Long Awaited Invitation
Today, I want to write to you about a long-awaited invitation. This invitation is for you, from you. You are cordially invited to reconnect with yourself. In the past few months, I have recommended a book to a few friends and clients. The book, “Embrace Your Shadow to Find Your Light” by Nancy Levin. I’ve actually considered putting a study group together to walk through shadow work. Each chapter is heart opening. A book you could literally reread several times depending on the situation you are in. After all, in order to see a shadow there needs to be light. When you stand together in a safe environment, light shines through. This light can help us find the shadows that haunt us.
One of the statements in this book says, “standing in your own responsibility starts with acknowledging that you are co-creator of your own reality.” When I read that, I felt as though someone was snapping their fingers at me as if to say, “hey, did you understand that? Wake up!” Maybe I need to take a closer look at who I am meant to be. Who others may see me as becoming.
Through our experiences, we teach ourselves to shut down certain qualities in order to not feel pain or discomfort again. Let’s face it, we tend to push away parts of ourselves due to fear, regret, and shame because of what we observed in the past. Time to reclaim the things you’ve hidden away. The magical gems that make us all unique. Our energy gets depleted when we fight to let them not surface. These are your own unique self-expressions that give you joy, motivation and make you feel whole. I often ask myself, “why do you judge yourself so harshly?” I limit my potential because of this harshness. In one of the chapters of the book, she says, “Reclaim what you’ve disowned.” Powerful words. Reclaim it and disown fear. Challenge yourself to be the you that you have been hiding. Take off that suit of protective armor, tear down the wall you hide behind. Do you fear rejection, feeling of abandonment, fear of being wrong, hated, neglected? There is a Blink 182 song called Reckless abandonment that describes “an attitude of abandoning or throwing off one’s inhibition and giving oneself up to a passion or enthusiasm for something. It is considered reckless because there is no attention to the possible cost, the opinion of others.” Wearing this suit of armor is not only heavy but isn’t that what you are manifesting. Do you think to yourself, if they knew this about me, they would not love me? So, we hide, we push down our authentic personality in order to please others.
Time to take responsibility. Time to show up for you and offer love and grace to your divine energy. Otherwise, you are the one abandoning yourself. You are accepting failure without even giving it a try. Instead, why not embrace wholeness of self, forgiveness, alignment and grace. What could change you may ask. The answer, everything could change. It can and will be liberating to find yourself again. Friends may leave your circle, but that makes room for new acquaintances to show up.
We are all a work in progress. Fear stops that progress. Let’s look at an artist. They create from the heart, from a higher place than their human existence. But what if that artist was afraid to show their artwork? What would happen? Their art would suffer and so would the artist. While writing my book, “My Head Knows, But My Heart Still Hurts” I had such a high when I received the proof copy. Here it was, in my hands. But that high quickly faded and I was overshadowed by fear. The reality of someone reading my words sent such a fear through my veins. My words, thoughts, feelings, experiences were now in print for anyone to read. I had so many what ifs swirling around in my head. What if it hurts someone instead of helping? What if it doesn’t make sense to the reader? What if no one buys it? What about typos or grammar mistakes? Fear was all around me. My vulnerabilities were showing up loudly. Did I really know what I was talking about, I mean who am I to write a book about grief? Writing the book brought to surface emotions that I thought I had healed from and found that I was still in the healing stage. So, what made me an authority?
Nancy’s book talks about 7 steps to embrace your shadow. They are awareness, surrender, responsibility, authenticity, resilience, nourishment and wholeness. I reflected the fear of publishing. I was aware of my fear. I felt it through my entire body. I felt the need to surrender the fear, otherwise I would never have published it, written a second book and would not be currently working on other books and a card deck. I felt a deep responsibility to my clients who spoke to me over and over again of their fear of forgetting. I had been given these words to share, not to hide away. Even if it only helped 1 person, I felt the need to have this tool for them. It was important to me that it sounded like I was speaking. If the reader knew my voice inflections, I wanted them to hear my authentic voice while working through each chapter. I wanted to say the words that Spirit had given to me. Every week I met with my publisher. I had to be resilient, to have new copy for her each week. I was nourished by how the words flowed through me onto the pages. Finally, wholeness came when I received notes from those who read my book telling me how much it helped them. I felt whole because I overcame the fear of vulnerability and through it all, I received healing as well.
When fear creeps in, I remember these steps. It could be any situation, before a reading, driving somewhere different, meeting new people. I work to be aware, surrender, responsibility, authenticity, resilience, nourishment and wholeness. When past doubts haunt me, I go back to faith over fear. Faith is so much stronger when you stand firm in it. It adds light to your path. It helps you come out of a fear-based darkness. Although this light may be dim at first, your light will get brighter and brighter as you face the root causes of the fear. This is an ongoing exercise while we are here in earth school. I’m not sure we ever really graduate from it until we are in the next realm.
RSVP and accept the invitation to reconnect to yourself on a daily basis. Great things are here for you, all you have to do is accept the long-awaited invite. It is calling you to live the life you love and love the life you live. I hope this will push you to say yes to show up for yourself and reconnect to the authentic being you are meant to become.
Blessings,
Stacey
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