Hello Beloved!!!!!
I am wishing you the sweetest of days, however you spend it and whatever it means to you. I see all days as a holy day or night; it’s never a bad time to take a breath and appreciate what is before us. This is a special time that we are in, the few weeks after solstice. We are still in the deep dark but now the tide has turned and the light is growing. It’s a powerful time to treasure the tender soft light in the deep vulnerable depths of the dark.
Below I have a video introducing basic meditation theory and guidance, and then insights for the empath navigating such a potent time with a guided meditation for cleansing and blessing our selves from the inside out.
For those of us who want to settle ourselves in the face of this amazing and challenging time of incarnation, madness and wonderment I have an offering I am calling the Bone Breathing Meditation. It’s really useful for resetting, clearing your stress or, if you’re an empath, clearing everyone else’s stress that you take in.
Here’s the thing about being an empath in this season of the Festival of Lights- we have festivals because it is actually dark as shit.
In the dark is where we stash the scary stuff. Pain, repressed grief and anger, unacknowledged desires (because if we acknowledge them we think we might lose some or every thing important) aka fears, nothingness, emptiness, and our power. The dark is also a place where we place things we love for safe keeping, the things that have no limitations, profound love and unconditional acceptance. A place that begs for celebration.
The season of light in the darkness means we are spiritually and sometimes literally going into the darkest places and then starting a party, a party of light with witnesses and bonfires, eggnog and candles. It’s an extremely uncomfortable time. Our instincts are simultaneously telling us to hide under the covers and shut out and turn off all things and at the same time to invite everyone we know over and bake cookies, tell stories, confess secrets and call up old friends.
It’s a paradoxical wisdom ripe for healing.
Go dark, do deep, isolate (in the best healthy kind of way) and then reveal it all in a prayer of love and perhaps even community.
Awesome, sweet, and kinda horrible-feeling at moments.
Now! For empaths, as I was saying, this is double trouble or double treasure, because we are feeling everyone else’s darkness, and their conflict in addition to our own! It’s a pressure cooker for healing. So being with people who haven’t cultivated the skills or practices to optimize the healing opportunity can be a tough time. Here’s a reminder of some skill and viewpoints to help at times like these:
~ the faith and confidence to go through pain (instead of avoiding, numbing, or projecting)
~ slow down and breathe
~ put your hand on your heart and silently or allowed pray “HELP”
You’ve got your own healing up and on the move. BLESSINGS! And you’ve got the sensations and vibrations of everyone’s else’s passing through you too. Woo Hoo! ish……
The best way to make sure their beautiful sacred healing mess doesn’t stick to you is to make sure you are filling up with YOU! SatNam. Truest self. You can do this a million +1 ways, and the Bone Breathing Meditation is another one for your basket of tools. It’s 12 minutes because my dad taught me that research shows it only takes 12 minutes a day to get the stress reduction benefits of mindfulness based meditation (bonus knowledge it doesn’t even need to be all at one time. So you could just do 3 minutes 4 times a day).
Bone Breathing Meditation (No Music)
Bone Breathing Meditation (with Peace Now Mantra)
Remember sweets, when you feel shitty or awesome (and especially when it’s a combo) you are not alone. We get in this and through this together.
For instance, my marriage is having a subtle yet deeply profound makeover from the inside out as we are looking at the coping mechanisms that have worked for so long but at a cost. It’s beautiful and loving and man oh man is it scary. I mean we both are choosing to give up some major attachments to make space for the love and joy we want. Those attachments have done what all coping does, kept us alive. Here in the dark with my candles I can see how far surviving is from thriving.
I choose to give up who I was so as to become who I am.
2016 is going to rock. I can feel my whole being preparing for this time. Breathing and choosing moment by moment to say yes to evolution, release what was with blessings and thanksgiving while turning and walking boldly forward into the loving world we are creating, if we are brave enough to accept that we are the ones creating it.
***and yay! an Oracle Deck Update (talk about adventures in vulnerability):
I have 39 cards, that means I think I have 21 to go. I’m talking to printers, and 
preparing a Kickstarter campaign. It’s a very exciting time. My goal moved from thanksgiving to New Years, I’m hoping still to finish the deck by 2016 though that is seeming less and less likely. I am not pressuring myself. I realized it doesn’t help me paint, and like most things the cards and I are on a mutual journey, so we both need to be in connection and ready to have them happen. It’s a beautiful process really.
I love you dearly,
The journey of giving up the stress-machine habit is better with company. The spiritual awakening, the making the world we want to be in, is well… it’s just SO much better together. So thanks for being a part of the team!
Love and sacred prayers and light to you.
Sophia
PS: Learn one of my insights on Jesus with this post about unicorns. I wish you a Merry Christmas.
