trust your Soul’s Truth! This is your innate Divine Guidance at work, in its most elegant, efficient, and enlightened form.

Symbol: Shark. People are afraid of sharks, but this smiling shark knows the Truth about fear. Which is: all Fear is an illusion. A play of light and shadow, until Light of Truth reveals itself in entirety. Who better knows this than shark, for sharks symbolically represent the strength and power of embodying our natural Divine authority—in other words, living our Soul’s Truth. When we are living our Soul’s Truth, we ARE the shark, and there is literally nothing to fear. We are supremely protected, blessed, by the act of living in alignment with our self. That’s why nothing truly can ever harm a person consciously living their Truth—especially not fear.

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Yesterday, looking for a spool of raffia ribbon I had *just* used, it was all too easy to become frustrated and tell myself I was having a perimenopause moment. That’s what my critical mind told me. But I was actually in my Intuitive Self.

It took a question to allow that guidance to find me, a question that made all the difference. When frustration arose at not finding what I wanted, instead of allowing that frustration be true I decided to tune inward and ask myself what else I might I find rummaging around for in that drawer — perhaps stuff I wasn’t aware I needed or wanted?

I recentered, finding: A frame for a watercolor my deceased grandmother had painted which prompted a text to my Uncle who replied excitedly back with more art he wanted to send me. And a very meaningful piggy bank I had been wanting to send my niece for years, for whom I just happened to have an open box send-ready.

Gifts! Magic! When magic and synchronicity teach me more about my Expanded Self it’s a top ten on my perfect day playlist. My Intuitive Self had been guiding me toward this discovery all along. (A few minutes later, I remembered where I had put the raffia- somewhere entirely else). It was a great lesson in remembering/integrating this:

Instead of thinking about what’s being taken away, look at what is being given you.

Repeat: Instead of thinking about what’s being taken away, look at what is being given you.

And a good reminder for these times, isn’t it?

And perhaps it is becoming vital to realize, for this reason: these times require our ongoing dedication to living in Truth. When we are operating from a perception of what we lack, we miss the chance for our Soul to guide us to new discoveries.

This is also how Intuition works. Since intuitive guidance comes from the Soul, which is everything and everywhere, the Divine abundance of who we are, in order to receive guidance we have to assume it’s all right here for us. It’s happening. Everything we ever needed or wanted is already here, and as we become willing to receive it, it will be revealed in time.

To drive this point home for me, so I could write this to you, the intuitive themes continued when I made a trip to the post office. I parked, put the money in the meter, and stood in line for a long while. Yes, I started to grow impatient, and anxious about the parking meter which I had only fed enough money for ten minutes – a paltry amount of time for a quarter. That’s when I heard the postmistress advise the girl in front of me that the meters behind the post office are half the price of those on the street, where I had parked. I noted this piece of information, which I had needed and not known I had needed.

Next, arriving at the counter, I was politely told I was using a “by weight” box, which looked almost exactly the same as flat rate mail, and would need to repackage. Frustration, again! Now I am starting to catch onto my Soul’s agenda. Frustration, as a first response, to things not going my Ego’s way, was a distraction from my own Intuitive Guidance. Instead of thinking about what’s being taken away, look at what is being given you. Deep breath. I am starting a business involving frequent shipping… this information will save me a lot of time. I noted this piece of information, which I had needed and not known I had needed.

Finally, in the act of repackaging and choosing my new box, I notice all of the fees for the flat rate boxes are considerably different from what my webmaster had just programmed into my website, and different from what is published on many of the websites I consulted. I noted this piece of information, which I had needed and not known I had needed.

What of this theme of frustration? Mars in Aries is making an exact square to Saturn in Capricorn right now now, and will again on 9/29… a theme which will still continue through mid-December since Mars will turn retrograde on 9/11/20 (and Saturn remains in Capricorn until mid-December, which is square Mars by sign and so keeps them in cahoots till then).

Classically, this aspect of frustrated desire, of “driving with the breaks on,” requires we take things slower. Time, patience, perseverance pay off. But what to do with the energy of this, in our bodies? It’s the belief that we are being thwarted creating the energy of frustration and friction. It is believing we are being denied something we want to experience, or conversely that we are experiencing something we don’t want to be experiencing. This is the real issue.

It is easy to get caught up in not having, in believing yourself to not be getting what you want. Fundamentally, the Ego operates from a paradigm of lack. That is a sign you are in your Ego. Yet it’s important to note that when you are coming from this place of “not have”, you close down to Guidance. Because every time you tell yourself you don’t have, you can’t, you aren’t…you are negating the very Divinity of your being, your I AM – where your Intuitive Self lives, thrives and guides you.

Here is the Truth: You are everything. You are the I AM. You are the stuff of God, the Creator, and therefore everything happening through you, everything you experience, is happening for you. Every time you say I can’t, I don’t have, I’m not enough, etc… You are stepping out of I AM and essentially saying I AM NOT. Now, you are I AM NOT. This is what I experience as frustration. When I am frustrated, I am telling myself I AM NOT. Frustration, the energy of it, is actually the frustration of lying to myself. I am telling myself that I AM NOT and my Divinity is like, really, you’re going to believe that? How frustrating to be you right now. When I am telling myself that I cannot have, I am in opposition to the very fact of I AM.

Can you see how this is true?

It is the difference between being the kid standing outside the candy store, or BEING the candy store. When you assume that you are the kid, you will be in a special hell called I AM NOT (I don’t have). When you assume you ARE the candy store, you become the provider of all solutions, the answers to your questions awaiting discovery. You know that for everything you desire, it’s just a matter of time. You also decide that for any “problem” you will always find a way to figure it out.

Are you in your Divinity or are you outside of it? Right now, are you in I AM or are you in I AM NOT? One answer leads to a magical, rich, life of synchronicity, gifts. The other creates a wall of frustration between you and all you think you don’t have…

For the Intuitive, this Mars-Saturn aspect is an opportunity to slow down and notice when you are in your I AM NOT versus your I AM. Intuitive Guidance only flows from the I AM; Intuitive Guidance is overlooked entirely in the I AM NOT. Had I stayed in frustration of I AM NOT, I would have missed out on all the magic and wonder that my Soul had in store for me.

We all go back and forth between being in our Divinity and being in our Ego. It’s normal and natural. At a certain point, we can ask: Don’t I have a choice in this? We can decide to step out of the Ego and into our Divinity. We can become fluid in this.

So: Do you want to lead a life filled with magic, synchronicity and inner guidance? We are in one of those periods of growth when getting clear on who we truly are makes all the difference in our experience of our Self, and our life!

Jessica

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