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Personal Development

Are You Awake or Just Woke?

Are You Awake or Just Woke?

One of, if not the most common misconceptions I see the “wake up sheeple” crowd make is believing that being awake means that you are “woke” to the ills of the world. That’s not what being awake means at all. Not even close. It also doesn’t (only) mean that you are aware that there is more to the universe than what is physically in front of it. It’s deeper than all of these things.

Are You Awake or Just Woke?

Is There A Correct Spiritual Path?

It’s been ages since I’ve done a Q&A post, but this was submitted as a comment on my post about spiritual teacher credibility and I thought it was worth addressing for a broader audience.

How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

The concept of credibility came up in my post on critical thinking and spirituality yesterday. I think part of our issue today with all of the misinformation floating around is that a lot of people don’t really understand what credibility means. Today I’m going to give you a rundown of what makes someone credible in the realms of science and journalism, and how to apply that to spirituality.

Are You A Critical Thinker?

Are You A Critical Thinker?

I posted a poll in my Facebook group a couple of weeks ago asking which topics people would be most interested in having me write about, and critical thinking within the context of spirituality came out on top by far. I think it’s an especially important topic in this day and age when there’s so much misinformation swirling about on the internet. Consider this your crash course in the foundations of critical thinking.

Do We Manifest Abusive Experiences?

Do We Manifest Abusive Experiences?

It’s time to talk about toxic spiritual concepts and its contribution to victim shaming and the enabling of abusive dynamics.

The Most Important Work You Will Ever Do

The Most Important Work You Will Ever Do

All of the world’s problems (and yours) come down to this.

Are You Awake or Just Woke?

Do Not Look Away

This post might make you uncomfortable. Can you sit with that discomfort long enough to figure out where it’s coming from? Let’s find out.

The Most Important Work You Will Ever Do

The Great Awakening

You think you understand awakening…but do you?

I Challenge You

I Challenge You

Want to know what kind of energy you’re embodying right now? Answer these questions to find out.

Are You A Critical Thinker?

Spiritual Politics

Are your spiritual leaders telling you who to vote for? If so, you might want to reconsider who you’re listening to.

Here’s a tip on how to evaluate the people you put on a pedestal.

« Older Entries

Are You Awake or Just Woke?

Are You Awake or Just Woke?

Sep 20, 2020 | Discernment, Mind, My favorites, self-awareness | 0 Comments

One of, if not the most common misconceptions I see the “wake up sheeple” crowd make is believing that being awake means that you are “woke” to the ills of the world. That’s not what being awake means at all. Not even close. It also doesn’t (only) mean that you are aware that there is more to the universe than what is physically in front of it. It’s deeper than all of these things.

Is There A Correct Spiritual Path?

Is There A Correct Spiritual Path?

Aug 25, 2020 | Discernment, Question Submission, Spirit | 0 Comments

It’s been ages since I’ve done a Q&A post, but this was submitted as a comment on my post about spiritual teacher credibility and I thought it was worth addressing for a broader audience.

How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

Aug 18, 2020 | Discernment, Featured, self-awareness | 5 Comments

The concept of credibility came up in my post on critical thinking and spirituality yesterday. I think part of our issue today with all of the misinformation floating around is that a lot of people don’t really understand what credibility means. Today I’m going to give you a rundown of what makes someone credible in the realms of science and journalism, and how to apply that to spirituality.

Are You A Critical Thinker?

Are You A Critical Thinker?

Aug 17, 2020 | Discernment, Mind, Psychology, self-awareness | 0 Comments

I posted a poll in my Facebook group a couple of weeks ago asking which topics people would be most interested in having me write about, and critical thinking within the context of spirituality came out on top by far. I think it’s an especially important topic in this day and age when there’s so much misinformation swirling about on the internet. Consider this your crash course in the foundations of critical thinking.

Do We Manifest Abusive Experiences?

Do We Manifest Abusive Experiences?

Jul 1, 2020 | Discernment, Healing, Manifesting, Mind, Question Submission, self-awareness, Spirit | 0 Comments

It’s time to talk about toxic spiritual concepts and its contribution to victim shaming and the enabling of abusive dynamics.

The Most Important Work You Will Ever Do

The Most Important Work You Will Ever Do

Jun 24, 2020 | Featured, Mind, My favorites, Psychology, self-awareness | 0 Comments

All of the world’s problems (and yours) come down to this.

Do Not Look Away

Do Not Look Away

Jun 13, 2020 | Discernment, Featured, Personal Development, self-awareness | 7 Comments

This post might make you uncomfortable. Can you sit with that discomfort long enough to figure out where it’s coming from? Let’s find out.

The Great Awakening

The Great Awakening

Apr 16, 2020 | Discernment, Mind, Personal Development, Psychology, self-awareness | 0 Comments

You think you understand awakening…but do you?

I Challenge You

I Challenge You

Apr 13, 2020 | Discernment, Featured, Mind, Psychology | 2 Comments

Want to know what kind of energy you’re embodying right now? Answer these questions to find out.

« Older Entries

@ASHRISING ON INSTAGRAM

Patrick from @bigseance and I got together a few w

Patrick from @bigseance and I got together a few weeks ago with Brian Smith from @grief2growth and Amber Choisella at @blossomandrise to talk about how much #spiritualbypassing has exposed itself in the spiritual community with regard to the #blacklivesmatter movement, how it’s connected to #patriarchy and #toxicmasculinity, and how #shadowwork is the root solution to the world’s current social ills.

Link in bio!

#spiritualawakening #spirituality #spiritualmentor #lightworker #spiritualethics #spiritualcoaching #shadowworker

ON MANAGING ANXIETY In my stories earlier this we

ON MANAGING ANXIETY

In my stories earlier this week, I asked what other topics you’d be interested in hearing about from me and someone asked me to touch on how to control feelings of anxiety.  First, I want to say that I don’t think you can control anxiety, per se, but you can learn how to manage it and eventually heal it. Anxiety is your body’s physiological response to an external or internal stress trigger. Particularly in the latter case, anxiety is your body’s way of alerting you that there’s an unresolved, internal emotional conflict rooted in fear. It’s a feeling and we can’t control how we feel.
 As I’ve become more energetically sensitive over the last couple of years, I’ve begun to notice where in my body I physically feel certain emotions. I almost always feel anxiety in my heart or my stomach, or both.  From an energetic standpoint, anxiety occurs when your energy becomes ungrounded. That means that, rather than flowing down through your body and connecting with earth, your energy current is stopping or being blocked at the heart chakra or the solar plexus.

In order to manage this, you want to get the energy flowing down through your body again. Here’s a few yoga, mindfulness, and energetic tactics I’ve picked up over the years to help with that:  1️⃣ Deep Breathing
Take deep belly breaths with your lower belly. Short breaths from your chest exacerbate the fight or flight fear response that’s happening physiologically. When you take deep breaths from your lower belly, it calms your heart rate and helps draw energy down into your sacral chakra and gets things flowing again.

2️⃣ Physical Grounding Take your right hand and ball it into a fist, place it on top of your lower belly, place your left hand over the fist, and then push into your abdomen while bending over slightly. This is another yogic tactic meant to help ground you back into your lower body by bringing physical awareness to it. Bring as much of your awareness to your physical body, particularly the lower extremities, as possible. [continued 👇🏻]

There are times in life when it appears as though

There are times in life when it appears as though we are completely enveloped in darkness. All hope seems lost. Our hearts ache. The world as we knew it is crumbling all around us.

In times like these, it’s easy to fall prey to your limited perspective and to feel as though you can’t go on. All you see around you is the darkness. You cannot see what’s on the other side..
#“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” – Cynthia Occelli

We have conditioned ourselves to believe that when things begin to fall apart, it’s a bad thing. And because we believe this to be a bad thing, we have begun to fear it. We fear the very thing which allows us to grow.

At some point, the seed must come undone. Its self, as it knows it, must fall apart in order to expand and BECOME. “Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.” -Chuck Palahniuk

Embrace your disaster. Surrender to change. Allow the transformation. Accept the pain and grow through it. Because you have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.

The gardener never actually sees the seed sprouting. Usually, you just happen to look one day and there are the little new leaves, standing sturdily above the dirt where a day or two before there was nothing.

The entire world is about to change. If you watch carefully, you’ll see it sprout.

I really hate peanut butter cookies. In my 36 year

I really hate peanut butter cookies. In my 36 years on earth, I’ve never met one that I liked.
 And yet, every single fucking time I see one, I still think, “Maybe this time…” I pick it up. I take a bite. Nope. Still hate peanut butter cookies.  The fact that I still try it every time I see it thinking that maybe this will be the one and somehow my aversion will magically shift, all the while fully knowing I don’t like them and never have, is the definition of insanity. But that’s what ingrained behaviors do to us.  I’ve found myself exhibiting this same behavioral pattern in other areas of my life, particularly relationships. Falling for the same kind of people over and over. Giving them chance after chance, thinking somehow, this time, it would end differently. But it doesn’t. And I knew it wouldn’t, just like I know I fucking hate peanut butter cookies.  At some point you’ve got to look in the mirror and tell yourself, ‘You know you hate peanut butter cookies. You know you’d much rather have a snickerdoodle or a sugar cookie. The only reason you keep trying peanut butter cookies is because that’s the only thing available. And you know what? IT’S FUCKING OK TO GO WITHOUT THE GOD DAMN COOKIE IF IT’S NOT WHAT YOU’RE REALLY LOOKING FOR.” And the same goes for romantic partners. And friends. And jobs. And any other hypothetical thing your peanut butter cookie could be a metaphor for.

Be willing to wait for what will fulfill you instead of trying to settle with what’s in front of you, lest you keep taking a bite and spitting it out because it’s disgusting. Every. Fucking. Time.

#standards #whatyouseekisseekingyou #raiseyourstandards #consciousliving #value #knowyourworth #consciousrelationships

Getting there. It’s a slow process.

Getting there. It’s a slow process.

Sometimes, when relationships don’t turn out the

Sometimes, when relationships don’t turn out the way we’d hoped, we try to minimize them by saying things like, “This was just a lesson.” Somehow, by attempting to force a shift in our perception, we think it will lessen the impact of the loss, but in the process, we end up dismissing and invalidating our own emotions and the connection we had with the other person in that relationship.

That doesn’t help you move forward or heal, it’s only helping you bury your pain (and is a form of spiritual bypassing). It’s possible to accept the “lessons” you learned within a relationship while still honoring your place in it.

This person—this mirror—gave you a gift: the opportunity to see yourself. Just because it didn’t unfold the way you imagined it would doesn’t mean that what was there was never real. It was, but for a moment in time. And what is life but impermanent?

You don’t HAVE to measure success or failure by whether or not something continues. In fact, you don’t have to measure success or failure at all.

Perhaps there are no lessons. Only experiences.

You can love someone and still (figuratively) tell

You can love someone and still (figuratively) tell them to go fuck themselves if and when the necessity arises.

If they take accountability for their actions and attempt to make amends, keep them.

If they don’t, let ‘em go. That doesn’t mean you don’t love them. It just means that you recognize you’re not in a healthy dynamic and you respect yourself enough to not subject yourself to toxic behavior.

It’s not worth fighting to keep someone in your life who won’t fight to keep you in theirs.

#boundaries #healthyboundaries #fuckoff

Patrick from @bigseance and I got together a few w

Patrick from @bigseance and I got together a few weeks ago with Brian Smith from @grief2growth and Amber Choisella at @blossomandrise to talk about how much #spiritualbypassing has exposed itself in the spiritual community with regard to the #blacklivesmatter movement, how it’s connected to #patriarchy and #toxicmasculinity, and how #shadowwork is the root solution to the world’s current social ills.

Link in bio!

#spiritualawakening #spirituality #spiritualmentor #lightworker #spiritualethics #spiritualcoaching #shadowworker

ON MANAGING ANXIETY In my stories earlier this we

ON MANAGING ANXIETY

In my stories earlier this week, I asked what other topics you’d be interested in hearing about from me and someone asked me to touch on how to control feelings of anxiety.  First, I want to say that I don’t think you can control anxiety, per se, but you can learn how to manage it and eventually heal it. Anxiety is your body’s physiological response to an external or internal stress trigger. Particularly in the latter case, anxiety is your body’s way of alerting you that there’s an unresolved, internal emotional conflict rooted in fear. It’s a feeling and we can’t control how we feel.
 As I’ve become more energetically sensitive over the last couple of years, I’ve begun to notice where in my body I physically feel certain emotions. I almost always feel anxiety in my heart or my stomach, or both.  From an energetic standpoint, anxiety occurs when your energy becomes ungrounded. That means that, rather than flowing down through your body and connecting with earth, your energy current is stopping or being blocked at the heart chakra or the solar plexus.

In order to manage this, you want to get the energy flowing down through your body again. Here’s a few yoga, mindfulness, and energetic tactics I’ve picked up over the years to help with that:  1️⃣ Deep Breathing
Take deep belly breaths with your lower belly. Short breaths from your chest exacerbate the fight or flight fear response that’s happening physiologically. When you take deep breaths from your lower belly, it calms your heart rate and helps draw energy down into your sacral chakra and gets things flowing again.

2️⃣ Physical Grounding Take your right hand and ball it into a fist, place it on top of your lower belly, place your left hand over the fist, and then push into your abdomen while bending over slightly. This is another yogic tactic meant to help ground you back into your lower body by bringing physical awareness to it. Bring as much of your awareness to your physical body, particularly the lower extremities, as possible. [continued 👇🏻]

There are times in life when it appears as though

There are times in life when it appears as though we are completely enveloped in darkness. All hope seems lost. Our hearts ache. The world as we knew it is crumbling all around us.

In times like these, it’s easy to fall prey to your limited perspective and to feel as though you can’t go on. All you see around you is the darkness. You cannot see what’s on the other side..
#“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” – Cynthia Occelli

We have conditioned ourselves to believe that when things begin to fall apart, it’s a bad thing. And because we believe this to be a bad thing, we have begun to fear it. We fear the very thing which allows us to grow.

At some point, the seed must come undone. Its self, as it knows it, must fall apart in order to expand and BECOME. “Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.” -Chuck Palahniuk

Embrace your disaster. Surrender to change. Allow the transformation. Accept the pain and grow through it. Because you have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.

The gardener never actually sees the seed sprouting. Usually, you just happen to look one day and there are the little new leaves, standing sturdily above the dirt where a day or two before there was nothing.

The entire world is about to change. If you watch carefully, you’ll see it sprout.

I really hate peanut butter cookies. In my 36 year

I really hate peanut butter cookies. In my 36 years on earth, I’ve never met one that I liked.
 And yet, every single fucking time I see one, I still think, “Maybe this time…” I pick it up. I take a bite. Nope. Still hate peanut butter cookies.  The fact that I still try it every time I see it thinking that maybe this will be the one and somehow my aversion will magically shift, all the while fully knowing I don’t like them and never have, is the definition of insanity. But that’s what ingrained behaviors do to us.  I’ve found myself exhibiting this same behavioral pattern in other areas of my life, particularly relationships. Falling for the same kind of people over and over. Giving them chance after chance, thinking somehow, this time, it would end differently. But it doesn’t. And I knew it wouldn’t, just like I know I fucking hate peanut butter cookies.  At some point you’ve got to look in the mirror and tell yourself, ‘You know you hate peanut butter cookies. You know you’d much rather have a snickerdoodle or a sugar cookie. The only reason you keep trying peanut butter cookies is because that’s the only thing available. And you know what? IT’S FUCKING OK TO GO WITHOUT THE GOD DAMN COOKIE IF IT’S NOT WHAT YOU’RE REALLY LOOKING FOR.” And the same goes for romantic partners. And friends. And jobs. And any other hypothetical thing your peanut butter cookie could be a metaphor for.

Be willing to wait for what will fulfill you instead of trying to settle with what’s in front of you, lest you keep taking a bite and spitting it out because it’s disgusting. Every. Fucking. Time.

#standards #whatyouseekisseekingyou #raiseyourstandards #consciousliving #value #knowyourworth #consciousrelationships

Getting there. It’s a slow process.

Getting there. It’s a slow process.

Sometimes, when relationships don’t turn out the

Sometimes, when relationships don’t turn out the way we’d hoped, we try to minimize them by saying things like, “This was just a lesson.” Somehow, by attempting to force a shift in our perception, we think it will lessen the impact of the loss, but in the process, we end up dismissing and invalidating our own emotions and the connection we had with the other person in that relationship.

That doesn’t help you move forward or heal, it’s only helping you bury your pain (and is a form of spiritual bypassing). It’s possible to accept the “lessons” you learned within a relationship while still honoring your place in it.

This person—this mirror—gave you a gift: the opportunity to see yourself. Just because it didn’t unfold the way you imagined it would doesn’t mean that what was there was never real. It was, but for a moment in time. And what is life but impermanent?

You don’t HAVE to measure success or failure by whether or not something continues. In fact, you don’t have to measure success or failure at all.

Perhaps there are no lessons. Only experiences.

You can love someone and still (figuratively) tell

You can love someone and still (figuratively) tell them to go fuck themselves if and when the necessity arises.

If they take accountability for their actions and attempt to make amends, keep them.

If they don’t, let ‘em go. That doesn’t mean you don’t love them. It just means that you recognize you’re not in a healthy dynamic and you respect yourself enough to not subject yourself to toxic behavior.

It’s not worth fighting to keep someone in your life who won’t fight to keep you in theirs.

#boundaries #healthyboundaries #fuckoff

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