Build a Castle Within

During the years I penned my 1st book Kamikaze Yogi, I had the affirmation of my then male pastor. I’d go to see my mentor once and month and she’d say on occasion — Anita, do you realize how often you say that man’s name? In repsonse–Yes, Tip, I do realize. I care about that relationship. We call ourselves the preacher and the prophet.

It’s beautiful to build relationships! It’s hard work and they make us who we are. We nourish one another and challenge too. On the day he baptized me, my cousin had a vision of ‘something’ passing between us. Let me say that differently -on the day Jesus baptized me with his Holy Ghost I chose in my spirit to trust HIM in all that was about to unfold. We women have given our power away to man since the dawn of time.

I’m currently offering an IG body prayer each week for Lent this year as a complimentary practice to help others connect mind and body and awaken to the ways we all disparage these hard working creatures. This week I’m sharing from Eccl. 3:7 a time to break and a time to mend. Don’t we just hate the seasons of breaking? It could be job loss, divorce, illness, death..breaking is so painful.

When my book finally released, my pastor wrote the most beautiful heartfelt review on Amazon. My favorite line was about how ‘strange Anita’s writing can be because that is in line with the Bible. The scriptures are so very strange!”

But then in my spirit a week or so later I awakened to a knowing that the review had been removed. Yes, without first discussing it with me. As you can imagine this breach of trust ripped me to my core. From not just any friend, but my pastor, a man of the cloth. See what I did there? See how I had placed this ordinary human on a pedestal? This means I was meeting a part of myself lacking agency, a part that was disempowered from a prior ‘rupture’ by a man or men.

See how all things can work together for us to restore our identities and wholeness in Christ? It took me about 6 months to forgive and to discuss how I was taking my power back. Ultimately, my final lesson came when there was one more breach and I really wish I’d responded with ‘Get behind me Satan” because between us, there was a masculine/feminine demon dividing up the Divinely-ordained love that is available. Mutual respect and connection of the heart are what revelation speaks of in the new heaven and new earth.

But we cannot make others see and we can only choose to walk away with dignity, understanding that this is our story to tell.

Abuse fills our ears with the lie that we should keep quiet. For to keep secrets is survival.

I’m no longer in survival mode. I’m thriving. Especially after taking all this power back to fuel my voice in the world. Our nervous systems will keep us safe with our fawning, and our freezing. But we are able to move up into fight mode and stand up for ourselves. We do not have to abide by the ‘nice girls’ trope. We are to be authentic and with courage tell others what is and is not acceptable. We will not be bullied. Either the person plays by our rules or we walk away. We have choices and boundaries now. We no longer have to be held down by the boot of an imbalance of power.

Grab the soul key Jesus handed you and set yourself free my friends. Live a liberated woman in the ornate and many-roomed inner castle of your psyche. Your power is in your voice and your voice is a harmonic message of truth and love. The spiritual life is complex and beautiful and backed by God’s word.

1 Cor. 4:20 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of Power.

Get to Know the One Who Can Tell You Everything About Your Life

Not only can you become acquainted with Jesus the Messiah but you can become so foundationally grounded in safety and love in your nervous system that He will manifest through you. You will witness with awe and wonder as His consciousness is birthed as the very way you live, move and have your being. You can let fear take a back seat and witness love’s voice flow from your lips. You can become broken bread and poured out wine. Yes, ordinary you in your ordinary body.

Say Yes

Say Yes to this walk of faith. Embrace the absurdity of it all

Show up. Speak your truth without hesitation or with loads of it.

But use your voice as testimony to the transformation of your heart and life ever since you began to realize you were aligning with the ways of heaven and not the ways of the world.

Heavenly ways are wild! Two steps forward, 400 steps back. Failure, Lust. Inner child lostness. Dissociation

Vulnerability after vulnerability complete with hangovers

Spiraling into emotional meltdowns and feeling unsure if you can find your footing after the storm

Being broken open for many to witness the outpouring of pain- shouting or whimpering “I don’t have to be a tough cookie”.

Building new bridges within to mysterious lands

Back into the wildness of the inner landscape of sensation, voices and primal urges

Trauma disconnects our communication lines- those wires got severed.

The practice of yoga helps restore the child with the higher self (the powerless parts with our Source of Power)

If you are feeling like God doesn’t hear you, I get it. For years I was stuck in my trauma pain body.God is always listening– are we listening ? to our body’s communication, to our suffering self.We cannot heal without the Divine help.the world and the weight of our struggle is just too heavy.

It’s one longing– for your own peace of mind and for your mind to be assured of being in Christ.

It’s one seeing- your own consciousness which is free of condemnation and the one of Jesus the Christ looking upon the woman at the well. Seek him, long for His ways. Trust them. Trust them in your heart.

Sheeple

A few thoughts on ‘mob mentality’ on being sheeple, on being swept up in the group energy.

I was in church a year ago November when a few people stormed out when they realized that what was supposed to be an opportunity to be supported in our grief, was in fact now a shame and blame session. My one friend that I know of was able to hold her peace amidst this shift but I could only hold it for so long and then I lost it..swept into anger. I restored my peace after a good night’s rest.

I was in a different church a few months ago as an invited guest when the pastor began to preach a message of untruth, of condemnation over certain populations. His message was filled with mixed messages – some judgment then an attempt to return the Gospel (LOVE). I was able to stand firm two weeks in a row in my my embodied harmony of head and heart as I intentionally took a ‘mountain posture’, a garrison within. I did not LOSE my center, the mob did not influence my spirit.

We all are human and lose our voice and after the fact may wish — I had said this, or done that.

Funny thing was, a few months after my first example I told one of our pastors that the Spirit told me– next time you find yourself in a situation swept up in fear and anger, DROP TO YOUR KNEES

PRAY

That is the appropriate response. Turn to God for Help.

Guess what he said to me—-

nothing.

That was when I knew it was time to leave. That was exactly one year ago.

Discern the spirits my friends. Be a force for GOOD

Let your love speak and sometimes use your words

Get Your Groove Back

Yin and Yang

Regulation harmony

in 2016 I was receiving a massage from Brooke’s friend Maria and she spoke to me of my ‘Woman just crying out”. I wasn’t sure what she meant but I was leaving for a grief writing retreat and desired to find HER and welcome her back to my Self.

All that weekend, I was with my Oma in spirit and I received many signs and wonders from Mother Mary as well. These are some

Signs of being dysregulated in your masculine energy (with a deficient feminine):

This is not gender specific – could be a man or a woman realizing an imbalance.

Anger issues, mood disorder

Need for control

Need to be heard

overly Opinionated

hyper independent

stoic/lack of emotionality

domineering

Prejudice

While these are the healthy masculine (again in women too):

Powerful Presence

Undaunted Ambition

Clarity of Focus

Generosity of Heart

Largeness of Mind/Consciousness/Soul

Strength of Body and Resolve

Fiercely Protective Instinct

These are the feminine qualities of energy to grow that may be deficient :

Intuition

Yielding in faith

Receptive to new ideas

Softness

emotional flow

creative inspiration

Identified with Spirituality

Embody flow/natural rhythms

A nurturer

I like to say that I have nerves of steel and a velvety heart.

WIth my coaching and yoga offerings I help people restore harmony and that’s why I called it Grooveology

Help

You

Get

Your

GROOVE BACK!!

In Christian circles we call this harmony the Kingdom of God

Transfigured

I, like most humans, believe that there must be some offering on my part– a sacrifice to to speak.

I like to think about how alchemy works with trauma (miraculously shifting the chaos into beauty)

While this Isn’t untrue, relying on Jesus is a whole other sort of MIRACLE.

When Spirit kept inviting me into being strategic, I pursued some new challenge for my brain like chess or Othello.

But when I got to my father’s home, sure I took the initiative to go but then after that, it seemed like Love took over. I yielded my body and a great, merciful Love flowed freely.

Somehow in my dealings, my friend Nita said I had been very strategic in my humble approach. And I thought “that’s not me”.

But you see Christ is all in all.

Wherever you desire some quality or fruit you don not possess, he does possess it. Will you let HIM possess you?

He can make wine from water– no grapes needed.

He can make something out of nothing.

And you don’t have to sacrifice..you don’t have to provide the trauma or the substance. You simply have to show up and believe.

We love to do our part and I’m all for it– co-redeeming, co-creating, co-resurrecting. AND AlLSO, can we sit still and receive our gift in the solitude of the silence which surrounds the voice of the coming Lamb.

Just letting ourselves be found and in this way, transformed.

#Lent2023 #thoughtsoftheday #TuesdayThoughts

Holding opposing forces in tension

How are you going to hold two seemingly opposing views together in tension?

A year ago December I was in church and all the grief and lament of our community filled me to bursting. I was alone in my wailing publicly until someone came beside me and embraced my shoulders and allowed me to process what was flowing through. Is this a gift? Sure but

It’s also a sign of an excessive and imbalanced sacral chakra.

I did not know this although I’ve been studying my own energy and chakras for about 8 years. Well I should say– I knew it but I did not yet embody this understanding .

I was at a new chiropractor last month who said “you are leaking energy all over the place”… I somewhat took offense.

You see, my acupuncturist told me that I have a very strong constitution and am powerful. I have friends who comment on my anointing, I don’t like seeing myself as ‘leaky’

I did not want to hear this. Enter beginners mind

Humility

And yet, he planted a seed and I have been actively healing my sacral since. It’s brutally painful work. We are dealing with a young child developmentally–maybe 7-10

and her unmet needs.

We are listening to her not feeing safe and her emotional outbursts. We hold it all for HER.

This is the work of the cross in that we all have mostly ignored the depths of our suffering selves and so there is

a fair amount of stuck life force or trauma charge stored in the body and ALSO–

there is energy leaking

as others draw upon us without our consent.

It’s a WOUND. In need of compassion and balance.

In need of Justice.

Demons and functional freeze

“Demons who enter your circle must be pushed out” Taoist saying.

And Functional freeze

What is it?

You watch yourself live your life, maybe even a high-achiever but

distant from the body, separate from your Power.

Thus we aren’t really participating, impacting the world with our love and our ANGER. Anger is appropriate at times. There’s a lot to be angry about.

When a man spoke to me for the umpteenth time with disrespect I was supposed to reply with a “EFF off…I don’t deserve your disdain”

But I was stuck in a mothering functional freeze and responded with a programmed “Look at me and see how sincere I am”.

No NO NO NOOOOOOOO

No begging

No more suffering as others remain in their pattern of misogyny

The Holy Spirit was very clear– that was a ‘Get behind me Satan” moment. When someone’s pain body attacks, our appropriate response is — this demon has entered my circle and must be pushed out. Compassion is. not powerful enough in this type of conflict.

Only the sword of Truth is appropriate in battles of this sort.

Good Psychology makes for Good Theology

Reading + contemplating some Jung-

“For the woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious (to my mind, read GOD) comes from above, the spiritual sphere personified by the her animus (her internal masculine aspect of Self). whereas, for man it comes from the realm of the world and WOMAN — the anima projected onto the world.”

This statement if true and I do believe it is, has massive ramifications for humanity. In my experience, I must individuate and grow my inner boy child up to full maturity and then and only then will I see that work manifest in the physical realm. The heroine journey so to speak in becoming whole is my joy, challenge and responsibility. It’s empowering for women everywhere.

We must refuse the projection of the world onto our identity at every step and this requires a daily letting go. We look within and only within–into the abyss of the Soul for guidance, instinct, revelation, faith in our innate goodness. In other words, the Christ garrisons our divinity and humanity in the heart.

Who else has been dreaming about baby boys of late?ndi

Men, you certainly aren’t going to wait on us . What comes up for you upon reading this?

Trauma, anxiety + healing

My friends love me dearly. They do not want to see me retraumatized. They know I have been through enormous layers and experiences over the course of my life that caused a major disruption- not only in my nervous system, but in how I experience the essence or Truth of Anita.

My understanding of reality is a spiral- envision a seashell. In order for me to heal what happened early on in life, when developmentally things went awry, I must revisit those experiences energetically. We do not have to re-live the awful or devastating experiences which created the ‘charge’ of trauma in the nervous system, but we will have a sense of what’s stuck or happening somatically.

Holy Ghost called me to a local church 7 years ago shortly after I met my birth father for the very first time at age 49. I was baptized by my pastor within months of arrival. That relationship became one of the most important in my adult life in order for me to discover the myriad ways I’d lost power and was in the process of reclamation. You see I’d experienced abandonment by the 3 most important male figures in my little girl life before the age of 7.

At my monthly mentoring sessions, she’d say- do you realize how often you say his name (my pastor)?

It took a long, patient, inner exploration for me to understand and appreciate the shadow work that was underway. He represented generations of the masculine who’d come to minimize and disempower my women folk. Don’t get me wrong, he is a complex individual with many beautiful gifts and sweetness. He did not represent this masculine shadow to anyone else in my circles. This was personal. And I was given the capacity to hold it all: the good with the difficult, and thus the iron sharpens iron began to produce a felt sense of how very soul drawn I had become. My ego was not the driving force of my life any longer. My soul’s fullness was.

But from my friend’s standpoint, it is confusing why I’d ‘agree’ to what on the surface appears so disruptive, so chaotic, so maladjusted. Well, within me lived all of those qualities!!

But my unconscious (read God) is leading the path to wholeness– not me, the 10% conscious self. I understand that we can trust Elohim, the ancient of days to know better than we do.Where I’ve lost power is in my shadow and shows up as the ways that I judge, distance, fear and control. I tried all of these with this man and others.

So, bottom line is that my time in the church was not re-traumatizing, it was unearthing all the patterns of self-betrayal and abandonment that I could not see. Bringing light into the darkness so to speak.

Week after week in small group, my body would often develop a rising tide of anxiety. I’d sit on the floor to try and get more grounded. I’d breathe deeply. This trauma charge was a vibration in my torso and was being activated in order that it might move from chaos to order, or Logos.

Trauma is dissonance in the system. My daily practices of asana, chant, breathwork, journaling, time in nature and meditation help me lean into how painful it is to somatically feel so much happening in my physicality. We create capacity for healing, integration and the light to be embodied. The light that forgot it was a harmony of rainbow colors. It got scattered and I’m helping the healing beauty to spread through my art, writing, service and love of neighbor.

How to garrison the G-D within

I’ve chosen garrison as my word for 2023.

Occupy, Fortify, Secure

Christ as this siege of our inner life

We must have the same spiritual defense as Jesus did.
How do we go about achieving this?

I’ll go back to 2016

I was heading to the Bahamas for a long weekend at a grief writing retreat with Mirabai Starr. The location was the Sivananda retreat center- replete with monks in long flowing robes.Upon arrival, I had encountered a mentally ill young woman who threatened me and after not sleeping the first night I had to move my sleeping location. Due to this sense of a lack of personal safety, coupled with being on my own without friends or family, coupled with the new to me religious order of the monks, I was riddled with anxiety.

I remember beginning this conversation with Christ– more like a pestering.
Where are you?
Are you here?

Are you accessible to me? Are you alive…a help at all?

I’ve come to recognize that yes, not only had I brought Christ with me but he was the light in each person I encountered.

I had nothing to fear. The foreign nature was a surface, earthly layer that did not mean that the soul was not recognizable to my own.
From this moment on, I, like Alice Walker, knew “Any God I ever felt in church, I brought in with me”

Christians I have encountered live with a lot of fear and anxiety and in my expereince and humble opinion

would do well to keep looking within for the power residing in the soul and not an outside entity. Calming the nervous system and finding regulation (self and co) is one reliable way to maintain secure attachment to the Love that is always

available.