I often wake up with such clarity and insight. Today a clear image was with me. For so many years my heart was a prison. In order to protect myself, to protect my feeling of vulnerability and sensitivity to everything around me, I locked the door and threw away the key but then forgot who’d done the locking in the first place! I thought it made me safe, it lessened the fear but in fact it locked it all in. Here are the things that freed me. Years of reading and studying to become familiar with my true nature intellectually, years of healing wounds and getting back in touch with my emotions which I had actually succeeded in shutting down entirely for over a decade. Hard to believe or remember now that I feel so much but I know it is true. Actually I had forgotten this part of my life for many years until now when I wrote this! So first I released a lot of false believes intellectually, then recovered my emotions which is just energy in motion. Then I realized I hated my self wow was that a shocker. So a decade ago for several years I facilitated a group called “Self Love is not for Wimps.” I made progress but it was only when I re-encounter Matt Kahn and learned his “I love you” practice that I was able to completely fall back in love with myself, to actually come to adore myself. (Best short video to learn this practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFS84Jp1qfc ) I am giving you the cliff notes but believe me, this is the critical show stopper for all of us; there is no going past this point without self love. The other thing that happened in the same period was encountering Luis Diaz’s and his Cellular Memory Release process literally one week after moving to this area in 2004. I learned to feel my feelings IN MY BODY, to move toward discomfort, to feel it as energy moving through my body until I finally learned to feel safe in my own skin. This is the other practice that is irreplaceable. We remain stuck in our own prison’s, holding the key in our hand while railing against our prison guards, never recognizing it is us, or as I believe it was Pogo that said, I have met the enemy and he is us. WE are our own worst enemy until we learn to turn into our experience, to hold what arises in our bodies with exquisite kindness and gentleness. For me the month of September has been quite unique in the intensity. Normally now after over a decade of practice, energy moves through my body quickly, usually within minutes or, at the most, hours. This after a life time of anxiety in my body 100% of the time, ah, the freedom is exquisite. But this month I have felt varying degrees of intensity more or less 24/7. Three times it has been excruciating. Each time a huge awareness followed. In the past I would have cursed my sensitivity, cursed the gods, cursed this time on the planet. Now I accept that even though at times I hate it and I never manage to actually like it, I recognize it is serving me, my freedom, my dreams, my joy. My newest practice and the one that has taken me until now to master at all is surrender. We are a society addicted to the illusion of control. We “make” things happen to feel good, to feel safe. I have learned my plans are often not the best ones and are not ones I can force into my life if it is outside of divine will. Three times I had my worst nightmare literally turn out to be a great gift. Yea, I cursed and screamed the whole way until I got it. So now I am finally learning to let go of the steering wheel, let go of the illusion I know how to make my dreams come true from my own mind and will. I surrender to a force within me that directs me. I often only see the step immediately in front of me. Two of my big life dreams are unfilled. One I accept with grace that I am being guided to it. The other, because it involves survival issues, I still shake and quake, going, are you SURE You got this, You know what you are doing? Yea, still scares me but falling down the hole over and over has taught me to take another street, another path, the path of surrender. While I must admit the jury is still out on evidence proving this is the best way to go, deep in my heart I know it is the ONLY way to go. If you are feeling the intensity anything like I am, I send my blessings and love. I highly encourage you to send I love you’s to your own heart, especially to the parts that are most troublesome; to feel what you feel in your body, to be gentle with yourself, to learn to surrender, to open your own heart. I am sure I was not alone in seeing this ascension as something that was going to carry us blissfully to the land of milk and honey with eternal harps playing and angels singing. Turns out that is not where we are headed. We are headed to exquisite vulnerability where our open hearts witness the breathtaking beauty, the extraordinary magnificence of so many beautiful beings but also witness the agony of so much sorrow tearing our beloved planet apart. We cannot see one with out the other. Yet our hearts are strong, we have the courage we need to heal ourselves and this gorgeous world. Darlings, I hold you in my heart. If it all feels too much and you need support, feel free to contact me. It is my life’s work and greatest joy to support others in awakening to the magnificent freedom of their own hearts. You can message me or contact me at savannah@raisedinlove.com May you be blessed with grace and ease during this epoch changing passage to a new earth.