I’ve been dreaming a lot.  

Receiving instructions about how to live a more beautiful life.  This is new for me – the tenacity in which this information is streaming through my dreaming.  And I’m grateful for the variety of focus.  Seems like it is touching on all areas of my life.

So much room for improvement.  Without concern for having misunderstood so much. 

The more I open, the more I receive. I kinda like dropping into the sleepy state at the end of the day.  With delightful anticipation, I share my gratitude for the day and ask a Beautiful Question.   

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all unicorns and rainbows.  

More like roses with thorns.  I don’t mind the thorns, even when they stir up my vulnerability.  I’m interested in blossoming.  I’m dedicated to living an empowered, meaningful life.  So, I’m pretty much being shown the rocks, weeds, and thorns that have been hidden within me.  And those that have been glaring, but I hadn’t wanted to look at them.  I’m willing now.

I’m not the only one diving into the Shadow Self.  

Seems like this global crisis has stirred up a lot of muck for all of us.  Revealing the places within us that are out of balance.  Revealing those aspects of self that have been disowned and are now wanting shelter from the storm.  

I’ve been helping many women listen to the parts of themselves they’ve abandoned along the path to adulthood.  

It’s never intentional. When you understand it is a complex protective system that sends aspects of your younger self running for the hills in times of overwhelming challenge, things shift.  Potential for reintegration emerges.  Including the potential to listen deeply and finally hear what these abandoned aspects are trying to tell you.

It’s hard to listen when someone is belittling you, punishing you, and reminding you of your inadequacies or unlovability.  

Yet, you listen to these inner voices all the time.  We all have them.  Formed when we were young, often overwhelmed by the circumstances of our lives, and internalizing the critical messages offered when others and society were in tension and imbalanced.  Which was often.

So when you are in tension and out of balance, these voices emerge. All thorns. No rainbows.

Until you listen below the negativity to the pain and longing that is being expressed.  The sadness and isolation.  The fear of never being good enough, wanted, or loved.  The orphaned aspects of yourself lie beneath the judgments toward self and others. They lay beneath the envy or longing to be like another whom you admire.  So many ways these parts of yourself are expressing their desire to come home to rest within you.