Category: Self Growth

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“Transfiguration”

4 feet by 4 feet, Acrylic on Canvas (Not Available)

This piece took me a little over a year to complete, and I ended up trading this piece in exchange for a journey to the jungle of Colombia – a journey which was pivotal for me in crossing personal thresholds into the next cycle of my growth. 

When I started this piece over a year ago, I was very much feeling the discomfort of being called into a new level of maturation, but then I would look around at my life, and would be filled with uncertainty as to how to actually go about making the necessary changes that God (Spirit) was calling me to make. 

The gravity of old habits, patterns, and ways of being was causing a major point of tension in my life, because they were so out of sync with the forward movement of my Inner Self. And this caused a very high degree of psychological confusion and suffering, and physical pain even, because there was such a rupture between my soul and the embodied expression with how I was living my life. 

And this was deeply confusing for me, because usually I feel very in harmony with regards to living in alignment with how my soul is calling me to express myself. Over the past decade, I haven’t had much of an issue with acting upon my intuition and taking pretty significant leaps of faith, but for whatever reason this time around, I found myself caught between being overly attached to comfort, and crippling self-doubt, questioning everything that I was doing with my life. 

While I was going through this deep inner questioning, my soul was calling me forward, and the fracture in my being was getting more and more substantial. 

But for some reason, I just couldn’t let myself move forward. 

And as much as I don’t like to admit it, I know that a big part of it was my attachment to comfort. For the past 10 years or so, I lived with a very high level of instability – living in and out of my car, moving from place to place, living on farms and homesteads by the grace and generosity of others, very inconsistent income, and living very minimally to sustain my highly unorthodox lifestyle. 

And so now, upon moving to New Mexico, it’s been the most stable season of my entire adult life. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I was a teenager, and not to mention the most consistent income I’ve ever made working as an intuitive reader. And I found myself just clinging to this stability and comfort, because it’s something that I went SO long without. 

But then I was presented with a whole new problem – the annihilating suffocation of comfort and stability.

Like an overbearing mother, who refuses to let her child grow up out of her fear of abandonment.

A whole new dragon that I had to learn how to slay. One I wasn’t expecting lol.

When things are too stable, they stagnate. They die, actually. 

Chaos is necessary for growth. 

But, perpetual chaos inhibits growth as well.

So we must learn to achieve a perfect balance between stability and chaos for maximum growth and maturation.

And I found that through this process, I had to learn to access something within myself, where I had to resurrect the power of my own will, my own strength, my own personal and individuated self to propel the direction of my life. 

To claim what I want in my life, and the person I want to be. To actually own it. 

To actually give myself permission to have my own needs and desires, and to realize that it’s okay to have those met. Full permission to actually be a f*cking human being.

And for me, this is the integration of my shadow. 

Because I denied those parts of myself for SO long, that when I FINALLY achieved a certain sense of stability in my life, I had no idea what to do with myself, or how to propel myself forward. 

For most of my life, I was so conditioned to put everyone else’s needs before my own, that I felt completely lost as to what my own desires were, and what my own sense of self looked like. And being cut-off from this part of myself, I was missing a huge element of my being that is necessary to guide me through into the next cycle of my journey.

So I had to go into the underworld – into depression, into rage, into deep loneliness, and ultimately into my shadow, to claim the pieces of myself that were trapped and hidden in the murky waters of my own unconscious and repressed self. 

And that’s why I was hesitating to move forward in my life – because I needed to go through a process of claiming certain shadow aspects of myself that I had denied for so long. 

Because if we are just focused on “the light” and “serving others” without some kind of connection and anchor to our own personal will and individuated self (in other words, without an integrated shadow), we will self-destruct, just as I was doing. 

And so now, I have come to understand the value in facing and accepting all aspects of the self  – the light and the dark, knowing that it is all part of God. 

And as I bring the facets of my shadow (my own desires, personal will, anger, and strength) to the altar of God, then I sanctify those long rejected aspects of myself, and I allow myself be more fully and completely guided by Love, rather than being unconsciously ruled by the parts of myself that were rejected and denied. 

And I am still very much in a deep process with all of this. Still growing and learning to accept all parts of myself, day by day. 

Learning to embody this integrated self is one of my biggest soul educations right now.

And so creating this piece “Transfiguration” was very cathartic and healing, because it represents this journey of alchemy and change, which I was going through as I was painting it. 

And my journey to Colombia this past Spring (with plant medicine) was a HUGE catalyst in helping me to face and accept all the various shades of my being. So, it’s very synchronous that this piece was traded to very dear friends in exchange for them sponsoring my journey to South America, especially given that my intention for this piece was to depict this process of alchemy and transfiguration.

“Transfiguration”

There is a White Eagle in the center of this piece, which represents sanctified personal will and strength, when claimed and given to God. 

In the petals of the mandala, there is the process of a person transforming into the White Eagle: 

1.) Yellow Petal – Growing awareness of one’s self, and the multiple layers of who they are. 

2.) Pink Petal – Growing connection with one’s Higher Self, and developing spiritual sight and vision. 

3.) Yellow Petal – Learning to balance opposites – the spiritual and material, the soul and the body, the light and the darkness, the masculine and feminine. Embodiment of one’s Higher Self. 

4.) Purple Petal – The full transfiguration into the White Eagle. The new and resurrected self. The archetypal phoenix rising from the ashes, with sanctified strength and will. The integration of the shadow, and bringing all parts of oneself back to God. 

The Mandala is a geometric map of consciousness, which is why it has been depicted for thousands of years cross-culturally in various artistic and spiritual contexts.

And in this piece, the White Eagle rests at the center, representing the True Self, which sits at the center of our consciousness, and at the center of our entire structure of being. 

Our True Self is the center point of our lives, and our outer life orbits around it, bringing us closer and closer to our center, that we may come to embody the expression of our True Self, and who God has destined us to be. 

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With my tired and weathered face pressed against the moist jungled earth, I lay there, unable to walk. 

With my tired and weathered face pressed against the moist jungled earth, I lay there, unable to walk. 

My sense of self obliterated into millions of tiny pieces. 

Each little shard of self, like tiny grains of sand upon a vast coastline, each became their own universe that I seemed to be zipping in and out of.

The concept of “Michael” was nothing more than a laughable joke in this space.

And it became unnervingly obvious that time was some bizarre makeshift construct that seemed to be incredibly fickle, and easily broken here, as cycles upon cycles flashed across the screen of my awareness.

And yet my body lay there, unable to move with the impulse to puke continually rising up from the pit of my gut. 

“God, where are you?” 

I kept thinking.

“You must be here, somewhere.”

…

Lately, I have been noticing myself going through a very big change.

Putting words to it has been difficult. 

In some bizarre way, I find it easier to articulate myself through writing and sharing here in this weird thought symposium of social media than I do often speaking these things aloud in person to others. 

Maybe I feel too vulnerable in person. Too naked. Too awkward.

Or maybe all of my self-judgments kick in and prevent me from fully conveying what wants to be expressed. 

Or maybe I get too caught up in other people’s perceptions of me, and it distorts the purity of the message. 

I don’t know. 

All I have to say is, thank God for writing. I find so much freedom here. 

I hope to one day find the same level of freedom in my verbal articulation with others, but for now, writing feels like home. 

Anyways, I don’t know why I am sharing this, but I am just trusting the mysterious impulse from which these words arise. 

As I learned, “Michael” is just kind of some made-up thing, but yet there is a real intelligence that moves through me (all of us), that I am continuously learning to lean into more and more. 

As of recently, I have felt a bit forsaken by God. 

And yet I embrace this feeling of “forsakenness” as part of a maturation process, a sort of necessary hardening and strengthening that one must go through, in order to withstand the difficulties and hardships of this human experience.  

It feels a bit like coming out of every fantasy, illusion, and denial, and planting one’s feet firmly upon the earth. 

A loss of magic. A loss of innocence. 

But not really. 

It just looks different now. 

A deepening. A grittiness that wasn’t there before. 

A strength and wisdom that wasn’t there before. 

A humanness that wasn’t there before.

Naiveté obliterated. 

A decade ago I used to think that evil didn’t exist. 

And that was the beginning of a ten year descent, to realize that not only does evil exist, but it exists within me, and it plays out through all of my addictive and self-sabotaging tendencies.

It exists in all of us, no matter how good we think we are. 

And part of our maturation is facing that darkness, that “evil” within ourselves, and taking ownership of it so that we are in an empowered position to bring it fully back to God. 

That we may be redeemed, and made new. 

That we may breach new levels of psychological and spiritual wholeness and maturity. 

Because within our darkness, there is a spark of the Divine that is seeking freedom and higher expression. 

As we mature, we must claim and confront that darkness within ourselves, to free it and integrate it into a more developed and refined expression of the face of God. 

And to be clear, we claim our darkness not to enact it and further perpetuate trauma in the world, but to accept it and allow it to be liberated. To take our power back, and to break the patterns of abuse.

And in reality, it’s not even all that personal. 

Because remember, the whole of the world exists within you. And that includes everything. 

The light, and the dark. 

Because on the deepest level, we are One with all things.

And so when you take ownership of the darkness within you, so that it may be liberated and transformed, you are doing this for the whole of the world. 

We face our darkness for those who may not have the capacity, yet, to face what is within themselves. 

So we learn to face it within ourselves first, as an act of courage, to show others that they are safe to face whatever lives within them. 

Because if it lives within one of us, then it lives somewhere within us all. 

And thus we are liberated from shame, guilt, and fear – knowing that we are never alone in what we are facing. No matter what it is. 

Nothing is ever as personal as we make it out to be. 

And that’s where we find real healing. 

In realizing that we are never alone.

…

As I lay on the earth, the stars and the moon hang in the sky, with wet jungle pulsing and breathing around me.

My body shaking and trembling, as generations of pain and trauma become liberated from the very coding of my genetic structure.

As I go through waves of somatic release, I hear a voice in my mind repeating:

“We heal together. We heal together. We heal together.“

“It is the coming together which heals us.”

And then I realize that the answer to my initial question has been answered.

“God is here, in our togetherness.”

“God is here.”

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Love will teach you how to listen.

One of the most beautiful (and important) things that I recently heard about intuition:

“It is love that will teach you how to listen.”

Without love, we cannot truly listen to another.

And without love, we cannot even truly listen to ourselves.

Love must first be present before any real communication (or listening) can occur, even if no words are ever actually spoken.

If love is not present, then any attempt at real communication is automatically lost. 

I find this fascinating, because when we typically think of communication, we think of the words being used, the inflections in vocal tone, the subtle movements of body language, facial expression, emotion, and even telepathy and dream communication. 

But, we often don’t acknowledge the deeper foundation upon which any authentic communication takes place – love. 

(And we wonder why there is such a communication break between so many pockets of our society)

As a simple example of this, when you have love for a plant or an animal – you can literally “hear” what they need and how to care for them, even though there is no verbal communication taking place. There is a communication happening on more subtle levels, and it is our love for the being before us that becomes our ears to hearing the voice speaking through this deeper language. 

So tying this into intuition – the most important thing to know about learning how to listen intuitively, whether working with another, or with listening to your own inner voice – is cultivating love towards who or what you are listening to.

This is because love is the foundation to opening you up to deeper levels of inner hearing, and the more you deepen into love, the more you strengthen your ability to listen in increasingly more subtle and detailed ways. 

So, having love for someone is like opening a doorway into a whole dimension of information about who someone is – what they need, what they are going through, the of texture and tonal quality of their unique essence, and what they are actually telling you from the core of who they are, beyond what is spoken through words. 

But you can’t access that dimension of someone’s being (or your own being) without first opening the “doorway”.

And what does it even mean to “love” someone? 

(Because God knows our concepts around love can be prone to a tremendous amount of distortion – codependency, lack of boundaries, wanting someone to fit our needs, romantic fantasy, etc) 

It means to understand your innate Oneness with them.

To understand that you are fundamentally joined at the deepest level of your being, regardless of differences in politics, ideology, belief systems, personal history, etc. 

Somebody can change “political identities” multiple times over, and no matter what side of the fence they sit on compared to you, it will never change the fact that you are connected to that person at the very core of who you are. 

And nothing in this world will ever change the Reality of you being joined with all things at the deepest part of you.

So, if we are to effectively communicate and listen (intuitively) to each other, we must lead with the understanding of our shared essence, and put that first before everything else. 

And love is the awareness of this shared essence.

And this shared essence is not some abstract and nebulous ephemeral thing, it is actually a very conscious and self-aware higher form of intelligence that we are all a part of, just as individual cells make up the organs of the body.

When we traverse the various layers of the mind, from the conscious mind, to the subconscious and to the unconscious, we discover that there is One Mind (One Self) that binds us all together.

And love is literally this One Mind waking up in you.

And this shared essence is the grounds upon which any and all real communication (or listening) takes place. 

In fact, we would not even have the ability to communicate with each other at all if we were not already joined. 

So communication (on the deepest level) is an evolutionary attempt to actualize and return back to our original state of this shared One Mind.

And as we evolve, our modalities of communication will evolve along with us into more sophisticated ways of connecting with each other. 

And once again, this evolution into higher forms of communication begins with love. 

Without love, there is no communication – only some foreign alien language where the words that seem to be spoken hold no meaning.

It’s like if we are building an architectural masterpiece, like a cathedral, then love would be the foundation upon which our structure of higher communication (intuitive listening) would be built.

And for me, this is why the study of intuition holds my interest so much, because it’s SO much more than just developing “psychically” or “reading energy”, but on a larger scale, this is about our whole species taking this journey together into operating as One organism, rather than a bunch of seemingly separate parts. 

And as our species evolves through the process of merging our consciousness, we open ourselves to these higher forms of communication. 

This is where our study of intuition is ultimately leading us.

Right now, we see intuition through the lens of our current paradigm. 

But beyond our current paradigm, intuition becomes a study into these higher forms of communication (and listening) that are integral to the evolutionary process of actualizing our innate Oneness, which is the ground of Reality that we stand upon. 

And at the very heart and center of all of it, is the love that we have for one another. 

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We reside within the cathedral of our own soul.

With being a teacher/student of intuition, I am fascinated with studying the way that consciousness communicates between the various layers of the psyche. 

I make it a daily practice of intentionally utilizing this ability (that we all have), of opening the channels of my awareness to receiving inner guidance. 

I use this guidance to track the elaborate structure of my soul’s journey, so that I may live in accord with the intelligent pulse of life that flows through me. 

To be a “hollow reed”, I guess you could say. 

Through studying this inner communication, I have come to understand that the soul has a highly-developed geometric structure to it.

It is very similar to the way that the architecture of a cathedral is composed of perfect symmetry, with elaborate mystical symbolism spoken through the mandalas of stained-glass and ancient stone. 

Our life is this sacred architecture, and we reside within the cathedral of our own soul.

The intelligent and synchronistic orchestration of our experiences are the limestone bricks that stack upon one another, to reveal this mysterious edifice of Spirit. 

And there is holy text artfully written across the walls, along with illumined stained-glass depictions of angelic guides whose halos radiate knowledge from worlds beyond what the body’s eyes can see. 

And all of this exists both within the structure of our own psyche, as well what surrounds us as the living world that we reside in. 

Because the truth is, the veil between our inner and outer life is nothing more than a mirage, a thin veneer of the idea that separation might actually exist, that there might be some little fence that separates us off from the rest of life. A funny little thought, huh?

So, I do my best to nurture a very intimate relationship with my intuition, just as I would with a lover or close friend, so that I may understand the nature of this intelligent design that I dwell within, and that dwells within me. 

Because life is a language. 

And intuition is the translator of this language between the various layers of the psyche.

One of the things that I’ve learned through studying the geometry of the soul, is that:

Contrast is integral to the perfect balance and symmetry of our experience. 

When I tune-in intuitively to a client, I can often “read” the ebb and flow of their soul lessons as if I am looking at sine waves, which correlates to cycles of contrasting experiences. I have spoken with other professional intuitives who read these energetic patterns in very similar ways. 

This has taught me that intuition isn’t just about abstractly receiving information from the ethers – but that it actually correlates to understanding very specific patterns of soul development.

Once you understand the patterns, you can make “predictions” based off of the algorithms of how the soul grows and develops. 

Much of intuition is about pattern recognition, and about understanding the higher levels of connectivity that bind all things and experiences together.  

So with regards to contrast – the soul intentionally weaves us through polarizing experiences so that we can gain understanding of the center point that unifies all opposites. 

This is why our deepest wounds and our greatest gifts are bound together by a mysterious underlying force. And this is why the brokenness of our humanity exists right alongside the perfection of our Divinity. 

Because there is a point of singularity that our life is orbiting around.

Through this process of oscillating between opposites, our conditioned judgements eventually become neutralized by an embodied knowledge that Union is the True Nature of Reality, and that the Divine pulses through all things – in spite of what is labeled as good or bad.

This weaving between opposites eventually breaks down our concepts of “other”, and we are gradually drawn closer to the Self at the center of all polarity.

When we exile anything through our judgments  – whether it be our experiences, another person, or a part of ourselves  – it is actually ourselves that we exile.

And even though there is a universal blueprint to this oscillation pattern, we each undergo this learning in very unique, nuanced, and specifically arranged ways, depending on the specific themes that the soul is exploring.

So, this dance of polarity is ultimately teaching us that Union is at the heart of everything that exists.

And that God is present in all things.

This is what Christ was referring to, as written in this cryptic passage in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:

(22) “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the Kingdom].”

He was referring to the singularity at the center of all polarities. 

He was speaking of the perfect symmetry that binds everything, and makes them One. 

And the beautiful thing about this, is that we are each miraculous walking expressions of this knowledge, whether we are aware of it or not, and our very lives are the mandalas of stained-glass within the sanctified cathedral of the Soul. 

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3 Years in New Mexico – Mystery and Change

Well, it’s been 3 years since I’ve moved to New Mexico. I cannot believe how fast time flies. 

Since I’ve moved here, I’ve opened up a full time intuitive reading and mentorship practice, have deep dived into my art, have met a plethora of beautiful souls, have met parts of my shadow that I didn’t even know existed, and have fallen madly in love with the Spirit of the land.

I have gone through a very deep transfiguration over the past few years. 

And I must say, the land, with its vast oceans of sagebrush, its endless colorful kingdoms of mountain horizons, and its lush aspen forests, has been one of the most profound teachers that has ever crossed my path. 

This land has held me in the most gentle and compassionate of ways, as I continue to be broken down, to be born yet again.  

Because now, I stand at a new precipice. 

I am simultaneously full of courage, excitement, and terror as I stare into the unknown abyss of my own essence, at the limit of every belief I’ve ever held about who I am. The mystery of my being calls of me, demands of me, to give up the rigid ideas that I have held about myself, and to embrace the humility of not knowing anything. 

And in the face of this, there’s all these weird fears about the future that compulsively cycle in my mind, like antique broken records – 

Will I ever be “truly” successful? 

Will I ever be a father? 

If I am a father, will I be a good one? 

Will I be able to provide? 

Will my creative work be received by the world in a meaningful way? 

Will I get the music out before I die? 

Am I running out of time? 

Does “God” think I’m doing a good job with my life? 

I am so prone to being alone – am I destined for a contemplative life of solitude? 

Or is it just a temporary phase? 

And maybe there’s some questions that I just shouldn’t ask.

But somehow these neurotic questions draw me inward, towards the center of my being to the One who knows the solution to every problem.

And when I make contact with this One who resides at my center, I feel the deepest peace and relief that I have ever known.

For a moment, for an eternity, inner harmony dawns, and a love beyond anything of this world graces me. And the solution to everything makes its quiet and humble repose. 

Maybe that’s why I keep asking weird questions. 

Because it’s teaching me how to listen, even if the answer isn’t what I think I want to hear. 

But at least there’s honesty, humility and love in the conversations between the various layers of my psyche. Holy schizophrenia, I guess you could call it. 

Lately, I’ve been having recurring, dramatically inspiring, dreams of change. 

The substrata of my psyche has been adamant about letting me know that transformation is well underway. 

In this, the ceiling of the old story becomes the floor of the new one. 

But it can feel a bit odd, standing at the feet of new budding expressions of ourselves that we are still a bit unfamiliar with. 

This is because our nervous systems LOVE familiarity, even if what is familiar to us is hell.

It’s almost like the upward ascent of our Spirit challenges the gravity of our past, coupled with our animal biology, and in that tension sparks evolution. 

So we just kind of stand awkwardly between the person that we were, and the person that we are becoming. 

And somewhere in that is the person that we are – in all of our messiness, confusion, and brokenness, right alongside our wholeness, our genius, and our Divinity. 

And this seems to be where I meet myself these days. 

It feels very bizarre.

Some days I am teeming with an inspired visionary impulse with incredible flashes of empowerment, and other days I feel utterly powerless to the gravity of my past personae, who seems to have very little to do with who I am in the present 

Like I said, the nervous system is addicted to familiarity. Even if it’s hell.

And yet all of this on some level seems to be a deeper question of identity.

I am not the person I once was, yet I am still a bit removed from who I am becoming. So, I must be vigilant against the urge to hold my identity and the beliefs about myself too tightly, because there is a sacred mystery to myself that I must yield and be humble to. 

I must honor and give ample space to unknown parts of my being. And I must embrace them with warmth and curiosity.

I must be mindful of not crowding out this mysterious indwelling essence with too many fixed ideas about myself, or the way my life is supposed to look. Because if I suffocate this part of myself with too many “should’s”, then I live within a cardboard concept of myself, rather than inhabiting the lush garden of my own living Reality. 

So, I must be mindful of resisting the temptation to make myself into a walking “should be”, rather than being present with the sacred living mystery of what I am. 

And rather than looking to my past to define me, I must be humble and allow the One at my center to inform me of who and what I am. 

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“Universal Mind”

Stylistically, this piece was inspired by many different lineages of sacred art from around the world.

The influence behind this painting include the majestic stained glass work from Medieval Christian cathedrals, to the ancient Hindi Pattachitra art, to the epic Tibetan Buddhist mandalas and Thangka paintings, to the sacred Navajo sand paintings, and to the archaic Aboriginal rock art. 

I’ve really enjoyed the process of absorbing these various traditions of sacred art, and blending their influence with my own intuitive painting style. 

And I also loved playing with the universal language of the mandala, and all of its encoded wisdom and architecture. 

In a certain way, I feel like I can barely even take credit for the art that comes through me anymore. 

The more I deepen into my intuitive work, as well as my creative work, the more I am becoming hyper aware of a Higher Intelligence that utilizes me as an instrument, Whose vision, wisdom, love and knowing reach far beyond the scope of my limited personality self.

So, this piece feels like it has almost initiated me into a new paradigm of self-understanding, where I am feeling that what comes through me, I can’t attach myself to, because there’s a sense that it’s not coming from ‘me’, but rather a Greater Universal Mind that each and every single one of us are intimately connected with. 

And so the intention behind this painting is to give honor and reverence to this Greater Intelligence (God), who is the True Artist behind this work. 

I actually believe the true purpose of all sacred art, is to give praise.

So for me, this piece is a visual acknowledgement of this same Self, in which we all share. 

And as a collective, I believe that the greatest revelation of our age will be the acknowledgment and discovery of this one shared Universal Mind (God), that intelligently orchestrates and organizes all things.

Working as a professional intuitive, one of the consistent things that I notice every time I tune to “read” someone, is that there is this overwhelming sense of a Higher Intelligence that is working through the seemingly “random” experiences of one’s life. 

So in a reading, it often feels as if I am communicating with this underlying Intelligence, and that my purpose as an intuitive, is to help close the gap between this underlying Intelligence, and the conscious mind of the client.

And the more I see this, the more I realize that none of us are who we think we are.

Most of us identify with the “top” layer of self – the conscious mind, which is full of its own judgements, projections, conditionings, and ideas about the way we think things should be. And the conscious mind thinks that it’s “in control” because it assumes the authority of fabricating an “I” around itself. 

And then a few layers beneath that, is the Deeper Self (aka Higher Self), who is intrinsically connected to the workings of a highly intelligent shared Universal Mind (God).

So, this Deeper Self is the part of us that is really moving and orchestrating the circumstances of our lives, and the conscious mind is merely responding to the Deeper Self’s movements and impulses. 

We can understand the relationship with the various parts of ourselves through the metaphor of a surfer and a wave. 

The wave is the Deeper Self, moving flows of energy as part of a larger ocean, and the conscious mind (personality self) is the surfer who is navigating and riding the flow of the wave. 

What we experience as being “in alignment” is a harmony between the various layers of self, where the personality self is working in accord with the intelligent movements of the Deeper Self. 

So being “out of alignment” is when the personality self is working against the movements of the Deeper Self. 

Now, this “Deeper Self” is part of a shared Universal Mind (God), just as a wave is part of an ocean. And all of our Deeper Selves work in perfect accord with one another, like an elaborate set of interlocking mandalas, as part of a larger geometric expression of Light.

And I believe that as we acknowledge the presence of this shared Universal Mind, we can learn how to sensitize ourselves to Its messaging and movements, through deepening our awareness of intuition, so that we can consciously live in accord with It. 

And when we learn to live in accord with It, then we learn how to live in harmony with all of Creation, because this is the same Intelligence that pulses through the cycles of Nature, that sing the stars into the sky, and that gives emanation to the rising and setting of the Sun. 

So, once again, I feel like I can barely even take credit for my art anymore… because it really doesn’t feel like it’s coming from “me”.

Maybe it comes “through” me… but it is not “of” me… 

It comes from this one shared Intelligence that works through each and every single one of us, and that orchestrates the mysterious unfolding of our lives. 

In the center of the mandala is a set of figures holding hands, with golden chords extending from their heads joined by One Golden Being. This represents this One Universal Intelligence that we all share. 

Within the outer petals extending from the mandala, there are scenes representing phases of our journey in connecting with this Higher Universal Mind. 

There are 4 different scenes, within 4 different colors, repeating 4  times to represent the 4  seasons of Nature. 

The first scene is in the orange petal, depicted by 2 beings giving praise to a tree. This represents our necessary reconnection with the Earth and the natural world, as a preliminary step to sensitizing ourselves to this Higher Intelligence. 

The second scene is in the green petal, and is depicted by a being with a tree halo coming from their head. This represents the phase where our consciousness starts to blend with the consciousness of Nature itself.

The third scene is in the yellow petal, with two teal trees and one dark purple tree in the center. There is no human figure in this scene, because it represents the phase of purification, when our consciousness becomes cleansed and undone of all of our fabricated human beliefs and conditioning. 

The fourth scene is in the blue petal, where we see a figure with a golden being coming from the head, with arms outstretched with tree branches, representing the clear and established connection with our Higher Self, and the Greater Universal Mind. 

And these 4 scenes repeat 4 times, reflecting the cyclical moments of Nature. 

And this process is portrayed within the structure of a mandala, which is a universal symbol reflecting the architecture of Light, and structure of this shared Universal Mind. 

So this painting was created in honor of the One from whom all art arises, and is a visual acknowledgement of this same Self, in which we all share. 

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You cannot demonize something and heal it, at the same time.

You cannot demonize something and heal it, at the same time. 

You cannot be afraid of something and heal it, at the same same time. 

You cannot punish something and heal it, at the same time. 

This applies to what is within you, as well as what is seen in the external world. 

Guilt, fear, and punishment never lead to genuine healing. Look at your own life for a moment – when you have directed these things towards yourself, have they ever brought you any sense of true healing or peace? Has any lasting good ever come of them? 

No.

Then why do we hold onto these things so tightly, thinking that they will eventually fix something within ourselves, within another, or within the world? 

Working with people from all walks of life, it is astonishing to me how so many beautiful people hold so much deep-seated guilt, thinking that punishing themselves day in and day out will eventually lead to some sense of inner resolve. They think, on some level, that if they punish themselves long-enough, that they will finally pay off some imaginary karmic debt that isn’t even there. 

They think that this guilt and self-punishment will correct or resolve something one day. But that “one day” never comes.

And so I see people literally create entire realities for themselves out of this guilt and self-punishment. They stay in abusive relationships because they think they “owe something” to someone, or that they deserve it on some level. They stay in jobs that are not aligned with their soul’s passion because they feel overly responsible to their own detriment. And they put themselves in harm’s way, because they think they will fix something through unnecessarily carrying the burdens of others. 

And then as an innocent attempt to rid themselves of their own deep-seated guilt, they will often unconsciously project it onto the external world, and decorate their realities with victims and oppressors, with everything and everyone to blame. 

And hence the “world” that we see. 

Guilt and self-punishment are the psychological glues that bind people to the toxic relationships and circumstances in their lives. 

So when someone goes through a genuine healing of breaking a toxic cycle, they will often experience a surge of guilt rising up from the subconscious. 

They will feel “selfish” at first, for leaving the toxic relationship, job, or situation, because the “glue” is being undone. This is a positive sign of healing. As they face the shadow of their guilt, they will see that it functions much like a mirage – where as they walk into it, they discover that there is actually nothing there. It was all smoke and mirrors. 

So as they walk through the cloud of guilt, it begins to disappear, and they will see the shining light of their soul’s innocence, patently awaiting the embrace of its beautiful and unique illumined glow. 

Guilt and self-punishment serve no function. They bear no real fruit. 

People think they are repaying some old karmic debt for something they’ve done, in order to justify their self-abuse. And of course, for most people, this is not happening on the level of conscious awareness, this is occurring on a deeper subconscious level.

Let me let you in on something: Yes, there is karma.

But karma is not a punishment or a debt – it is a learning device. 

And its ultimate teaching is to teach you of your innate innocence, as a radiant and pure extension of Source, God, Creator – whatever you prefer to call It. 

So you are free, the moment that you accept and celebrate yourself for who you truly are, as a unique and invaluable expression of Source. Your Self-acceptance is the ultimate aim of karma’s teaching. You play out as many “karmic experiences” as you need to, in order to learn to embrace your True Self. But only as many as you need to, in order to learn. 

How this applies practically – the moment that you truly realize that you are worth so much more than the abuse that you put yourself through, you are free. And you have all the power in the universe to claim your freedom, and to put yourself in relationships and situations that inspire, uplift and nourish who you are on a soul level. 

But YOU have to take responsibility to claim your own freedom. 

If you don’t, you will subconsciously match the default energy of the collective field, and take on the energy of guilt and self-punishment and adopt it as your own. 

So true healing doesn’t come out of guilt, fear or punishment. 

It comes from claiming who you truly are on a soul level, and through claiming the power of your connection to God (Source). 

And it also comes from realizing that there is nothing in this world that could ever actually sever your connection with God, because your connection with God is not of this world, therefor nothing in this world can ever harm it.

And herein is your healing, your freedom, and your peace. 

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When you start to set boundaries in your life, it’s amazing how many people that you will disappoint.

When you start to set boundaries in your life, it’s amazing how many people that you will disappoint.

And it’s amazing how many people you will feel that you have let down.

Many have been conditioned to get their needs met, through continuously giving their energy away to others, to the point where a state of self-depletion is normalized.

When this happens, one becomes gridlocked in their lives, where they weave a web of relationships around them that are codependent. 

This creates a reality for that person that traps them in the need for false validation and security, rather than a life created from the genuine expression of their soul.

And so, when one goes through a true healing, they must go through a process of breaking out of the codependent web that has formed around them.

In this process, they reclaim their energy through learning to set the necessary boundaries that provide the proper containment for their soul to actually emerge and express.

But through this process, they are going to disappoint a lot of people, and seemingly let a lot of people down. And it’s not uncommon to shed and release layers of relationships as this occurs.

So, facing this disappointment from others, is a necessary part of the healing process.

This is because the nervous system itself is actually breaking its addiction to false validation and approval.

The nervous system must learn to be comfortable in the face of others’ disappointments.

This is because the nervous system has been conditioned to feel a sense of safety through continuously giving one’s energy away, because it secures a false sense of value to those around them.

In this, the nervous system becomes addicted to appeasing others at the expense of caring for oneself, because it provides a false sense of “stasis” to the nervous system.

So ironically enough, learning to set healthy boundaries is actually intrinsically linked to breaking addiction in many cases.

But through this initiation process of setting boundaries and getting comfortable with others’ disappointments, one breaks free from the unconscious drive to seek security through self-depletion. 

And in this, a reconnection is formed with the intelligence of one’s soul, one’s intuition, and they allow their lives to be governed from their own internal guidance system, rooted in their connection to Source (God), rather than being ruled by the approval of others. 

So when someone gets disappointed in you when you set a healthy boundary, you can thank them for liberating you from the need of their approval. 

Because their disappointment is actually helping to reacquaint you with the genuine expression of your own soul. 

And their disappointment in you is actually helping to heal your nervous system.

This is because it’s re-training your nervous system to feel safe with being self-validated, rather than being validated by others. 

And so at the core of this, is an internal re-orientation from being invested in the need for false approval, to a reinvestment into the intelligence of one’s soul, and one’s connection with God (Source).

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We will never come into true autonomy without facing rejection from others.

We will never come into true autonomy without facing rejection from others.

We will never know the depth and strength of our character, without facing rejection from others.

And we will never know what it means to embrace the unique beauty of our soul’s expression without facing rejection from others.

If we avoid rejection, then we avoid our own autonomy. 

Rejection is a purifying force that frees us from the subconscious desire to bend our souls’ natural expression for the sake of appeasing another’s idea of us. 

With that being said, facing rejection is one of the most liberating experiences that we will ever undergo, and it puts us into direct contact with the unique language of the soul.

And yet, rejection is one of the things that people fear more than anything.

When we don’t allow ourselves to go through the proper initiation of facing rejection from others, then we subconsciously internalize rejection as a way of trying to avoid it externally.

This is where self-rejection comes from.

When someone is experiencing self-rejection, subconsciously they are trying to reject themselves first before anyone else can do it in their external world. And they believe (unconsciously) that doing this will protect them from the pain of facing rejection from another. In this, they fabricate a protective false persona that matches the ideals that other people “wish” them to be, at the expense of allowing themselves to embody the authentic expression of their soul.

This creates a schism within their psyche, and they become unconsciously ruled by the parts of themselves that they’ve rejected.

For example:

If a man rejects his innate masculinity at the expense of appeasing others, then he will become unconsciously ruled by it through attracting women that embody his repressed masculinity, and thus create co-dependent and abusive relationships that reflect his internal imbalance.

So in other words, he will manifest relationships that become the external expression of his own internal entrapment. 

This man’s life will become ruled by the very aspects of himself that he rejects. 

So he must go through a process of taking ownership over those rejected aspects, learn to embody them, and face rejection externally to integrate the integrity of his own self-autonomy.

So, one way or another we MUST face rejection. 

If we don’t properly allow ourselves to face rejection externally from others, then we are doomed to internalizing it.

This is because the soul understands that rejection is the gateway into freedom.

And this is because the soul understands that we can’t have true autonomy without actually confronting it.

The soul is determined that we face rejection one way or another, because it knows that its power is on the other side of it.

So in this, facing rejection helps us to break our attachments to how other people perceive us, which brings us into more direct contact with the reality of who we actually are.

It helps us to give up the false world that has been fabricated of people’s projections, so that we may enter into God’s world, and understand the depth of how unconditionally loved and accepted we’ve always been.

It breaks our addiction to what is unreal, that we may invest ourselves into what is actually Real.

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What if I told you that there was actually no such thing as self-doubt?

What if I told you that there was actually no such thing as self-doubt? 

And that self-doubt is actually a misinterpretation of something else happening on a deeper subconscious level.

When we “doubt ourselves”, what is actually going on is that we are becoming aware of a schism within our psyche.

There is one part of us that is empathically matching the energies of those around us, or the collective field.

And then there is another part of us that is deeply rooted in the intelligence of the soul.

And the “doubt” is the tension that we feel between these two parts of ourselves – the part of us that is matching the energy of others, and the part of us that is rooted in our inner knowing.

So when we “doubt” ourselves, what is really happening is there is a part of us that feels safer staying energetically entrained to the frequency of others, rather than going forth autonomously to embody our deeper knowing.

So it’s not so much a matter of “doubting”, as it is more of a matter of wanting to feel safe.

When I’m working with someone who is struggling with self-doubt, when I tune in to their subconscious, in most cases, it actually feels like the doubt is never the real issue.

It’s always more of a matter of not feeling safe to act on what they know to be true deep down.

Subconsciously, they fear that if they courageously acted on the intelligence of their soul, then they would be misperceived, judged, and ultimately persecuted.

The reason that they fear persecution is because their act of courage would actually disrupt the status quo of the belief systems of those around them.

So they feel safer continuing to stay in a position of matching the energy of others, rather than radiating the deeper knowing of their True Self.

So they are struggling to feel safe while simultaneously acting from the deeper knowing of the soul.

And then they innocently tell themselves that they are doubting themselves, as a story to hide behind. 

But as they tell themselves that they’re doubting themselves, they’re not actually addressing the deeper need that is wanting to be acknowledged.

Because the soul actually has no doubts.

The soul is intimately connected with Source (God), which is why it has such a profound knowing about how it is being called to evolve and express.

Only the conditioned self has doubts, because it feels safe and validated through matching the energy of others.

Now, when we become aware of this, then we can stop hiding behind the story of “self-doubt” that we tell ourselves, and address the deeper need that is calling our attention – which is the need to feel safe in embodying the expression of the soul.

When we do this, then we acknowledge that deep down we actually DO know exactly what we’re being called to act on, from the most authentic aspect of our being.

Once again, the soul does not doubt.

The soul simply knows.

And from here, we can start to learn of true safety, which comes from being rooted in our intuition, and rooted in God, rather than trying to find false safety through energetically matching those around us. 

When we try to find false safety through energetically matching others, then we become a diminished expression of the incredible masterwork that we were each destined to become.

So the false safety is not worth it.

And to be honest, if you’re looking for true safety in this world through trying to secure your place in it, you’re never going to truly find it.

Because true safety is not of this world.

True safety only comes from God. 

And so with all of this, we can allow self-doubt to become the entryway into true courage, strength, conviction, and ultimately the greatest freedom that we will ever come to know.