Lifestyle | Ascension Lifestyle

01 Aug 2016
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Becoming Whys

“If we have our own ‘why’ of life, we shall get along with almost any ‘how.'”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher

Becoming “whys” — owning our raison d’être, or reason for being — is the core question of our lives. Why am I here? What is my purpose?

We were taught to put our attention on form rather than function. The popular childhood question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was reinforced by aptitude tests and guidance counselors who helped us select possible careers. We’ve identified with these labels ever since. So I’m hearing clients, colleagues and friends asking, Should I do my art? Teach? Get a real estate license? Go into sales?

Are You Looking In the Right Place?

My suggestion is, allow form to emerge from focus. Begin by becoming your whys: why are you here now? What are you passionate about? What is your heart calling you to communicate? Once you know your essence Self, how you express it can take many forms.

One client reported, “The most significant moment was when you asked me, ‘What is your work?’ The irony was tremendous… I had been looking for a job for over two years, interviewing with companies all over the country, and your question totally stumped me. What was my work? The question came as a breath of fresh air in my already congested life.”

Molly told me her purpose is “to stand for peace.” But she’s not an activist, organizing marches or chaining herself to fences in protest. While these are certainly viable avenues for expressing one’s truth, her path to peace takes the form of bringing new color and clarity to the magazine where she’s a graphic designer, to the people whose lives she touches. By embodying peace, she stands for it every day in a quiet fullness.

Your Awareness Inspires Others

And irony has transmuted to inspiration. Coworkers at her previous and current jobs have said the identical words to her: “You’re a breath of fresh air.” This is what Gandhi meant by, “My life is my message.”

Suppose your whys are about the next generation: you feel inspired to assist children’s spiritual development. Once you know this purpose in your soul, it might take the form of lobbying for changes in public education, writing a book, or becoming a teacher in an alternative educational system such as Waldorf or Montessori. You might decide to home-school your kids, start a neighborhood discussion group, give workshops for parents, or speak at new-thought churches such as Science of Mind and Unity.

The possibilities are limitless. And it all begins with becoming —embracing and embodying — your why.

9 Ways to Clarify Your Why:

Relax. We don’t find what we seek through endless searching.
Stop. Give yourself permission to stop doing, stop running, stop hurrying. Stop thinking you already know. Relax.
Ask. Ask anything you want, but make sure it’s about your own development. Then wait. The answer will come.
Listen. Listen with your whole being. You can listen while you work. You can listen while you sleep.
Be neutral. Nothing is inherently good or bad in and of itself.
Allow. “Trying” builds a wall between wanting and having. In the relaxed space of allowing you begin to receive.
Learn. We learn by opening. Begin to balance the energy of opposites within yourself.
Stand in it. You’ve learned who you are. Now stand in it. Be it.
Give it. You learned it. You’re standing in it. Now give it. Take a chance. Be honest. Be humble. Give as you were given. It returns a thousand-fold.

About the author:

Amara Rose is a “midwife” for our global rebirth. Her services include transformational guidance, talks, e-courses, a digital download CD, and an inspirational monthly newsletter. She is widely published in health, business and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Learn more: http://www.liveyourlight.com

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01 Jun 2016
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Why We Need the Numinous

We’ve strayed very far from the numinous. In our civilized, industrialized, pasteurized, homogenized world, we’re frozen into form, ossified in the material — and immune to the whisper of leaves, the murmur of brooks, the tenor of life teeming just below conscious awareness. Earbuds in place, we walk on, acculturated to the jackhammer tempo of the 21^st century.

In lieu of ceremony to honor the ebb and flow of daily life, typical Western rituals include texting and working out. Lunch-hour laser surgery isn’t far behind. “Tradition” means the product you’re thinking of buying has been made by the same company for several generations: “A tradition of fine furniture since 1946.” Family meals are an anachronism, eclipsed by a nanosecond lifestyle that equates eating with putting gas in the car: get in, get out, get going. We eat to the beat, and our bodies, soil and soul pay the price.

Slowing down to the pace of health

I know this firsthand. In the early 1990s, stoked on my burgeoning marketing communications business that spelled freedom from the drudgery of nine-to-five, I ignored the growing evidence that my health was deteriorating. I loved the ten-step commute in my San Francisco apartment. I was finally taking piano lessons. I didn’t have time to deal with pain or fatigue. I was too busy; business was too good.

So Spirit took over. “Hello!” my angels roared at 110 decibels. “We’ve been trying to get your attention, but you aren’t listening. You’ve mastered being a successful businesswoman; we have other plans for you now.”

It was a colossal summons. My ninety-miles-an-hour life screeched to a halt.

For me, spiritual emergency took the form of illness. In 3-D, it “looked like” I was quite sick, and I certainly felt awful for a long time. I was dealing with a panoply of strange symptoms and medical labels.

Labels limit us, however. In A Return To Love, Marianne Williamson says spiritual progress is like a detoxification, and that’s exactly how it was for me, how it is for most of us. We have to clear out the old patterns and habits that no longer serve us in order to heal. Environmental restoration begins at home.

Norman Cousins, author of Anatomy Of An Illness, once said, “It’s not just the congestion outside us, of people’s ideas and issues, but our inner congestion that’s hurting us. We gorge the senses and starve the sensitivities.” So the deeper work is about coming to our senses. Beginning to really feel, and to trust what we feel.

How ritual renews our memory of wholeness

In truth, our very beings are hardwired for the kind of care we consider an indulgence. Access to the numinous requires only that we choose it. To sit at table with friends and loved ones, sharing “slow food,” is a simple, sorely needed ritual for a starving spirit. It becomes soul nourishing at a deeper level when we join hands to thank the growers, grocers and cooks who have brought the food from farm to fork.

Moonbaths are another elementary way to get in touch with our essence selves, to slow down to the pace of health and release our inner pollution. Sunbathing is standard. But if you go to a serene spot free from streetlamps and traffic lights when the moon is full, allowing her to shine upon you in all her radiance, you’ll tap into an ancient cellular rhythm.

These are just a few of the myriad ways we can use ritual to remember who we are, as multidimensional beings capable of so much more than societal dictates. Surviving in spiritual starvation, we hunger for sustenance beyond food. Ritual renews our memory of wholeness, of a time when we knew how to cast a circle, call in our ancestors and spirit guides, invoke our intention with clarity and conviction. “Invocation” means, giving your vision a voice.

Crafting a new mythology

Living in harmony with natural rhythms expands our sense of what’s possible. The “reality police” have become our invisible, accepted jailers. We can liberate ourselves by reaching past the pre-packaged propaganda for certified organic thought. The replenishing rituals we create now are one way to re-story our lives, revivifying the myths that have kept cultures through the ages cooking up a cauldron of creative possibility. According to the eminent mythologist Joseph Campbell, a myth isn’t something that never happened; it’s something that is always happening.

Disconnected from the source of this knowing, we pervert our productive energy. For example, without a mythological model for how to resourcefully contribute to the collective, teenagers may resort to gang membership and violence — mimicking their elders, who wage war on their own life support system.

But another way was possible from the start. It’s intriguing to learn that the US Constitution is patterned directly on the Iroquois model of leadership, with one notable exception: there is no Council of Clan Mothers, or Grandmother Council, which is the backbone of Native American decision making. Perhaps if our Founding Fathers had included Founding Mothers in the new nation’s governing body, we’d consider ritual-based decision-making that honors both masculine and feminine voices the natural course for balance and well-being. Just imagine what our culture — and the environment — might look like, if the White House consulted a group of wise women prior to implementing any major policy change.

Follow your inner guidance, even if you look like a fool

During my own “dark night of the soul” journey, I frequently found myself walking alone at night, singing, “fire and water”, not knowing why, but trusting the rightness of my inner voice. Fire is the male essence; water is female. They are yang and yin, sun and moon, perfect polarities, as necessary to one another as all complementary pairings are to balance, healing, wholeness, sustainability.

One useful ritual is to start noticing where you are imbalanced, and to spend time nurturing the flip side of the equation. This is holding the “both/and,” which is about integration rather than separation. Our digital devices are binary. Humans are far more complex operating systems!

Take time to wander and wonder. Sit in a stream and sing. Be willing to follow your inner guidance, even if you look like a fool. When you can descend to the depths of your being and release what no longer serves, beginning anew in defenselessness and trust, you’re on your way to becoming a vessel of wisdom for the tribe.

May you enjoy the journey, and remember to resurface when you’re complete. We all — every species, and Gaia Herself — need your unique gifts from the well.

About the author:

http://twitter.com/Amara_Rose

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/amararose

07 May 2016
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How the Bacteria in Our Gut Influences Our Minds.

There has been a growing understanding and exploration by psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians and researchers about the role our gut bacteria plays on our mood—most notably the experience of anxiety.

The statistics on anxiety are staggering and trending north each passing year. Consider these stats: According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (and NIMH) anxiety is the most common mental illness in America today.

An estimated 40 million adults (18 and older) or 18 percent of the population endorse symptoms of anxiety (not to mention one out of eight children). Treatment of anxiety accounts for one-third of the $148 billion dollars spent annually on mental illnesses in America.

In other words, we spend $42 billion a year on treatment of anxiety disorders in America. Women are 60 percent more likely to develop an anxiety disorder than our male counterparts. These numbers are terrifying to me as a clinician, a woman and a mother.

The symbiotic relationship between our gut health and how we feel is a hot topic of discussion and research. Scientists, physicians, and mental health practitioners are increasingly aware of the important relationship between the balance of “critters” in our gut and how we experience our brain, mood and emotions. So, before we begin to discuss what we can do to optimize this important relationship, let’s explore the underlying processes.

From a holistic vantage point our gut is known as the “second brain” and there are structural/anatomical reasons for this reference. The “second brain,” known scientifically as the enteric nervous system, consists of sheaths of neurons located in the walls of our gut. We refer to these sheaths as the vagus nerve and it runs from our esophagus to our anus, roughly nine meters long.

Did you know that:

The bacteria, fungi and viruses that make up your body’s microflora outnumber your body’s cells by 10 to 1.

95 percent of the body’s serotonin supply is found in our bowels.

The vagus nerve contains 100 million neurons, which is more neurons than the spinal cord or peripheral nervous system hold.

There are over 100 trillion bacterial cells contained within the gut.

Our gut sends far more information to our brain than the other way around.

When the precarious balance of bacteria in our gut becomes disturbed we often experience symptoms associated with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other gastrointestinal related disorders. These symptoms are likely to start out as complaints of bloating, gas, constipation or diarrhea.

These symptoms are often indicators of “leaky gut syndrome” where our gut wall becomes permeable and particles of food start to escape from the digestive and GI tract. When this occurs the domino effect of issues becomes inevitable and thus begins the cascading symptom patterns that plague tens of millions of Americans struggling with GI related disorders.

Due to the interconnectedness of our brain and enteric nervous system, via the vagus nerve, once our gut bacteria is out of whack, we are vulnerable to a pattern of emotional discomfort, usually marked by increasing episodes of anxiety and depression.

How does our gut bacteria become so unbalanced? Here are a few of the many ways in which we accidentally (and sometimes unavoidably) contribute to this pattern of disturbance:

Excessive and unmanaged stress

Too much use of antibiotics

Prolonged use of steroids

Intestinal infections

High sugar; low fiber diet (in other words, standard American diet)

Regular consumption of alcohol

If you are reading this blog and you find yourself relating to this content, I encourage you to seek out professional help to better understand what these symptoms mean for your unique constitution. Taking the right type of probiotic to help restore balance in the micro flora in your gut is one step, but often with more advanced GI issues and more acute anxiety based symptoms there is a need to first heal the permeability of the gut wall before adding in probiotics.

Source: http://yourhealthblog.net/infographic-how-gut-bacteria-affects-the-brain-and-body/

There is a growing body of research that is exploring strain specific probiotics to help mitigate acute symptoms of anxiety. For example, in clinical trials involving the study of mice, Bifidobacterium longum and Lactobacillus Rhamnosus have shown to help normalize anxiety-like behavior. Lactobacillus appears to work on the GABA receptors, an inhibitory neurotransmitter involved in the regulation of acute anxiety. GABA is the receptor influenced when you take a benzodiazepine such as Xanax or Ativan.

There is a bourgeoning area of interest and research exploring use of probiotics to treat a wide variety of mental illnesses. Pharmaceutical companies are attempting to create a new line of psychiatric medications referred to as Psychobiotics, but this field of research is still in its infancy.

So, that being said, there is a lot we can do right from the comfort of our own home to start the process of realigning the balance of our gut flora. As you can imagine, most of it involves cleaning up our diet, being mindful of the relationship between food and mood, and exploring our habits and patterns. Below are action steps you can take in an effort to begin the process of healing your gut, mind and brain:

It generally takes a minimum of 90 days for these suggestions to be maximally effective:

Eliminate sugars: The “fake” sugars. We are not talking about eliminating whole fruits. Rather, cutting out the baked goods, cookies, ice cream, and store bought sugary products that wreak havoc on the bacteria in our gut and lead to cyclical patterns of emotional and physical cravings.
Eliminate all simple starches and reduce intake of even complex starches.
Add in fermented and living foods. Please try to avoid store bought yogurts even though they are considered fermented. These products are loaded with sugars and often end up exacerbating imbalance.
Consider having the vast majority of your diet be plant-based foods. Generally speaking, eat as many veggies as you want in any form you want. Avoid use of store bought dressings etc., which are loaded with sugar and preservatives. If your GI tract is especially damaged, consider cooking all your veggies before consumption.
Consume foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids (walnuts, salmon, flax, some types of squash, etc.).
Aim to consume local and organic sources of animal protein. Doing so will reduce your ingesting unwanted antibiotics and feed based chemicals.
Discuss with your practitioner if the use of a probiotic or prebiotic will benefit your unique situation. A probiotic introduces specific strains of good bacteria, while a prebiotic introduces carbohydrates that serve as food the bacteria already present in your gut.
Exercise. Again, more days than not. Enough to sweat. The goal is to find joy in it. But if you hate it, that’s okay. Do it anyway.
Drink mostly water.
Work with a skilled psychologist or mental health professional to metabolize past trauma, identify faulty thought patterns, and implement mindfulness based skills to better manage your central nervous system.
Implement a daily mindfulness/meditation practice. The goal is observe your mind, not to clear it or control your thoughts. Simple observation and balanced breathing. This is a restful and restorative way to calm the central nervous system and recalibrate the vagus nerve.

Exploring the relationship between our mood and our gut bacteria reveals an interconnected relationship between the mind, brain, and body, via the enteric nervous system and vagus nerve. This relationship is the foundation of why it is critical to address your emotional discomfort from a holistic and integrated approach to your wellness.

The good news is that because we now know and understand that there is a connection between the mind and body, we have the knowledge and tools to make immediate changes that will yield significant results in how we feel. The better we understand and participate in our own sense of wellness and empowerment the more likely we are to embark on change that starts from within.

By Dr. Sarah Sarkis for elephant journal

Sarah Sarkis is a licensed psychologist living in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has a private practice working with adults in long-term insight-oriented therapy. She works with an existential psychology vantage point, encouraging patients to “stay present even in the storm.” She is an explorer of the psyche, emphasizing collaboration, partnership, and personal empowerment. She approaches psychological wellness from a holistic and integrative perspective. Her therapeutic style is based on an integrative approach to wellness, blending strong psychodynamic and insight-oriented training with more traditionally behavioral and/or mind/body techniques to help clients foster insight, change and growth. She has extensively studied the connection between mindfulness, functional medicine, hormones, and food, medicine and mood. Find out more at her blog.

07 May 2016
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Spirituality? Is That Like Religion?

When I moved to California in 1981, spiritual exploration was still in my future. I had my first astrological reading that year, and the astrologer, who twelve years later would provide a reading that helped redirect my life during my awakening, referred several times to “spirituality.” She recorded the session, and on the recording you hear me asking in a perplexed tone, “What’s spirituality? Is that like religion?”

I needed to live my own spiritual journey before I understood. The terms can be synonymous, but often they are not.

The Difference Between Spirituality and Religion

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhist community, has said, “My religion is kindness.”

The word religion derives from the Latin religare, which means “to tie fast” or “to bind together.” One dictionary definition of religion is, “a set of beliefs, values and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.” This would seem to suggest that religion is a subset of a larger rubric called spirituality.

Yet defining spirituality is a bit like describing color to one who has never known sight. Perception will vary according to your beliefs. Of the myriad online resources attempting to answer the inquiry, “What is Spirituality?” a Unitarian Universalist minister offers this view:

Spirituality is being concerned with things of the spirit — the big questions of meaning, metaphysics, existence. Being spiritual is thinking about, wondering about, and exploring the deepest aspects of reality, values, morals, and meanings.

Spirituality is mis-defined if it is equated with super-naturalism, which tends to be the mistake I find when I hear people object to the word. Nothing about a search for values, morals, and meanings implies faith instead of reason, or emotion instead of intelligence. Spirituality can be all those things, and it is to some people, but not exclusively so. After all, ‘spirit’ simply means ‘breath,’ as in ‘inspire’, ‘expire’ or ‘inspiration.’ Spirit is about being filled with life. It’s about all the ways that we try to make sense of our living, and our attempts to make good from our lives.

Thus, the Dalai Lama’s statement, like his work in the world, broadens the scope of religion to embrace its spiritual essence: both begin with how we think, feel and behave.

How What We Believe Affects Our Health

In recent years, scientists have demonstrated in the lab what mystics and spiritual teachers have been saying for centuries: consciousness creates reality. Renowned neuroscientist Candace Pert, featured in What the Bleep Do We Know!? and author of Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel, established that emotional communication begins at the cellular level, with tiny proteins called peptides.

Breakthrough cell biologist Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, confirms that our attitudes and thoughts create our physical bodies. He writes, “Cells respond to perception by activating either growth or protection behavior programs. If our perceptions are accurate, the resulting behavior will be life enhancing. If we operate from ‘misperceptions,’ our behavior will be inappropriate and will jeopardize our vitality by compromising our health.”

In a nutshell: think negative, create warped DNA. Change your mind, change your body!

During the past few decades, medical science has also begun documenting the “faith factor” in healing. Physician Larry Dossey, a pioneer in exploring the role of prayer in healing, says, “I used to believe that we must choose between science and reason on one hand, and spirituality on the other, in how we lead our lives. Now I consider this a false choice. We can recover the sense of sacredness, not just in science, but in perhaps every area of life.”

Stepping Onto the Path

So, how does spirituality “happen”? Awakening is a journey, and just as with literal travel, this metaphorical passage is different for everyone. For many people, the call to embark on a spiritual path is preceded by a period of questioning or difficulty, when one or more aspects of your life no longer flow smoothly. This was what my summons looked like.

Being willing to surrender into the unknown is a huge, scary — and necessary — initial step, because you can’t “figure out” spirituality in a linear fashion. You might begin a spiritual exploration by reading about the world’s religions, or sampling various types of spiritual services. Some people seek out a teacher or guru. Some learn to meditate. Others go on retreat in the wilderness. There are as many ways to claim your spiritual truth as there are people. A formal practice isn’t required, although this can be a useful way to “get out of your head” in the early stages.

Ultimately, the journey to Spirit will be unique to you.

Spiritual vs. Material

Of course, it’s important to balance spirituality with the 3-D world. You don’t need to take a vow of poverty in order to live a spiritual life! This is a frequent misconception among both spiritual and religious aspirants: that a dedication to spiritual service requires one to renounce worldly possessions.

People often find that committing to a spiritual path dramatically changes their lives. Material resources may fall away, but this usually has little to do with religious or spiritual doctrine. It’s more likely a result of a desire to pare down possessions in an attempt to discover what’s necessary and valued, to release aspects of one’s life that no longer serve, or a deep-seated belief that it’s somehow “more spiritual” to be poor. Role models from Jesus to Gandhi to Mother Teresa have ingrained an unintentional link between spiritual service and self-sacrifice in our collective consciousness.

Those who possess spiritual wealth know that love and compassion are the true sources of sustenance. As the Dalai Lama so eloquently expressed, the most devout religious belief can be embodied as kindness. A person overflowing with goodwill towards others is incalculably richer than someone with a big bank account and a stingy spirit.

Full Circle

Fourteen years after wondering aloud what spirituality was, I was discussing my personal growth odyssey with my Dad. After I’d shared passionately for a while, he said, “You know, honey, when you say ‘spirituality’, I have no idea what you mean.”

My heart swelled with recognition. I took a thoughtful breath, and began to frame my reply.

About the author:

http://twitter.com/Amara_Rose

http://www.facebook.com/LiveYourLight

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amararose

13 Apr 2016
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Blackberry Love: How to Pick the Ripe Relationship for You

After living in the wine country of northern California for a while, I grew tired of whining. I wanted to segue from sour grapes to sweet, luscious blackberries. This is how blackberry love begins …

A friend and I were taking a walk near her rural home at sunset when she exclaimed, “I’ve got to stop and pick some of these delicious blackberries!” Yet until she said that, I hadn’t noticed the blackberry bushes all around us.

I was amazed. Here I was, surrounded by a potential source of nourishment, readily available, delectable and free, and I hadn’t even seen the bushes dripping with ripe blackberries until my friend pointed out what was right in front of me. It reminded me of the quote from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint Exupery: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

I wondered how many times potential partners or friends might be right there in front of us, yet invisible, until someone points them out to us. “Oh, here’s a blackberry, and it’s ripe.” Iridologist and holistic health pioneer Bernard Jensen called blackberries “one of nature’s most perfect foods for healing”. And when we truly heal, we do so on every level of our being.

So I began to pick blackberries, and to walk the path of wise relationship.

Gift #1: Zen and the Art of Blackberry Picking. Look for the berries that are ripe to be plucked right now. In this instance, the mantra might be, “learn to discern.” If we choose berries that are overripe, they’re going to squish in our fingers and we’ll have juice all over the place. If we choose a berry that’s too red, we’ll have to tug to get it off the vine, and it’s going to be bitter. An old commercial playfully vowed, “We will sell no wine before its time!” Forcing a berry to be yours as it’s clinging tenaciously to the vine will result in whining. The perfect berry comes to you with a very slight pluck; tugging isn’t necessary.

Gift #2: A Grasp That Equals Your Reach. Robert Browning wrote, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a Heaven for?” That’s poetic, but if we live this way in terms of relationship, we’ll be forever hungry, grasping for berries that are always just slightly out of reach, or not quite ripe. After picking berries for several days, I developed a certain dexterity. I became adept at angling my arm in between the thorns to find just the berries that were ready right then, even if they were slightly above my head or a bit of a stretch from where I was standing. Sometimes the choicest morsels are a slight stretch outside our comfort zone. I began to get the sense of how to connect with them, and it became this wonderful dance: “Oh, hello berry bushes!” There was a grace, an ease, to my berry picking, and it was fun! Relationships can actually be fun.

Gift #3: Visual Acuity. My resonance, my homing signal, for “ripe blackberries” grew keener by day. Like anything else, you get better with practice. I learned to scan ahead as I walked down a row of bushes. On the way out, I’d pick the ones that appeared ripe. On the way back, I’d notice ripe blackberries that I’d missed the first time. I was enlarging my visual field, engaging my peripheral vision: “Ah, there’s someone Spirit has placed in my path whom I didn’t notice before, that I ought to consider.” By looking again, we raise our sights to the highest possibility.

Gift #4: Choose Ye This Day Which Berry You Would Serve. My friend’s two dogs trotted along beside me, happily devouring any berries I tossed their way, ripe or not. There will always be people who are so hungry that any blackberry is better than none. They’re willing to take the bitterness just to have the taste. However, unripe fruit will only give you heartburn. Nourishing berries feed your soul as well as your stomach. Once I started tasting the sweetest, most perfectly ripe blackberries that were ready for me, I couldn’t return to a less discerning method of selection. There was just no comparison with a berry that was right for me, right now.

In this same light, it’s most important to know what kind of berry you are. Are you so ripe that anyone who comes within range is going to get drenched in berry juice? Or are you clinging to the vine so steadfastly that if somebody wants to pick you, they’re going to have to tug, and you’re still not going to come loose? Are you hiding on a branch that’s so low to the ground, or so high up, that no one can see you in your ripeness because you’re invisible to the eye? Or are you ripe, sweet, available, and ready to be chosen?

I encourage you to know your ripeness level right now, because that’s going to shift over time. Then, you can forage for the blackberries who are ripe to meet with you at this time, and enjoy the beauty, the elegance, the joy of the quest. When you find the berry who is right for you, there’s going to be a fruitful recognition. And you can savor the sweetness of this remembering for a long, delicious time.

About the author:

http://twitter.com/Amara_Rose

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22 Mar 2016
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Can You Spare A Tire? The Tests We Create to Help Us Evolve.

To the untrained mind, the roadblocks in our lives appear to be just that: obstacles to go around, petty annoyances that dampen our day. As we grow in awareness, we come to view these challenges as growth opportunities, little tests we’ve arranged to see how we’re doing on the path to self-mastery. Often, as I approach another graduation in consciousness, I find myself facing a series of tests that can feel like midterms and finals rolled into one.

Non-resistance and non-blaming have been huge lessons for me. The saying goes, “What you resist, persists” and I’ve been the Queen of Resistance! It’s a crown I wore with a certain defensive pride — until I began to be bored senseless by the energy it took to fight what others adapted to easily. Resistance kept me in survival mode, running on adrenaline. This may have served me well as a child, when I needed to protect myself from being pushed around emotionally. Yet I knew it was high time to allow this ally to morph into its close cousin, persistence.

From Resistance to Persistence

Persistence turns the stickiness that keeps me trapped into suction cups that help me climb: the column of light to the world stage, the ladder of faith to step fully into my role as a planetary change agent, wedding old skills and acquired knowledge in the alchemical fire. This is how we forge true gold, also known as wisdom.

Persistence, when predicated on faith, is resistance in a higher octave. That’s the beauty of alchemy: nothing need ever die, only transmute.

Here’s what the discovery process looked like for me at first, as I integrated my dark night of the soul with everyday experience. The knowing cooked in me. Then I was presented with an opportunity to apply my new understanding.

One beautiful Saturday morning I received a superb massage, something I’d been promising myself for ages. The practitioner was nurturing and talented. One of the last movements she tried with me, however, surprised us both. My right shoulder held on as she attempted to turn me on my side, and while it felt awkward, there was no pain. We agreed that it seemed to be an area in which I stored a lot of old tension, and we chuckled about my resistance to letting it go.

That night I drove two hours to attend a fantastic multimedia event, danced joyously to evocative drum rhythms, and later fell into deep slumber.

What It Looks Like, What It Is

Sunday morning, I woke to more pain than I’d experienced in years. My entire right side felt frozen in an old motif — and I noticed it affected my digestion, how my body looked and felt, and my emotional state. The pain subsided as the day wore on, to a dull ache by Monday, but I was not a happy camper.

I called Rebecca and scheduled a session for that afternoon. She practices a holistic art that transcends chiropractic: a blend of light touch, craniosacral, Polarity therapy and a few other modalities, all of which combine under her skillful hands to help her clients release old patterns and grow beyond who they’ve been.

Rebecca is a true healer. She works with me outdoors, because she understands, from the dramatic difference in my breathing pattern and in the results we co-create, that my shifts are far greater outdoors than inside her building, where the strong chemical odor causes my body to contract. We usually take her collapsible massage table down to the unoccupied office at the end of the row of storefronts in the mini-mall where she works.

On Monday, however, the building landlord was showing that empty space to potential renters. He said, “We can’t have a massage going on while I’m trying to rent the space.” Rebecca tried to explain that it wasn’t massage, but I was unperturbed. I said, “Well, perhaps we ought to just skip it then.” David suggested we go to the grassy area behind the parking lot, and, though it was awkward to set up the table on the uneven grass, we did so.

She kept wondering aloud what he could have meant by another inexplicable comment he’d made, and I found myself in the amusing position of defending him.

It all made perfect sense to me: his job is to rent and manage the building. It is strange to have someone practicing bodywork out on the sidewalk when everyone else is in an office, regardless of the reason. I could absolutely see the situation from David’s perspective, and my high Self just kept sending him light and affirming that the situation was working out for the highest good of all concerned.

Grading My Progress

As we completed our session and walked toward her office, David was driving away, cellphone to his ear. He stopped his red Mazda coupe and shouted out the window, “Rebecca, you can work out there now.” We thanked him, and as I wrote her a check, I suddenly understood that it had been a test for me, and I’d passed with flying colors. I said out loud, “Thank you, Spirit!” I could see the “A” hanging in the air, and I laughed and thanked David’s spirit for his participation.

I explained to Rebecca that two years earlier, I’d had a flat tire and had failed that test miserably. I’d taken out my frustration on the tow truck driver who came to put on the spare. I told Rebecca that when I realized what was happening, I said in horror to the man from whose house I’d phoned, “It’s a test, isn’t it, and I’m not doing very well.” He said, “No, you’re not.” I went outside to make amends, but it was too late. The tow truck operator had driven off in a huff.

I was so pleased to have learned this lesson. David was a reclaiming for my earlier fiasco. Then Tuesday arrived.

The pain, which had been on my right side (masculine/assertive energy, old protective holding patterns) oscillated. It was now on my left. A subtle shift, but I was aware of it. The left side is the feminine, receptivity, flow.

The Holes In Our Awareness

I had about an hour to run a series of errands; I was in high gear. I stopped at the high-touch car wash, where an attendant takes the car through and you wait on the receiving end. The man wiping down the exterior signaled me to come over, indicating my front left tire. It was no longer round, but very flat. He said it had probably been losing air for a while, and the car wash completed the job.

My instinctive reaction? “It wasn’t this way when I drove in; I think the car wash did it!” He stiffened. “Well, I can get the manager.” Something was stirring in me. I calmed down. I said, “No, I’ll just call Triple A. Or — wait. Could you possibly change the flat for me?” The attendant agreed to put on my spare, popped the trunk, and as I sat on the bench, watching his movements, the situation clarified completely.

In my head, I heard a line from an old Emmylou Harris song, Boulder to Birmingham: “…Comin’ down to wash me clean.” Yesterday I’d been in my glory. Victory feels like that. Could I sustain my new learning in the face of the next challenge? It was an instant replay from two years before. This was my opportunity to play out the scenario with the AAA tow truck driver differently. A lesson is repeated until learned.

I walked over and apologized. “I tend to let little things upset me. I’m sure the tire could have gone flat in lots of ways.” The man asked helpfully if I lived around construction (my neighbors had been remodeling), saying that, even though there didn’t appear to be a nail stuck in the tire, I might have punctured it on something. He also recommended a mechanic at a shop where he used to work. I tipped him for going “above and beyond the call,” and saw my grade. It was a C/B, meaning it had started out as a C, but I’d gotten extra credit when I changed my attitude.

At Firestone, the mechanic said there was no hole, and the flat was due to a pinched valve stem, probably from the car wash rails. I was momentarily angry, then realized that that was the whole point: it wasn’t about how the tire became flat, but about how I’d handle the test.

There are no holes in the Divine Feminine. The holes in our lives are our blame, anger, and righteous resistance to Truth. When we allow ourselves to be receptively guided, we’re always washed clean.

About the author:

Amara Rose is a Feminine Frequency Accelerator and metaphysical “midwife” for our global rebirth. As a life coach, speaker, workshop facilitator and writer, she guides others to create spiritually successful change. She is the author of the digital download CD, What You Need to Know Now: A Roadmap for Personal Transformation, and publishes an inspirational monthly newsletter. Learn more: http://www.liveyourlight.com

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16 Mar 2016
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The Art of Smoke Ceremony – A Purifying & Cleansing Ritual

© Gleb Raygorodetsky 2013 for Land is Life

The Earth has given many gifts for man to use. One of the major tools given to us are the plant medicines. These medicines are of the Earth herself and the aroma produced by these plants help place us in a different state of mind thus bringing us into a deeper part of ourselves. Then, as we let go of the mind and connect the body to the Infinite Now, the scent may inspire memories, awaken the soul and give a sense of direction. There is a spiritual connection that we have to smoke that draws us toward using it to represent delicateness of the soul.

If you were exposed to any type of religion growing up, you probably witnessed the ritualistic use of smoke in ceremony. As a former Catholic I was around frankincense and myrhh burning during Sunday mass. For others it might have been smoldering incense at a Buddhist Temple, or the spiraling tendrils of bukhoor in a mosque.

Many cultures and religions use sacred smoke made from the plant medicines in various ceremonies for various reasons. The ceremonial smoke tradition dates back millennia and connects all traditional cultures, from the Native Americans to the Druids, from the Zulus to the Maoris, from Aboriginals to the Mayans, from the Chinese to the Balinese, which have age-old forms of cleansing and blessing rituals. In ancient Greece, smoke formed part of the rituals to contact the dead, following long periods of fasting and silence. Their sacred smoke was born out of sulphur and minerals in lieu of herbs to part the veil between the worlds of the living and form a bridge to the other world.

One of the earliest recorded uses of ceremonial smoke can be traced to ancient Egypt where herbs were burned in religious ceremonies. It is mentioned on an inscribed tablet that was found at Giza, Egypt, in about 1530 BC. The Babylonians used smoke extensively while offering prayers or divining oracles. It was imported to Israel in the 5th century BC to be used in religious offerings. It spread from there to Greece, Rome and India, where both Hindus and Buddhists still burn it in their rituals and at festivals.

Based on this rich and long history, ceremonial smoke can be seen as a Universal truth that runs through and connects all cultures, religions, time frames and places. Only among Indigenous or First Nations peoples is this called “smudging”. The American English term “smudge stick” is usually found in use among non-Indigenous people who believe they are imitating North American Native ceremonies. While many non-Native people admire and are drawn to Native culture and ceremonies, we strongly encourage non-Natives to come up with their own, personal ceremony that reflects their personal spiritual beliefs and practices.

Healing powers of plants and herbs is universal and across all continents, the only difference is that not all plants grow in one region. People usually utilize the plants or herbs that are abundant in their region

While much is written on the use of smoke ceremony to cleanse negative energy, another one of its common uses is to bring vision, aided by the sense of smell. Smoke ceremony is also used to purify tools and people before important spiritual rituals and ceremonies. It is also used to clear sacred space and open the soul before calling upon the Spirits and their healing powers.

There are Four major medicine plants used in a majority of North American indigenous cultures; tobacco, sweet grass, sage and cedar that are used frequently in ceremonies.

In First Nation tradition, smoke is a medium between the higher realms, creating a good space for positive spirits and removing the negative ones. Smudging is a ritualistic burning of herbs and plant resins in a shell or clay bowl during which prayers of gratitude and well-being are chanted out loud. Traditionally the smoke is fanned with a treasured eagle feather directed over a person throughout a living space. This is done to wash away spiritual impurities, that are present in an individual or space.

This is often done before a ceremony or special gathering, after an argument (to literally “clear the air”), when moving into a new home, at the end of the cold season to re-invigorate one’s living space, and healing sessions.

Many Natives believe the the process of smudging enhanced their senses and in some cases altered the state of consciousness for Shamans and Medicine Men to assess and treat illness. The smoke was believed to remove impurities to allow the healing process to commence. It was believed that as the smoke rose, prayers would also rise to the Spirit World taking the negative thoughts and emotions away with it. It is said that the herbs for smudging have antiseptic qualities and the process of burning purifies the air. Traditionally, Native American smudging rituals included rites of passage such as the Vision Quest and preparations to ceremonies such as the Sun Dance. There is much subtlety to this practice, and its potency reveals itself in the experience as you work with it.

The materials involved each have their own symbolic meaning, honoring one of the four elements, which is a common recognition among many Native American Americans.

The shell or clay bowl represents water
The herbs and resins represent the earth,
The feather and wind it creates represent air
The flame used to ignite the herbs represents fire

The herbs:

Sometimes only one specific herb is burned, but often a carefully prepared mixture is created. The most common herbs used for smudging among Native Americans are white sage, sweet grass, tobacco, and cedar. These are also four of the most sacred plants in this part of the world.

“Sweet grass grows high in the Rocky Mountains. A gift from the creator, it is said this grass never dies. It is one of the great smells reminding us of the mountains and open air. Sage is the cleanest smell of the desert. It is also a present from the Creator. Tobacco is another gift. Our thoughts and prayers are carried on its smoke. It carries the two great smells of the mountain and desert. It is a visual representation of our thoughts and prayers being transported.”
– John Joseph, Chinook Shaman

A Smoke Ceremony Practice To Try:

Have a pure and focused intention while you perform a smoke ceremony. Before you begin any purification ritual like this, make sure you’re fully present.

1) You’ll need: a clay bowl or abalone shell, a stick of wrapped herbs or a few leaves of your dried herb of choice (or a blend), a flame, and an open hand or feather.

2) Gently separate any stems or buds from the leaves of your dried herbs (only the leaves or blades are used in this process) if using loose leaf. Then place the leaves into your smoking vessel.

3) If you are inside, open the windows in the space you are in, creating a flow of air from outside.

4) Using a already lit candle, ignite the herbs and let them flame for 20 to 30 seconds before sweeping your hand above them to extinguish any fire. Tendrils of smoke should be steadily rising from the smoldering herbs now.

5) It is customary to cleanse oneself first before moving on to others and the surrounding space. Using a cupped hand, draw the smoke around you. Starting from the top, bring the smoke over and around your head, down your torso, all the way to your feet. Make sure to pay attention to your breathing while doing this. Slow and relaxed.

6) Once you are finished with yourself, use your feather or hand to waft the smoke gently into the corners of the room and over any plants or pieces of furniture. As we light spirit smoke, we need to be present and aware of how it moves from one place to the next.

7) Once you have finished your ceremony, tradition tells us that the ashes of the spent herb should be brought outside and returned to the soil. Many tribes believe that the charred residue carries its own energy and must be given back to the earth.

A Native Prayer you may borrow while smudging:
Creator, Great Mystery
Source of all knowing and comfort,
Cleanse this space of all negativity.
Open our pathways to peace and understanding.
Love and light fills each of us and our sacred space.
Our work here shall be beautiful and meaningful.
Banish all energies that would mean us harm.
Our eternal gratitude.
– The Medicine Wheel Garden, E. Barrie Kavasch

Order your Ascension Lifestyle Smoke Ceremony Kit today!

Each Complete Ceremony Kit contains:

• Large Abalone Shell

• Blue Sage with White Sage Stick (hand-wrapped with hemp twine and Ascension adornments)

• Ancient Cedar Stick (hand-wrapped with hemp string)

• Sweetgrass Stick (hand-wrapped with hemp string)

This collection of powerful plant medicines was put together with the purest high vibration intentions.

Sustainably Harvested Blue Sage with White Sage is for healing. Sage is used to bless, cleanse and heal the person or object being smoked. Sage is often used to metaphorically ‘wash off’ the outside world when entering the home or sacred space.

Cedar is a protection medicine. Trees are old, wise and powerful spirits and Cedar is often used to cleanse and protect a space when first moving in. You may use Cedar to respectfully ask unwanted spirits to leave and ask for protection for a person, place or object.

Smoke of the holy Sweetgrass (Seneca grass) is the breathe of Mother Earth. It’s rich, sweet, aromatic scent is an acknowledgement of the essence of the divine feminine and a reminder that Mother Earth provides us with everything we need.

Together this Ascension Smoke Ceremony Kit will purify, protect, cleanse and give thanks. It’s the perfect addition to your alter or spiritual space. $34 includes free priority shipping in the United States.

SOLD OUT

Orders will be processed within 3-5 businesses days and sent out via Priority Mail. You will receive a tracking number once the kit is shipped. Email Ascension with any questions.

07 Mar 2016
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Cry of the Millennial Witch

I feel a divide growing within the spiritual movement.It has been growing slowly, almost imperceptibly. Like a frog swimming in a pot of gradually boiling water that hasn’t realized the danger he’s in.Here it is, dare I say it: The realm of the mainstream spiritual has become shallow and dogmatic.

In an effort to reach divinity, enlightenment, and guru-status, we’ve banished and demonized the “negative” and the struggle of the human experience. We’ve lost touch with the glorious bittersweet medicine that our pain and suffering offers when truly acknowledged by the Self and the tribe, and subsequently integrated with compassion and love.

I tried. Fuck, I tried. I did the meditations, I did the training, I did the work. I focused on the positive, I focused on the light, I focused on letting go of my darkness. Just release, they said. Don’t even bring attention to what it is, they said, just release it. I advanced in my healing skills, in my awareness, in my intuition. I worked deeply with clients doing soul retrievals, secretly reveling in the shadow of the underworld. I knew that there were those in my spiritual community who did not approve of my work. But I worked anyways, because I saw how deeply I could connect with my clients. I saw and acknowledged their pain. I focused on the integration of their experience, rather than the denial of it. I cried tears of joy when I heard of how much my work was helping them heal themselves. And at the same time, I was jealous. Why wasn’t the work healing ME? Why wasn’t I feeling better? Why wasn’t MY shit releasing?

That growing awareness backfired. More and more, I felt I was wading in the shallow pond of the world while my spirit was so deeply imbedded in the dark muck of the earth, in a place no one wanted to look. I was not offering the same sense of acknowledgment to myself that I offered my clients. I was still trying to uphold the notion that I was supposed to be a certain way, that I was supposed to be zen and happy all the time if I was going to be a healer. But nothing was in balance. I didn’t feel real. I didn’t feel authentic to myself. I was trapped between the the worlds…I was too spiritually minded to be a muggle, but I wasn’t the right kind of spiritual for the actual spiritual community.

I am part of a generation of witches rising up to say Fuck it. A generation of witches that has been burned too many times, and refuses to silently wither away in the flames again.

Don’t bring your attention to the fire, they said. Just release it and let it go, they said.

But not this time. This time, we are taking those flames inside of us, acknowledging them and respecting them and feeling their searing pain, and letting them transform in our bellies so we may breathe out the fire of an awakened dragon. As awakened dragons, as millennial witches, as priestesses of the moon, as unpredictable beautiful bitches, as wild wolf women, we have a list of demands and decrees:

–Our sexuality will be honored as spiritual, sacred, divine, and primal. It is communication with the divine, it is a link between heaven and earth, it is pleasure for pleasure’s sake, it is the human experience. It is a force all its own and won’t be controlled or belittled.

-And yet, our spirituality will not be sexualized, fetishized, or infantilized. The Priestess is not a fetish. The days of gurus sexually manipulating and abusing the Goddess are SO over. We’re not buying what you’re selling. No one gets to tell us how pure or impure we are, and what makes us that way, and whether we need to change that or not.

-We don’t want our spirituality to taste like candy. We don’t want rainbows and unicorns and sugary sweet confections of relentless positivity and the law of attraction. We want our spirituality to taste like dark chocolate; deep, rich, a little bitter, a little sweet, sensual and complex. We want it real, we want it deep. We won’t accept anything less.

-Many of us swear. Like, we really swear. We fucking swear a fucking lot. Deal with it. What’s a witch who doesn’t curse? (Not to mention it’s good for your brain—google that shit.)

-We will not be shamed. For our sexuality, for our lifestyles, for our choices, for the shortage of fucks that we give. Our lives, our power, our choice. Get on board or get out.

-You will not tell us to simply “let go”, “clear”, or “release” our feelings and issues by way of ignoring them. We don’t just release; we integrate. We take our darkness and stew in it, letting our unique human experiences mingle with our divinity, creating a powerful form of alchemy that’s whole and complete. We know the light is only half of what makes us powerful. Once integration is complete, what is no longer needed naturally releases as a byproduct of the process.

-We do not live in binaries, so don’t categorize us in them. Don’t tell us what’s “good” and what’s “bad” because we know better than that. Don’t tell us to live in the light to banish our shadows. In fact, don’t tell us what we are or what we should do at all. We are fluid and becoming more so. Gender fluid, sexually fluid, socially fluid, spiritually fluid.

-We hold a deep respect for social and cultural issues. We won’t use “Namaste” as a substitute for “goodbye” just because it sounds spiritual. We won’t wear a bindi on our foreheads just because it’s cute. We won’t discount another’s experience and point of view just because it’s not ours. We realize that our individual path is not more important than an entire marginalized culture’s. We listen.

-“Omg I can’t say anything without someone getting offended and everything has to be sooooooo PC nowadays.” <—Nah. We don’t see it like this. We see a generation coming into their own, attempting to own their view of the world and how they’d like it to be. Clearly, there’s a growing outcry for more sensitivity and change. You could stubbornly fight it or try to understand why it’s happening. Change won’t happen without conversation, so be open to the conversation, even if you don’t see it the same way.

-Be aware when you respond to our feelings. There’s a tendency, when someone admits they are feeling something other than complete joy or satisfaction, to apologize and suggest ways to be rid of that feeling. F that noise. The only cure for feelings is to feel them. Completely. Sink into them and allow their wisdom to wash over you. We don’t wallow, but we do feel. Everything. We refuse to repress or push our feelings aside just because they make us (or you) uncomfortable. (P.S. We hardly think “You should meditate on it.” or “Have you tried going gluten free?” are appropriate responses to anything. And this is coming from someone who both meditates and is gluten free.)

-The second you use any of the new age buzzwords— manifesting abundance, the law of attraction, meditation, energy healing, authentic, etc etc— our discernment kicks the fuck in. It’s not that we don’t believe in manifestation and meditation and energy healing, we definitely do. Manifesting is our middle name. But without the realness of our human and divine darkness acknowledged by our teachers, coaches and mentors, the spiritual movement becomes oppressive and dogmatic dressed as light and love. And not to mention, manipulated for profit when the actual authenticity is not behind it, considering the growing trend. We will search you, hard, before we will work with you.

-Maybe the most important of all, we know that Truth is found in paradox. If it’s not a contradiction in itself, we are wary. If we are not contradictions in ourselves, we are not real.

We will not accept less than what we are. We will not be only partially ourselves because it’s prettier or happier. We will be gritty and raw and beautiful and whole. We love fiercely. Love is at the core of our beings, but we know that sometimes love is the awakened dragon burning down the bridges that no longer serve us.

Sincerely,

the witches you love and fear

**As nothing is just black or white, I acknowledge and appreciate the spiritual teachers and mentors in my life that have never oppressed me and have always wanted me to be myself. You know who you are and I thank you from the bottom of my fiery heart.

About the Author: Ora North

Leo sun. Scorpio moon. Writer. Photographer. Healer. Witch woman. Shadow dancer. Moon bather. Fire breather. Optimist. Fucking drama queen. Crystal wearer. Unapologetic empath. Lover of fuzzy animals, coffee and travel. Goddess of the Underworld. Secret Celtic mermaid.

You can find Ora at www.oranorth.com

04 Mar 2016
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The Cat Litter People – Getting In Touch With Your Inner Wildness

I’ve done a fair amount of pet sitting over the years. While at the home of one high-brow cat, I spent several days visiting various pet stores in search of a certain brand of cat litter that was odor-free and promised “superior clumping ability,” which was what I wanted according to the empty container I carried on my quest. (For the uninitiated, “clumping” is a euphemistic reference for how the cat’s deposits will interact with the litter, for easier disposal.)

I’m no stranger to synchronicity, yet it always amuses me greatly to see how Spirit uses “the subject at hand” for its teachings. So here I am, having successfully located a sister litter to the one the cat’s human prizes, spelunking gleefully in foreign bookshelves. (As a writer, the opportunity to peruse other people’s books is one of the joys of housesitting.) I fasten on a book with the intriguing title, Deep Play, by poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman. I de-clump the cat litter and settle down to read.

In Chapter Three, “Sacred Places,” I am astonished by the words, “…people seem desperate to clump and bunch, swarming all over each other in towns while most of the land lies empty.” Ackerman is describing her return to Phoenix after being succored by the Grand Canyon, contrasting the Canyon’s ineffable vastness with the matrix of human habitation. Yet what sprang immediately to my mind was: cat litter.

Terror of the Still Point

Human beings have superior clumping capability. As Ackerman so astutely observes, we long for proximity to one another. Yet we bemoan the intrusiveness we thus create, jetting off to remote isles and mountain retreats to renew ourselves in nature’s immense silence.

Perhaps we wouldn’t need to “retreat” if we understood how to advance. Personal evolution isn’t woven into the fabric of Western culture as it is among indigenous peoples; it’s something we must open to on our own. Most of us, having lost touch with the numinous, fear the wilderness within. We cluster noisily with our own kind to stave off this beckoning hunger.

The needs of the stomach come before the trip to the litter box, however. Fast food bows (or meows) to the life force in a carrot or a pear; asphalt makes way for rock-strewn paths. Having clumped and bunched with the best of them, at some point we set out in search of deep nourishment: the sense of the sacred that is everywhere. We seek it in distant landscapes until we learn to recognize it inside ourselves.

There is a defining moment, a dawning recognition (literally, to know again) of “what you know, before you know that you know.” For me, it came when, on a descent to the truth of my being, I began throwing my arms around trees and sobbing from the depths of my soul. I’d never done anything like this before, but it felt like they were hugging me back.

When you can allow yourself to surrender to your own “still, small voice” and behave in a similar manner (that is, following your inner guidance, even if you look like a fool) you begin your journey to wildness.

And then, whether you range across continents or remain in your own backyard (or hi-rise), you’ll know you’re forever free of the litter box. When you carry the replenishment and the release inside you — and know that you do — clumping and bunching becomes optional.

After all, there are no litter boxes in the wild.

###

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26 Feb 2016
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6 Illustrations That Show What It’s Like In An Introvert’s Head

This article first appeared on QuietRev.com,

illustrations by Liz Fosslein and Mollie West

Dear Extroverts,

We love your energy and excitement. But as introverts, we sometimes feel misunderstood. We wish you could visualize what’s going on inside our brains—you might be surprised! Here are six illustrations of what it’s like to be in our heads.

Sincerely,

Introverts

1. According to The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney, introverts have a longer neural pathway for processing stimuli. Information runs through a pathway that is associated with long term memory and planning. In other words, it’s more complicated for introverts to process interactions and events. As they process information, introverts are carefully attending to their internal thoughts and feelings at the same time.

2. According to studies by psychologist Hans Eysenck, introverts require less stimulation from the world in order to be awake and alert than extroverts do. This means introverts are more easily over-stimulated.

3. The flip side of introverts’ sensitivity to dopamine is that they need less of it to feel happy. Extroverts’ brains run on an energy-spending nervous system, whereas introverts’ brains run on an energy-conserving nervous system. This is why introverts feel content and energized when reading a book, thinking deeply, or diving into their rich inner world of ideas.

4. Introverts’ brains aren’t as strongly rewarded for gambling or taking risks as extroverts’ brains are. The brain’s reward and pleasure system is activated by dopamine neurotransmitters. Scientists found that extroverts’ brains responded with more pleasure to positive gambling results. In other words, introverts feelless excitement from surprise or risk.

5. The introvert’s brain treats interactions with people at the same intensity level that it treats encounters with inanimate objects. Introverts process everything in their surroundings and pay attention to all the sensory details in the environment, not just the people.

6. As introverts are thinking, they reach back into long-term memory to locate information. An introvert will often compare old and new experiences when making a decision, which slows the processing down but leads to carefully thought-out decisions.This means that introverts have an active dialogue with themselves and usually walk around with many thoughts in their minds.

This article originally appeared on QuietRev.com.

You can find more insights from Quiet Revolution on work, life, and parenting as an introvert at QuietRev.com. Follow Quiet Revolution on Facebook and Twitter.