Ya know the one about standing in your Power and not shrinking…
It starts out…
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It goes on…
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us it’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
✨It can be scary to peel back the cathedral walls of the rib cage and expose your heart. To take chances and jump into the river with your whole body not just your foot. To talk openly about the very things that nearly killed you.
To put out offerings and start meetings and practices hoping that it will lift others and that people will show up!
It’s scary to put $20-$30,000 on a credit card hoping that the retreats will serve others and fill people up.
but over the past four years that is exactly what I have done.
I never miss a Wednesday because I made that commitment.
When I relapsed almost eight years ago I knew that I had to have a daily practice that kept me in my body and thereby flushing and clearing on a daily basis the anxiety and tension and leftover triggers of trauma. So even though I was always a practitioner of yoga and I liked it, it became something entirely different. It became a gateway and laboratory into my very dysregulated nervous system.
I got my Yoga certification just so I could take the Yoga 12 Step Recovery training and become a leader and spaceholder. By doing that I would commit myself to YOU. To the commUNITY. I held myself accountable. It was an automatic RELAPSE PREVENTION TOOL!
It's working so far!!:)
Since then, I have never missed a Wednesday meeting/practice except when I had pneumonia aka COVID? and was bedridden. When the Pandemic hit we did not even skip a beat or miss a week and went straight to ZOOM with an online offering. That meeting has now been going for over 18 months and we have a whole new online community. I promised them I would not leave so we have now started another in person meeting on thursdays.
I started doing retreats because in my own experience I needed that lantern out on the horizon to keep me going. I needed to occasionally step away and out of the frenetic pace of my life to gain perspective and re-boot my system, recovery, and relationship with source.
I believe RETREATS are essential to long term recovery and discovery. It is a necessary part and aspect of seeking through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with source.
I swore to myself I would do that for others. I have now led several White Flag Signature Retreats that have a design and flow that is so unique and soulful. The feedback I have gotten from others is proof that these Retreats are indeed vital.
Finally, I promised to be there for those that needed more intense coaching or accountability partnership and I am doing that.
Why am I writing all of this? Because sometimes it is scary when I am about to take another giant step forward. I sometimes go back into the shadow for a minute. So instead of doing that, or getting into fear, I am writing and telling on myself to you. Because that is what we do!! We tell the truth on our DIS- EASE and it shrivels up like the Witches shoes in the Wizard of OZ :)
Even though I am further along in my spiritual understandings, I still fall prey to what Marianne Williamson is talking about when she writes:
We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually who are you not to be?
You are a child of God
So here goes, big swallow and and I will continue to grow, and take chances, and put myself out there so that by doing so, I will continue to liberate others and WE will taste freedom from the self imposed prison of fear, shame, lack, insecurity and ego.
thanks for listening...and I hope this somehow serves and lifts...
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