Into the Underworld: Mid-Life Initiation Through Life's Darkest Times with Chameli Gad

Transcript

right welcome shamal so happy to be here with you likewise and I'd love to start by asking you how you began your day today you know today I was dancing in my living room singing to the goddess I'm so happy you ask this question today because it's not every day starting like but it was it was actually ecstatic this morning it was ecstatic so grateful to be alive just singing to her so grateful to have another breath and I don't take it for granted beautiful and then I went to the woods with my dogs that's what I do every morning great way to start the day so as I Was preparing for this conversation I was just looking back over the years and we've known one another for a long time I think that I think I was first introduced to you back in around 2007 is and we shared a mutual spiritual teacher Shanti mayi I'm not sure if that was how we first met or um but I know I remember yeah I remember that you gave me you had an ebook on leading women's circles and I started leading women's circles I was living in Northern Thailand at the time I started leading some women's circles in shangai based on that book and you and I began leading women's spirituality programs online at around the the the same time in the around like 2010ish or so and I know a lot has changed since then for for each of us for the world and you know a few years ago as I was emerging from a version of my own kind of Dark Night of the Soul which I read about in my new book hbook for the heartbroken I remember listening to an interview with you U where you you share that you are just emerging from a similar experience of your own different context and I'm wondering if you can speak more about what that time was like for you yeah there's so many big question yes I can speak first about just what what happened or the kind of the circumstances uh the circumstances was somehow a mixture of many many different um aspects relationships in my life that fell apart and or died in in in literal and in in the metaphorical way and um it was kind of a perfect storm I went through menopause uh the pandemic came uh pandemic was a lot of Uh I that kind of activated a kind of a a place in me that wanted to save everybody so I went into full savior mode and created a kind of online wisdom school and um that was enormous uh amount of stress and also the financial stress of being responsible for 12 employees and I wanted to save everybody and from this impact of the pandemic which I later on in this process of course discovered was uh part of my my coping patterns that needed to be seen in that very extreme way uh and in the midst of that uh my stepson died he died in an accident and um it yeah it it was the most devastating uh experience of my life and parallel to that my marriage fell apart uh along with two other kind of core relationships that I thought was forever so it was um there was nothing I could do to control anything I was just thrown into the underworld where I had where I was just disintegrating and it was frightening really frightening there was periods where I thought I would not survive I thought I I there was periods I couldn't function I couldn't move uh there was periods I was just crawled I I I wanted just to crawl under my B bed or into the corner of the bathroom and just disappear um and uh there was also a this integration of even my relationship to goddess which I thought was the most unshakable relationship in my life I would could never imagine that that would ever be shaken but even that was kind of stripped from me there was periods where I felt so betrayed by her and so angry and so lost and [Music] um the blessing in all of this was that I had a mentor that held me through it and she had trust in this process I was in she didn't save me she didn't fix me she had trust in that uh this was my my soul liberating itself from false or borrowed roles and patterns and that I was going through an initiation and she could see that when I could not see that she could trust when I could not trust um and that was the greatest blessing because she could then hold me when I could not hold anything anything and yeah in that holding there was something that started to to rise from the deep from the dark was something coming up from the deep um that was um I call it like the black Soma it's like a it's like a trust that is not that has no polarity or opposite uh it is a trust of my it's just a I could retrieve a just an essential belonging an essential trust an essential beingness isness amness that uh that was all that was left when all of the borrowed identities disappeared and um and it was like it was so humbling it was so it was something doing me it was nothing I could do like I been a practitioner I've been a teacher of feminine spirituality for so many years more than 20 years and I there was parts of this underworld Journey where the all the signposts and Pathways disappeared I couldn't hold on to even you know all of those things that I I I have been working with dark goddess I have been working with shadow in my work and but this was a whole another level and it feels like in one way my spiritual practice for for more than 30 years was a preparation for this initiation it feels like it I had established enough Pathways in my body that these these utterly exiled parts of myself could uh begin to to to arise and expose thems and and and and when that happened so much of of my coping you know was was not was not fun was not working anymore it was not needed anymore in one way that was like the kind of the more results I'm sitting in now but it was this sense of of um seeing how so much of what I have called myself even in the name of spirituality was ways to avoid certain aspects of my own being yeah yeah it relate to so much of what you just shared that you know similarly oh first I'm sorry that all that happened for you and that's a lot and and I relate in that is like these these periods when all these things are happening at once m and it it brings it brings you to the place of of just I don't I don't even know what the words are just yeah nothing that no no orienting sign internally or externally that you've ever drawn on before can help you to meet that level of Destruction intensity and I love that you use the word initiation because that's a word that I that I use a lot when I speak about heartbreak and Devastation for women and I don't feel like it's it's a framework that is that readily available in our culture we see we see these things as more of failures or huge setbacks so you can can you speak more about this concept of how these periods are are an initiation what what are they in initiation intoh yeah you know I am a student of myth ology and in mythology we find these maps of initiation we find um that there are Pathways that has been walked before us for me when everything fell apart there was one myth the myth of inana the goddess of the heavens who descends down into the underworld and meet her dark sister there and she dies in the Underworld she hangs on the hook for three days this is like a myth before the Christ story um older than the Christ story but similar Pathways where she hangs on the hook as a piece of rottening meat this glorious goddess of the heavens and um and then she uh ascends again and she ascends uh initiated and it is that sense of When Things fall part yeah when when mistakes happen like things that we don't never would choose yeah I would never choose my son to die I would never choose we we we don't necessarily choose these These Times of falling apart or of Crisis but with the with the framework of initiation we can begin to see that When Things Fall Apart there is a there's there's cracks there's a opening there's there is an availability when we are not long long no longer holding it together there is uh the possibility for a deeper layer of our being to to to Incarnate to to arise through the surface and incarnate and the goddess inana she she ascends up from the underworld initially because she has seen herself uh deeper than all the roles she plays so on the way down to The Under World she has to sacrifice all the her crown her goddess robe she has to sacrifice everything she identifies with and then when she arrives again she puts on the crown she puts on the clothes again but she can't unsee what she has seen she has seen her the living breathing Spirit the pureness of her being so now her her roles and identities are also seen for what they are they're not who she is these are different roles in identity that her soul is is incarnating through so there's a sense of knowing yourself and that's how I experience myself now when I speak about this trust without an opposite it's this sense of uh having it's almost like when you have faced the the worst there's a freedom in that there is when you have experience that which you fear the most there is a freedom in that because there is a sense of oh and I'm still here yeah that there's something in me that is stronger that is that is you know that is that life force energy is still here and how I experience it is that that is eternal that my spirit is eternal and and that eternal spirit is not uh some abstract Place away from here it is that which breeds me and moves me and speaks through me uh here and now and um and it in many shamanic Traditions initiations are also literally lifethreatening like it is you know you're brought to to to to places where you either you you may not survive yeah either you you really die or you go crazy or you rise free yeah you arise with a new sense of self and um so it's not yeah it's important for me to also to emphasize how challenging it is yeah it's not like the sugarcoat or romanticize these you know times of Darkness they're horrible and um but for me that framework was with me even when I couldn't you know trust where even when I thought that this is not healthy this is like I'm I will not be able to put myself together again but there I had this framework in the back of my being that you know that could kind of trust the process and as I said my mentor could also do that for me when I couldn't um because there's there's not much framework like you said in our culture for this so what happens is that we rush we we rush we try to fix it too too quickly uh we try to patch it up too quickly and um and then we miss we miss the opportunities that are in there in the dark yeah it's it's almost like only when we fall apart can we really know who holds us yeah and before that we will just use our life force energy to buckle up and kind of going to try to keep ourselves on the surface because there's like an such a deep mistrust in uh in godess yeah which is part of our culture that is the mistrust in the great mother that is uh how we get shaped into so much of our activities are are motivated from that mistrust yeah to try to find safety and we just kind of we try to just cling to the surface and and hope that that will keep us safe so there's a there's a kind of relaxation when you kind of fail in that project and you just fall apart and then and then you oh gosh what what what what held me what what what what guided me through I'm I'm here what is that that holds me yeah I love how you talk about just like the life and death nature of it and so relatable and there are so many times along my path over those several several years that I was in where I I thought I would die I wanted to die I couldn't I couldn't see any way out and similar as you I had this deep reservoir of practice so like some deeper part of me had some sense of a compass of like knowing like remembering there is always dawn after the dark but then there were parts of me that were doubting that but yeah maybe not this time or maybe I don't know what this is maybe that maybe the dawn's not coming and then the importance of mentorship it's similar to you I I found it a new Mentor came into my life during those years who had been through something similar and she she calls it the midlife initiation where you know it's really as you're saying like that shedding of that which isn't us which is which we've outgrown and just allowing that the deeper truth of who we are to come forward and just how how life saving it is in those times to to have have a mentor who has walked that path and who can just be with you in it yeah yeah even in this myth of inana we before she descends in the Underworld she she places her Priestess on the surface and the Priestess is there beating the drum and kind of guarding her as she goes down and that nin shuber the Priestess is a part of our own Consciousness you know that that is also a part that can hold ourselves when we uh you know move into emotions or we move into difficult challenges that there's a part of our Consciousness that can hold and see that okay this is a journey with you know it it will change and sometimes the mentor or the therapist or the guide is holding that Consciousness for us so that we can fully go into that you know fully that go into that process um where we are not guiding it where we are not controlling it yeah that there's something valuable that happens in that loss of control yeah and you mentioned that you know even that your your usual practices and even just your your orienting relationship with goddess herself kind of fell away at that time so in addition to your Mentor like what were some other other practices or things that that you now see in retros fact helped you helped you through all of this you know when it was at it worse it it felt as if I'm was clinging to my bed or clinging to the walls just trying to find something to hold on to it feel this sense of just it's especially in the nights yeah I couldn't sleep um it was this desperation anxiety through my body which was a feeling anxiety has not really been a feeling that has been much present in my body so it was uh overwhelming me the physicality of it um and so one thing that one one allies that I really you know are grateful for held me was I I was herbs The herbal world was at least giving me some support I was quite diligent with herbal medicine um especially skull cap that's a skull cap is a herb that I used to grow in my garden I actually my when my son died you know before that we had bees we had the vegetable garden and when he died that year after the Beast died the garden died we were in the valley of grief everything died but luckily I live in the community with a lot of herbal women so herbs was definitely um helpful also like I said 30 years of practice has created Pathways so my my my breath knows to breathe through my feet yeah my my these pathways are established and that's why also I'm when I'm supporting people I'm I'm very passionate in in in about regular practice because we don't want to wait until the the crisis the storm comes and then think that we can you know it becomes very challenging to to actually pick up those practices but if we have established those circuits and Pathways in our bodies it's you know it's something we can that the body knows how to do on its own even when I couldn't do it you know my breath just that's just how my breath moves it moves down to the legs to my pelvis it you know so um it was a lot of grounding practices that I was clinging to you know just very simple uh orientation in space you know touching the body just ways to Anchor in the present moment yeah orienting allowing the body to orient into the present moment could help the body to to recognize that there was no danger but there were in my underworld Journey there was so long periods where when none of it really it wasn't that relief you know usually I'm used to in my practice that I can go into feeling and I can release it and then I come out on the other side side and I feel you know rejuvenated or refreshed or or you know there a kind of a catarsis in it and and there was so such a long period where there was no other other side I I that's what I mean that I couldn't really reach for these practices because there was no you know sometimes you know something I recognized in myself was a certain kind of arrogance when when even in the name of spirituality when we think that like that we think that we can process our ourselves through everything and then we will come out on the other side with an Insight or with an Aha and and when we are faced with grief grief doesn't have a resolution in that way yeah it is the resolution is just how we are relating to grief we are learning a different humility of what we are part of this this existence which is Life Death Life Death Life Death yeah there's a sense of I could see that unconsciously I had thought if I can just if I just practice enough and my devotion to God is it's almost like then I can be exempt from that from pain from that brutality and beauty of the Life Death cycle yeah uh I was like I mentioned I felt so betrayed by God is and I discovered this kind of entitled childlike part of me that thought that if I only um like I was screaming at her like I gave my life to you how can you take my son and it was this entitled place of like if I'm just meditate if I'm not only if I'm a good girl I'm going to be rewarded yeah I'm going to be safe but that is you know that is how things work so there was also that part of my initiation is that to come into the isness of things to really land in the brutality and beauty of of of the Goddess herself of of existence itself so it's a sense of coming into congruence and alignment with what is and and that's when we can know the Divine for real we think that we can know a her partially yeah like the nice Parts but then we can that's only she's not partial yeah she's whole she's totality so there's a sense of it's so paradoxical yeah that there's a sense of such a beauty in coming into isness of things there's such a it's a homecoming it's a it's I'm coming home to where all the beings in existent lives yeah we human we think we can live in this parallel track and be exempt from from the Life Death cycle yeah yeah and that creates a lot of suffering lot of stress a lot of effort to try to keep us you know ourselves away from it and in a deepest sense the the most severe consequence is that we then can never know the Divine for real because and we're at war with ourselves like this isn't okay I can't be feeling this I can't be experiencing is but it takes what it takes to come come to that relaxation like you mentioned just finally just letting go to took me took me years in that process to be able to finally do that you know it's like need to like exhaust every possible uh Avenue idea of like how this could be how we could get out of it faster and throughout this you know you're you're you're businesswoman MH and like you said responsible for for a a company and people who work for you and a community of women that you serve how did you navigate that piece of it the professional piece as you were going through this dissolution yes yes like I'm like I mentioned I remember a moment I was sitting on my couch at and this was just a few months into the pandemic and uh there was a a conversation I had with one of my colleagues who I had worked with for a long time and she was considering uh ending not working the quitting and something happened in me where I went I I remember it was like a split it was like a split I split off into a coping strategy where I went in with this kind of I took on the Superman cape I'm going to just fix all of this and all the financial stress of this pandemic it was enormous amount of you know money we had to refund we had to cancel you know big Retreats what was it about that conversation with the colleague that yes it was a it was a it was a it was an abandonment it was an abandonment uh fear that okay was touched and then oh well she's she's quitting yes she's going to leave me so I need to just get make this work yes exactly and it's a moment like that that is very parallel to what happened when I was a child when my family fell apart and my father laughed when I went into a role of being the one that could create Harmony and could kind of say I you know I thought as a little child that I could save them I could make them happy yeah I could save them from this horrible suffering they were in and um so I went in and and and that has been part of my identity in one way and of course then I have had my spiritual Awakenings I have looked through the shadows of things I have looked at different identities I have recognized myself deeper than the different roles so it was what happened in that in that moment was that I started to kind of that role that had just been hovering underneath became very visible like that savior like I'm I'm I I can do this for everybody so I sacrificed myself yeah didn't and in that moment I could have said oh I let go I can let the people go everybody has to take care of themselves and and apply for unemployment you know like like many companies had to do but in that moment I just override and I was just putting myself aside and just like I'm going to save everybody and I was running on that for those years and it was almost like it became a cartoon version of a coping strategy so it became very visible and especially when these you know when the death happens the divorce was unfolding it became more and more extreme how I kept holding everything together like I was teaching a course 3 weeks after my son died for example yeah it was this sense of like I can do it you know I can do it I'm not going to disappoint anybody it became more and more extreme until it became unbearable and that's when I started to see how I have created a a reality Around Me based on this Persona have based on this generous uh self-sacrificing um and that these are also qualities that in spirituality somehow are you know they look very spiritual they are you know they are look also kind of like qualities of the Goddess like I can show up hard times like I'm a warrior exactly endless energy um and it was not so easy for me to recognize it because before the pandemic I had a very I had a life that was not very stress not stressful at all actually I was very much had a lot of retreat time for myself uh I was teaching but it was it was not so visible to me that this was running this program was running so it needed to be this extreme for me to see it and when it started to fall apart where it's just kind of got stretched so thin it just it didn't work anymore that's when I was thrown into the the despair the the the suicidal despair that I felt as a girl that I then went into this role to try to to escape yeah to try to avoid so I have been identified in my life as uh as trusting life and I was thrown into the most devastating mistrust I have been identified di as someone who loves life and I was thrown into suicidal despair I was identify with someone who has like a kind of a joyful disposition I was thrown into uh deep depression like you know I could I couldn't move depression I was identified with someone who has unshakable trust in goddess was thrown into to utter mistrust and Terror and fear fear so which sounds like not very positive but that's you know that that is what I'm I can see now yeah that I can see how what a gift that is because that Set Me Free it Set Me Free that's the path to your wholeness yes exactly exactly you know Young's Young's work on individuation yes and it's it's like we think that we think that or I I so for example to be self-sufficient or capable yeah these positive identities yeah one can think that that is kind of closer to the Divine and the Paradox what I discovered in this process was it was through me fully feeling my utter neediness uh one of my key key my most potent doors was to come into contact with my desire which was something that I did not I identified with someone who was serving the goddess I don't do desire and desire neediness greediness all of these qualities we think are going to kind of you know keep us trapped in a small self was doorways into the most incredible uh com communion with the Divine because I was no longer in the strategies of trying to avoid those places one of the things on this podcast that we focus on um is internal family systems and that was one of the modalities that I that I started working with very intensively during my years of heartbreak and now that I'm I'm trained in it and just just to like translate some of what you're saying into ifs language is like you had really strong managers for showing up and serving and kind of being the Savior and that was old protective strategies that your system learned to take on when you were very young and your father left and there's just a lot of Chaos in in your family of origin and this experience allowed you to see just those those the hyperfunctioning of those managers and how this just not serving you anymore and as they started to step aside it just brought that flood of the Exiles that they've been protecting for all these years and those Exiles just flooded your system but then they allowed you to come into direct relationship with them like your essential self to come into relationship with them and then just to create a whole recalibration in your system that's not not running on those protective strategies anymore yeah yeah and there's so many layers to that yeah one thing that I discovered was that even in my Spiritual Awakening around you know in my early 30s um there was an Awakening to self like to the bigger self Beyond you know deeper than the different roles and identity and then I remember I started on the goddess path an embodiment path and I it was also a kind of a reaction to the path I've been on until then where I was like a lot about Transcendence and getting out of the body and then I met the goddess and it was like all about ah descending into the body being here so then but even in that movement like oh I want to be I want to be more embod in that shift it was like a shift into embodiment what I discovered was I left behind a part of me that absolutely don't want to be in the body it's terrified being in the body that just wanted to disappear and didn't want to be here and that part got so exiled even in the name of you know Shadow work embodiment work because it it it didn't have a a place face in what I saw as healthy because most will agree that yes it's healthy to be embodied it's healthy to uh soone has to be kind of diligent with with with bringing all parts of us with us and now I you know now after this journey I know that I will I know that I don't know I know that I will never be fully aware I know that there is always uh as long as we identify with one aspect there will be a shadow to it it will be an a hidden part that is then rejected and that's just the Human Experience exactly exactly yeah like you said there's so many layers and there's never going to not be more layers and more things that we're uncovering and discovering the another another thread that you that you mentioned that I wanted to pull out a little bit is is menopause and myself moving towards that I'm 47 and just in this past year I've started to notice more strongly oh I'm in per menopause like just kind of like hit me like over the head even though I was like kind of preparing for it I was like oh this is this is it okay this is I'm more just pronouncing moving into this this new transition and I'm just wondering if you can I know a lot of women listen can relate and I'm wondering if you can speak a bit more about your your experience of menopause yes like like I said for me menopause happened you know parallel with all of these different things but I've see it as part part of the same movement of my soul the soul or the as essence of my being pressing itself through wanting to Incarnate fully as itself yeah as fully as me in this lifetime and um I feel it's really really essential to hold the menopause transition in the framework of initiation it is as total and radical of a shift as we went through when we were going from child and through teenage years yeah this very profound physical transition where you will you leave the child and then you are an adult and of course you will keep growing as an adult and you will keep growing off the menopause but it's kind of that kind of shift that we're going through and again there is an opportunity there because there's a such a strong forces that are in in in play there's there's like the cosmic forces of transformation is is playing itself out in this little micro body yeah so one can ride it in the sense of if one deare and some some have the choice some don't some just are thrown into it but some have the choice choice to to skip skip through a little bit but I think most will be affected somehow my mother she shared with me she didn't got was she said she didn't wasn't affected At All by it I'm not sure how self-aware she is but yeah but and how just how and how just much it was in cultural awareness even to to have the self- awareness yes exactly I actually remember back to some of the fights we had at that time and then I realized huh how old was she then huh she was going through menopause um but there's something there's something evolutionary that is available that is moving and working through which is an incredible experience and it has to also because your hormones shifts yeah so there's a shift from there's a lot of hormones that are not as strong anymore that are hormones that keeps you uh compromising basically because there's hormones that are designed to help you fit in yeah and be safe and and and and and car take and all of those hormones shifts and there is a opportunity in that to get to know oneself like for me I got I started I have gotten to know a new me and it feels new and it feels familiar it feels as if I have as ects of myself that now finally have the chance to Incarnate like parts of me are incarnating for the first time it feels almost or first time since I was very little before I started to coagulate into more of a fixed personas and identities and parts so it was like there's a sense of a curiosity of towards myself of oh like who Am I who who what is that wants to be lived through me now there's a more direct access to to to me and it's a sense of a an innocence and a wisdom at the same time that is birthing through it feels very fresh and and young in one way or Timeless like very very fresh and at the same time it has the wisdom uh of of all the years that I've lived and so there's something so relaxed about it there's a sense in my life now when I'm on the other side this whole last year have been to a reckoning it's been kind of a settling into a new me and I have coming out of two years of just cleaning job for me it was like Clean cleaning up the mess I created out of these roles that all the contracts relation relational contracts I made with people expectations people have about who I should be and what I should do I had to learn to to clean it all up and learn to say no and what is amazing with menopause is that you you you are handed the fuel to be able to say no like every day I I know I go like I see some hooks coming my way I know old Shamy would have jumped on that hook and like I can fix this for you I can do and now the hook is coming my way and it falls to the ground and almost every day I go like look at new sham look at sham say I go like wow like ex-husband he lives next door so I get it's such Amazing Mirror because I can I get tested and I really see wow like patterns I have been acting out my entire lives they're just not here anymore I'm just in awe in awe of the freedom so I'm fiercely protective also of the space I'm in right now I'm just I have learned to set boundaries in a whole new way but again the the fuel is is there with within the transformation that is happening physically that's my experience so it sounds like in terms of this particular transformation cycle they still you're still emerging like you're not fully out of the cycle you're in the the the very late stages of it does that does that sound accurate I would say that the last year I'm I'm still I'm in the I'm still yeah I'm still in the clearing face for me like I'm still saying no I'm saying no no no empty space empty space empty space empty space empty space empty space um I'm very protective I I'm I'm going to become very clear one thing that manipa taught me and this whole journey taught me it humbled me in a way that I got more aware of my limitations that my capacity is not as I thought it was I'm much more sensitive than I thought I was and to be aware of my limitations is actually incredibly Liber ating because then it's it's just a Reckoning with no I'm not capable of doing that and that in that it gives a Clarity and motivation of of setting boundaries and Reckoning with oh okay I'm more fragile than I thought and something that this whole journey has opened in me is an is an incredible self love a a capacity to to like self compassion that compassion is part of the fruit of going through the dark I feel it's that it's a hum you get humbled and you can feel there's so much compassion with the limitations of the human realm and that includes myself yeah that I'm not that easily seduced by the ideals of who I should be I'm more interested in creating circumstances for the living breeding Spirit to live and play through me as much as possible and shamal what would you what would you say to a woman particularly who's in a professional role and holding a lot in the world as she's going through a challenging time whether it's something that's personal or even just also navigating the state of the world right now what would you tell her about how to best navigate those rougher Waters there's a Greek myth about a goddess called Hasa and we know Hasa as the goddess of the hear of the home and Hasa she is the she's the one God in goddess and a group of godds and goddesses who doesn't leave home like all the gods and goddesses they go out in the Greek mythology you know there's so much drama like a soap opra you know they fall in love they go War dramas intrigues and Hasa she always stays home and so when the gods and goddesses are all bruised and tired they will always come home to her fire to H's fire and they will be fed and they will be nurtured they can rest they get food they get soup and then they go out again and if we bring all of the aspects of this with in in our own Consciousness that all of these are parts of ourselves yeah is to remember that the the the the to kind of feel yourself as as circles yeah that the Inner Circle the innermost flame of your being that's what feeds everything else so it your assignment is to guard and to you know to to guard that source connection and then from there you can feel your life yeah from that source connection maybe it's from there the next circle is your family or close relationships uh and then comes uh extended family friends and then comes work and your service in the world it can give us kind of a map of of where the priorities must be because one can so easily R run around in the Outer Circle serving thinking we are serving thinking we are you know being true to our purpose here in life but we are running on empty yeah that it has the priorities has to be in the right order in right relationship so always make just make sure that you tend to the flame in the center to that you create circumstances for yourself to be plugged into where the power is with where where there's Rejuvenation yeah so that can help us to to hold ourselves through and to find out also before the crisis hits is to find out what is that for you yeah what is that that nurture you that what is that that holds you and breathes you what is that light that cannot die within you and to see and to really become sober and see that oh that is the most important because it feeds everything else and that when we come into that Reckoning and kind of uh we a we begin to see the intelligence of that kind of order that also gives Clarity and motivation to to um to learn to say no even if we want to or we think we should do more that it's we are more aware of just the specific packaging we have it's going to be different from each one of us how you know what we need in order to stay connected with that flame in the center it's going to be different and you know some of us carry you know traumas in our bodies we are perhaps more fragile than we would want to be but the more honest we can become with it the more we can be kind of the mother or the leader of our own self yeah where we can then yeah take care say yes and no in a way that is aligned and serving a self that's what I would say and what's next for you I you know this this last year has been uh a Reckoning with an aspect of me that keeps thinking about what's next like I'm I'm very creative I have a lot of ideas all the p and uh I have I remember I was saying this out loud sometimes in the spring where I really love landed in that my life as it is right now is everything I ever dreamed of for me it's very important to be alone I'm alone with four animals I'm not alone I'm with them um I'm but I'm I'm I'm spend a lot of time with nonhuman contact um because there's something in my energy that resonates very much with the animal body and I learn a lot about regulation and and and love from them and I'm a lot in the words and I it's again that kind of being n that gets the highest priority in my life right now like it's that very innocent part of me that just wants to be and uh and I I was saying out loud like I actually I don't want anything else than more of this I want just this and it's so simple if people saw my life it's you know I'm just waking up going to the wood you know I'm seeing clients doing you know I'm traveling sometimes to do Retreats um it's very but it's a simple life and it's it's the I never been happier in my entire life than right now it's very very very ecstatic H in its utter Simplicity and some people I think would find it very boring the life I have but for me it's like it's a my whole system drinks up the harmony of my life right now and I guard it fiercely like a mother I so even it can be tempting projects if it adds any complexity I say no no no no no now this is my moment this is the moment finally I'm 53 this is the moment where I get to live live this this beauty and um so the next for me is a few more weeks with clients and then I will have my retreat my my just Retreat for myself over the holidays and um then I will go then I will travel I go to Europe and teach some some Retreats go to India do puncha karma for a month for myself a good life very very good life sounds really beautiful and if listeners want to connect with you more is there any place you want to direct people to yes you can go to Awakening women.com and you can look there we have many um many we have many self-study programs so it's easy to uh to jump in and uh especially if you are drawn to practice with the goddess Awakening women.com is the place to go yeah thank you for being with us shamal and for just so generously sharing about this passage that you have passed through and are emerging from and I just appreciate your presence your teachings and being part of my journey in various ways over the past almost two decades thank you so much thank you for opening the space to to speak about these these things there's a you know there's a lot of taboo when it comes to these places and for those of us who you know and we are many G through them there's such a thirst yeah to be to be sharing from these layers you know thank you