Facing fears and looking within ✨
Updated: May 25, 2020
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anais Nin
If you’ve been feeling these shifts & retrogrades for a while now then you’re not alone. Light is being shed on areas that are long overdue to be healed, collectively and individually. Pain begets healing - it’s a natural cycle of life evident to us through even our own natural cycles as women. Entering our womanhood we experience pain through a monthly lunar cycle that I affectionately call my monthly moon. And then for some of us when we bring children into this world we’re reminded again that the pain is temporary but what we learn or experience through it brings life-changing, beautiful outcomes. Pain is relative and it isn’t always physical. A lot of times it’s more unresolved mental and emotional anguish that hinders us from discovering our true power. The thing about lessons is that if we cower in the face of them, they don’t just disappear they’ll just change form. Challenges, obstacles and triggers usually hold valuable insights, and a lot of times the key to what needs to be addressed in our own individual lives. Being able to confront them when they show up keeps them from repeating over and over again. Easier said than done until their weight becomes too heavy for us to ignore and we have no choice but face them head-on.
There have been too many things that I ignored for too long at the expense of my own mental and emotional well-being as well as for my loved ones. I ignored them in the name of love. And even if I thought I was doing the right thing, Spirit let me know in the past month in a way I couldn’t ignore anymore that things need to change. I put love and effort into things that weren’t even mine, I wanted to keep peace in situations as best as I could, even if it meant taking time and energy away from those who I am responsible for. Still I knew I was brought into these situations for a reason. I knew that there were things that I could make positive impacts with and that ‘Divine timing’ is called that for a reason. This year started on a strange note for me in general, almost like a pre-forecast of what was to come. I feel and know the depth of Divine timing now more than ever. Trusting the timing of things has opened up my eyes to situations I would have previously dismissed. And now I’ve realized I also have a lot more to learn. With Pluto, Saturn, Venus and Jupiter going retrograde while simultaneously coinciding with a global pandemic, it’s clear that there’s no other choice but to confront that which we have avoided for a very long time. Whether it be situations with ourselves, our relationships, our jobs, clearing out fears, our emotions & our feelings, the only true power is in our hands to consciously shape our present and our future.
We don’t always have control with how our futures turn out, but we do have immense power in our present, we build our future decision by decision, choice by choice. We seem to forget how much power we have with our daily choices so much so that we’ll blame anything else under the sun to avoid taking responsibility. Mistakes are inevitable but amending and correcting them as soon as they come up to live lighter and love deeply, IS our choice. When we hold our feelings in, when we project our anger on others, when we have sadness about things that occurred to us as children and we don’t process them, when we don’t live as our genuine authentic selves we create a disconnect with ourselves. When we don’t have the courage to address things that bother us when they come up, we numb ourselves over and over again to the point that it becomes addictive, it’s a lot easier to fall on something else than it is to face our fears. I know that first hand, and I’ve been there. Ignoring my feelings, feeling disconnected to myself and therefore disconnected from everyone else and to Spirit. But many years ago I made a choice, that instead of numbing the pain I would honor myself enough to feel it deeply, intensely and like a Phoenix I rose. There’s teachers all around us that show us the way when we feel lost. They won’t always come in the way we expect and it’s not always going to be in a positive, light way. The best defense to those times is having already set a foundation doing your #shadowwork or #innerwork so that if others try to make you feel less than, they fail. When you have a strong foundation of who you are it makes it harder for those who don’t have your best interests at heart to sway you and you won’t tolerate disrespect from them. All of this teaches you self-love but you can’t have self-love without self-awareness.
We’ve all been there avoiding ourselves, avoiding the things we don’t want to talk about but still haunt us at night when we’re alone with our thoughts. It takes great courage to sit with ourselves, our feelings, our emotions, the “ugly” side of us so we can let things go and allow the best of us to be revealed. The path towards healing, self-love and self-worth and the path of self-loathing, projecting and feeling unworthy are both difficult. They both hurt but one can feel like an uphill battle and the other is most peoples’ default. The aforementioned path requires an intense amount of work, so much work that you’ll have moments where you question yourself and wonder if it’s even worth it. The amount of inner reflection needed aren’t traits that can be developed overnight. It takes time to get to a level of love where you no longer care what others think of you because your relationship with yourself is solid and unwavering. You believe in yourself, you believe in your heart and you know it’s made of gold and because of that you don’t lose people, they lose you.
There will be some who will think the worst of you no matter what you’ve done for them without ever being able to look at how their reflection of you is a reflection of themselves. However that doesn’t mean you need to subject yourself to their negativity. They’ve been living in that negativity and spreading it like poison to make themselves feel better without realizing that they were only poisoning themselves and those closest to them. The truth is we all learn these type of habits from those we look up to the most as forms of survival. It’s the reptilian side of our brains that reacts to what it considers as threats, it takes a highly evolved person to be able to reflect and realize how a lot of our faults lie in our own view of ourselves. The work of healing & evolving takes time and it’s a job that is never truly done but you’ll live a much more fulfilling satisfying life through it. One of the best ways to grow and evolve is through making mistakes. I don’t say ‘best’ because it’s ideal but because it’s a strong force toward action and change. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. You know things need to change when nothing seems to be working out anymore and you’ll only be able to change if you look within.
I’ve made my share of mistakes, and it’s been through persistence & #selfreflection that I’ve learned failure isn’t a loss, it’s a lesson. It leads to making and clearing space for what truly aligns with us. I started my #selfhealing journey in my 20’s because I woke up one day after many sleepless nights and I decided I didn’t want to keep living how I was living and the pain of continuing on that path felt MORE painful than doing the work to becoming who I wanted to be. I became really good at hiding the hurt I was feeling on a daily basis but stress, anxiety, shame and lack of self-worth had made life unbearable for me. I wanted to remove the heavy layers that weighed me down, so I started with little decisions and changes aimed more towards who I envisioned myself becoming, day to day. That may sound tedious or maybe too simple to some but to take responsibility for yourself is a radical, rebellious way of thinking and it’s the most important thing you can do to take your power back and allow yourself to emerge as the Phoenix you are. I assure you that when you get that glimmer of your truest potential there’s no going back. Even if you fall again like I did, over and over again, you pick yourself back up not only because you are worth it but also because your loved ones deserve it. You’ll forget over and over again what your potential is and you’ll have to give yourself gentle or not so gentle reminders of who you are. Sometimes we forget and its ok but in case you need a reminder today, YOU are a luminous, ethereal, magical being. Our true selves get muddled with limitations and expectations from the outside world; we’re given expectations that we don’t even know about and we didn’t consent to the moment we’re born and then on. So when challenges start occurring coincidentally with retrogrades and the aspects they represent they’re happening for you, not to you and they are happening for a reason.
With Venus going retrograde, our relationships will be highlighted, perhaps even more so, your relationship with yourself. Jupiter the planet of luck & expansion, will shine a light on career and how you want to share your gifts to the world. Pluto the planet of transformation, death and rebirth will pull you towards radical life changes and decisions for your highest good. And Saturn the planet of structure and discipline may be showing you where you may have loose ends that need to be resolved or released and purging that which doesn’t reflect with what you are trying to accomplish. How deep are the roots you set down and planted within yourself in terms of how valuable, worthy and deserving of unconditional love you believe you deserve? No one has any control over what others do but we do for the most part have that control for ourselves.
Is what you’re giving out in terms of love, patience, and caring being reciprocated by those you allow space within your life? Really evaluate what relationship dynamics need to change because if they aren’t filling you with uplifting love and acceptance then the timing isn’t a coincidence and it could be a sign that perhaps you can continue to love those people, from afar. Our energy is priceless and those who don’t appreciate it have a lot of work they can do from afar. True love starts within and when you value yourself you don’t give in to those who don’t do their part. Believe me when I say that this is still a work in progress for me but when I look back at how far I’ve come I remind myself of who I truly am. I remind myself of the power I truly have and where it lies, and that will always only be within yourself.
We can run from our emotions, try to hide and silence them but only for so long, because we can’t run from ourselves no matter how hard we try. Rebuilding love and trust with yourself is no easy feat, but you are powerful enough to overcome so much more than you think. A lot of times we don’t realize it but we project our lack of control, our lack of having a voice, our intense confusion or even lack of memory of situations that deeply impacted us in our childhood unto well-meaning people or situations. To feel our feelings deeply even when they scare us will open up our hearts and reconnect you to YOU. There’s nothing better than feeling and enjoying life and everything it has to offer deeply, as we are all meant to do. Sometimes when we feel our hearts are breaking, they’re actually opening up, allowing light to step in and heal those dark corners we try so hard to hide and finally understand them to begin our journey to heal. Right now people are unmasking themselves or they are being unmasked. Whether they are doing it themselves or things are coming up for deeper reflection. Without realizing it, we are healing and feeling shit we’ve been avoiding for who knows how long. If triggers still hurt, you need to ask yourself why? These are messengers no matter who triggers them. What happened to you that you want to pretend didn’t happen or worse, that you want to normalize because maybe you’re afraid of losing love from someone important to you? If someone loves you, you can express your deep hurt and they won’t run away or leave you, they will try to listen and understand to the best of their ability. But sometimes you need to re-evaluate who you get your information from, who you allow to be in your company and decide who you want to be. When you decide to finally Be honest with yourself, ask yourself: Do you enjoy bonding with people by saying hurtful and untrue things about others? Can you trust someone who continuously lies to others thinking they won’t lie to you or are you lying to yourself because you want to feel loved and accepted by them? Do these people try to bully everyone they can, anyone who has done things differently, maybe in their eyes those they ’hate’ have done what they couldn’t? You’d be surprised how many people are actually resentful towards you, simply because it's YOU. At some point you need to take responsibility for yourself and decide who you allow to whisper in your ear and dictate how you feel. If you don’t have a strong connection with yourself, people can manipulate you against others and against yourself for years without you realizing. They can be someone close to you but unfortunately most people don’t change their colors, they just get better at hiding them. And whether they do or don’t change won’t ever be up to you, it is entirely their choice. The reality is You can’t ever change anyone else but you can change and work on you. As much as I would wish when I was growing up that people were like me, that they cared about others, that they would love and cherish their offspring as they should, that they would respect all living beings & not ever lie to each other or purposely hurt others, I had to learn that not everyone is like me and I had to learn to accept that. Before accepting it, however, I became resentful, angry, and cynical. Thankfully, I also grew from that and I dug deep to bring myself back again and by doing that I eventually found my tribe of like-minded, strong, courageous people. And that’s who I do my best to surround myself with, but this like everything else is an inside job.
I always say you can’t pour from an empty cup, if you don’t take care of yourself no one will. If we dissociate, try to numb the pain with substances, ignore or keep as busy as possible as a form of escape (which is also a trauma response) instead of feeling through it all and developing that inner strength & will power then you’ll never know your own heights. I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy but it’s a better option than the latter and if you’re reading this far than something here resonates with you as well. Our gifts will be found with our traumas when we start to become honest with ourselves and upend the deep seeds of where our traumas were planted. It takes true courage and bravery to embark on that journey but it gets easier, I promise you. Increase your self image and your self worth with even just one thought at a time, don’t depend on anyone else to do it for you because it isn’t their job, it’s yours. When you know you’re worth and you stop accepting bullshit from others, you’ll start to attract experiences, people, and everything else equal to how you feel about yourself. There’s no magic pill, it’s a work in progress, it’s so hard sometimes you want to give up but be easy with yourself, give yourself space and allow yourself to breathe, allow yourself to make mistakes. One thing that has blessed me beyond words through all my ups and downs was having Gratitude. Thats where the true magic lies. Having had gratitude in some of the scariest, saddest, loneliest times of my life taught me so much more than wallowing in my own self pity, though I still have to fight through that sometimes too and you do that by looking at the bigger picture and staying #grateful.
Love always begins within. If we hate ourselves or others, it’s usually a learned behavior and we need to see how or why we came to believe that. Is it how we truly feel or did someone else dump their feelings on you? Deep anger and resentment always stem from deep rooted fears. Fear breads contempt with others and hate within ourselves and can sometimes occur because of a lack of self-esteem. When we feel unbalanced, challenged or have an overall lack of self-confidence, we can feel powerless, fearful of existing and disconnected from ourselves. The good news is this isn’t the end all. I’ve been there, felt that and I can tell you first hand that it’s a terrible place to be but you can and you will overcome it, if you choose to. Everything begins and ends with you. True courage and bravery are not found in doing the things you aren't afraid of doing, but in doing the things you are the MOST afraid of doing and doing it anyway. Honor yourself enough to start the hardest task there is, looking within.
Love always,
Anneli