I am writing this piece during a “news fast”—an intentional withdrawal from all media sources be they mainstream, alternative, or social. Not being influenced by outside opinions, no matter how relevant or potentially wise, is a relief. It’s just me in here, sifting through all that has arisen or been worked through since I wrote my last essay.

This isn’t my first attempt at writing a subsequent piece. I’ve got drafts galore, but I’m also beginning to trust that some things—especially writing projects—simply have their own timing.

The transitional space I’ve been inhabiting has brought some familiar questions to the forefront. These three from psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar have been kicking around for almost two decades—What do you want more of? What do you want less of? What’s just right?

I know a lot more about my desires than I did back then but making dreams come true requires a leap of faith that I haven’t yet felt ready to make. It’s time though. I’m reminded of this snippet from one of my blog posts:

I think the process of naming our desires is a big deal. In this TEDx talk entitled Isolation Is The Dream-Killer, Not Your Attitude, presenter Barbara Sher says, “You have to figure out what you want and then ask for help. And then, you have to let people help you…”

Asking for what I want, and then receiving the help that may come my way, seems to be the biggest obstacle for me right now. The vulnerability of exposing my most heartfelt desires is a very intimate act.

Intimacy is something I have shied away from all my life. Keeping people at a distance, without really realizing it, was a skill I mastered early on. It was how I kept my world under control, both internal and external.

In 2004, after a short but incredibly painful love affair came to an end, I could no longer deny the obvious—all my complaints about unavailable men had me as the common denominator. Once that became obvious I had to know more. Profound learning came through my therapy work with Andrew Feldmar, but it wasn’t until 2011, during my training with Integral Coaching Canada, that I realized just how potently the fear of intimacy lived in my body.

Our teacher, Laura, led us through an eye-gazing exercise. The intention was for us to experience connecting with another human being on a deeper, more soulful level. As she recited the same spoken-word piece three separate times, we gazed into the eyes of three different partners. Each round was maybe two or three minutes in total, but to me, it felt like an eternity. Crippling fatigue overwhelmed me with each new set of eyes and I had to fight to stay conscious. What had been purely subjective up until then, was made objective through my participation with others.

I’ve come a long way since then but people still scare me, to varying degrees. This fear is a trauma response that likely started pre-birth. Being carried in the womb of a reluctant mother  (through no fault of her own) imbued my very cells with an unwelcomeness that I’ve played out over and over again throughout my life.

We all had imperfect mothers, right back to the beginning of time. They did their absolute best but, unlike us, they rarely (if ever) had the resources to help them sort through their grief and loneliness and come out the other side. I believe the world is in the gigantic mess it is because of trauma. I truly believe that it is only through loving and forgiving our elders that we can heal the world.

Forgiveness takes work. Sometimes quite a lot of work, but I also believe that at this juncture in humanity, with the increase of light on the planet, we can heal our trauma quicker than ever before. And that the way to do that is through skilled therapeutic intervention while being held in authentic, loving, and like-minded community.

In March 2020, just before the world ground to a halt with pandemic-related restrictions, I participated in a week-long workshop on Psychedelic Integration. Psychedelics have the capacity to open important portals into our inner world, but the bulk of our healing comes through the process of integrating what we’ve learned. Estimates suggest about 25% of the healing occurs in the journey itself and 75% through committed integration practices.

The pre-course work was substantial. One of the healing modalities we were introduced to was Internal Family Systems (IFS). This therapeutic approach was developed by Richard (Dick) Swartz, who began his career as a systemic family therapist and academic. He describes how his patients spoke about different parts of themselves during therapy and how he came to realize that the workings of our internal systems are not dissimilar to an external family system. The ‘Parts’ that were coming forward each had their own unique feelings, beliefs, motivations, perceptions, and memories. He concluded, now almost forty years ago, that we are all multiple personalities—just not quite as traumatized as someone diagnosed with the clinical disorder.

He identified two main categories of Parts: Exiles and Protectors.

Exiles are our young child parts that are carrying pain from the past. They got burdened by events that were too big for them to process. To manage in the world we developed Protectors.

Protectors are the parts of us that try and block us off from pain. The pain could be arising from the past or triggered by current events, but the main objective is to mitigate it. There are two kinds of Protectors: Managers and Firefighters.

Managers are the proactive parts of us that try and arrange our lives and psyches so that we don’t experience the pain of our Exiles. They are the fixers, people-pleasers, controllers, perfectionists, etc. that help keep the world a tolerable place.

Firefighters are the parts who jump in when the pain of an Exile gets triggered. They use strategies to distract or numb the pain and come in the form of addictions, compulsions, distractions, or dissociation.

Along with our Parts, we each have a fully intact Self as well. The Self isn’t a Part. It is the core aspect of who we are—our true self and spiritual centre. The Self doesn’t need to develop, it’s already fully intact within each of us, just not as available as we sometimes would like.

The goal with IFS is to unburden each Part from the extreme roles they were forced to assume in early childhood. Once unburdened our Parts can allow the Self to take more of the lead. As the integration within us progresses we become more and more like caring parents to ourselves, embodying the Eight C’s of Self: Curiosity, Calm, Confidence, Compassion, Creativity, Clarity, Courage, and Connectedness.

Maps of all kinds have been difficult for me to follow but discovering IFS makes so much intuitive sense, perhaps because it mirrored the process I went through with my blog. I shared about the terror that overwhelmed me when I realized what I’d committed to. An Exiled part got triggered and I went off-line—a classic dissociative Firefighter response. The blog writing itself, week after week, pushed me well beyond my comfort zone but it also made me conscious of the workings of my inner world.

This snippet from my August 2019 blog, Worry Is A Negative Form of Prayer, describes the similarity of my process to IFS:

This sometimes happens inadvertently with my writing practice. I’ll find myself going down a viscerally painful road, remembering things from my earlier life that I wasn’t able to fully process at the time. Revisiting events in this way seems to settle something deep inside me and I can focus more clearly on what I want more of in my life.

In a recent psychedelic journey I entered a reality where I was able to let myself be loved. I use the words “let myself be loved” very intentionally. In the paradigm I inhabited for those few brief hours, I recognized that letting myself be loved was a ‘muscle’ I could learn to strengthen. That my definitive refusal to let myself be loved was habitual; it had been born through the absence of love at some critical juncture(s), but it was not my native state. A few times I dropped back into the discomfort of separation and self-consciousness, but the medicine gracefully allowed me to toggle back into the safety of belonging. That beautiful paradigm, which I could recognize as simply Presence, felt safe, bright, and straightforward.

The familiar separation has mostly returned, but not fully. It is, after all, the ground from which I’ve grown and the pull is powerful. But seeing the dynamic objectively has opened up space for further exploration. Experiencing the essence of love in present time—the pure simplicity of it—brings increased awareness to how much of my life I’ve lived ‘beside myself.’  I can also see that heaven on earth exists with the felt sense of closing that gap.

When I’m in the gap I am in a separate universe of separate souls on a finite planet rushing towards extinction. When the gap closes, we exist in unity, on beautiful Gaia, playing what Zach Bush would call an infinite game.

Zach Bush is a multidisciplinary physician with doctorates in internal medicine, endocrinology, and hospice care, and one of my most beloved mentors. In a recent interview with Commune Founder Jeff Krasno, he spoke about his trip to the Amazon to visit the Achuar people—an ancient dream culture that lived secluded from the Western world for thousands of years. That came to a halt in the early 90s when the Achuar started receiving visions from their ancestors, warning them that “a menace was coming towards their people.” With their ability to communicate in the dream-time, they called in a small group of Westerners to assist.

This short clip introduces the Achuar and tells the story of how Lynne and Bill Twist, along with Pachamama co-founder, John Perkins, came to know this ancient civilization. Their organization has been advocating on behalf of the Amazon rainforest and facilitating visits to these special people since 1996.

The Achuar have a prophecy called the Eagle and the Condor. It dates back about 2000 years and is similar to those found in other indigenous cultures. It goes like this:

At some point long ago the human race split into two groups—the Eagle people and the Condor people, each bird assuming only one wing. The Eagle people are mind-oriented, have a focus on science and technology, and embody more masculine energy. Throughout history, they have been the explorers, colonists, and aggressors.

The Condor people are the more intuitive, creative, and feeling types, embodying more feminine energy. Indigenous cultures have generally identified more with the Condor people, valuing the principles of nature and guided more by heart than mind.

The prophecy stated that approximately five hundred years ago (about the time Columbus arrived in America) the Eagle people would gain power and almost wipe out the Condor people. Humanity has been flying with only the wing of the Eagle ever since, going around in endless circles.

But five hundred years hence, which is right around now, a portal would open where the Eagle and the Condor could mate. Their offspring, seen as higher human consciousness, would embody the attributes of both masculine and feminine energy, and, for the first time humanity would have the potential to fly straight with both wings unfurled.

Coming together as one, flying with both wings unfurled, is not a given. It is up to each of us to do what we can to bring the vision in this prophecy to fruition.

Patriarchal systems are crumbling. They have to. We are at a tipping point in humanity where we cannot keep flying in the same endless circles without massive collapse. The sixth great extinction is well within sight, and unlike previous extinction events, this one is being driven by human beings.

Many of us want to believe that there really are some people in charge, people who see the big picture and have the wisdom and compassion to make the best decisions in service of the whole of us. That the authorities know what they’re doing.

They don’t. Nobody has a handle on the world situation. It’s not possible. A small group of individuals believe that a one-world government is the way to go. They have a plan, but is it one that any of us really want? Otto Scharmer, author and senior lecturer at MIT, puts it succinctly:

In essence, we are collectively creating results that (almost) nobody wants. These results include the loss of nature, the loss of society, and the loss of Self.

The pandemic has exacerbated the disparity. Astrology predicts some rocky times ahead. “Revolutions and Revelations” are front and centre. They’ve already started, as has the grief and turmoil, and more is on the way.

We need each other more than we ever have before. It’s time to unfurl the wing of Condor and bring the feminine and masculine into balance. Process AND goals. We need to create alternative structures that hold us and the values we cherish.

The tipping point we are at is real.

The good news is, life under stress creates beauty.

After the last great extinction, Mother Nature did not recreate dinosaurs and giant ferns and the life that existed before the event but instead burst forth with the biodiverse beauty that we see today. Can we do that without going extinct? Are we midwifing the death of humanity or welcoming in a massive shift in consciousness?

Whatever it is, let’s go into it consciously. Whether the hospice moment is for ourselves, for our species, or for a leap into the unknown, let’s go with our eyes wide open. That’s what I’m interested in.

I’ve been working on this piece for the last seven days. Every morning, before I start, I’ve pulled a Sacred Rebel oracle card. Each one has been upbeat, positive, and encouraging. Today the tone was a little different. The message “Release The Dark Wound, Let Love Live” was not what I wanted to hear. I went so far as to pull another, but the wisdom in the message is undeniable. “You have to let go of the death-grip of perfectionism and let yourself and your ideas live.”

I have been a work in progress my whole life. I will continue to be that—I love to learn—but at this juncture in my life, and at this point of humanity as a whole, it is time for me to come to fruition. Not perfect, but good enough.

I believe we are all our best-kept secrets. That our inherent gifts are alive and well but that many of us (perhaps most?) aren’t as in touch with them as we’d like to be. Maybe our gifts show up as a creative sideline that can’t be quite gathered up as a fruitful offering to the world. Or maybe we have a stronger capable side that dominates our less developed selves. Or maybe the vulnerability of showing up as a work-in-progress is just too damn terrifying and we stay safely on the sidelines, wondering why we don’t feel quite as alive as we’d like to feel.

Dick describes a beautiful phenomenon he has witnessed time and again with IFS work. That when an individual unburdens a protective part, this same part often assumes a new role that’s the exact opposite dynamic. In my case, my “don’t look at me” part has slowly but surely morphed into the role of nudging me into public view. Still tentative but trusting the collective within me has my back, she’s the one that’s ready to declare my long apprenticeship is complete and I’m ready to assume adulthood. To share my gifts with the world in service of a brighter future. To let myself be loved.

Zach introduced us (my longtime friend John and I) to the term Living Medicine. It came through Dr. Gladys McGarey, an indomitable woman who is still seeing clients in her health coaching practice at the age of 101. Born in India to two American parents, both osteopaths, she began her medical training in 1941. She uses five L’s to define Living Medicine:

Life – By itself, life is like a seed that can sit idle for eons.

Love – The divine essence that activates all life.

Laughter – Without love, laughter can be cruel, but with love, it’s happy and joyful.

Labour – Labour without love is drudgery, but with love, it is meaningful and creative.

Listening – Without love listening is empty but with love, it is the foundation of understanding, which is the very foundation of Living Medicine.

The term Living Medicine encompasses the philosophy that John and I share. For decades we’ve been working independently on our own health and wellbeing and are ready now to share what we’ve learned with others. We imagine a hub of connection where like-minded others come together to share their knowledge, wisdom and skill. One that embodies the basic tenants that it is only through doing our own healing work that we can heal the world.

What Would Love Do?

Here’s my guess. Love would want us to love one another. Love would want us to keep our hearts open and our connections with the people we care about strong. Love would want us to pull out all the stops and become a creative cauldron in service of humanity. Love would want us to know that we are loved more than we can possibly imagine and that all is well no matter how it turns out. That we have so much more capacity than we can possibly imagine. That living in loving, like-minded community is the way to go.

How will we make Love’s dreams come true?

Barbara Sher suggests forming small groups of about six people that meet regularly to support one another to figure out what it is they REALLY want and then hold each other accountable for making it happen. The key is articulating both the WISH and the OBSTACLE to making our dreams a reality. We are problem-solving animals, she says, and our minds start working as soon as we hear a problem framed in this fashion.

Today is a new moon — a potent day to put our intentions out into the world. To take a leap of faith. Are you interested in exploring this with us? Let’s see who is a fit for who and get some shit done.