In the spiritual world, we often hear that more challenging emotions like anger and pain are somehow wrong or something to be ashamed of.

Nothing can be further from the truth!

These are significant, useful emotions.

If you know how to use them right.

First of all, I'm not saying that it is okay to rage out addictively or be abusive in any way, to anyone, ever.

I'm talking about USING these emotions INSIDE of yourself to actually do something that needs to be done, not letting them make you sick by suppressing them, and also not damaging your relationships because you act like a lunatic...

What are anger and pain good for?
They show you when something in your life is out of balance.

Anger, the kind that rises up in you with hot, focused force and makes you want to do something about it. 
Pain, the kind that feels unjust and icky and inflamed and like it needs something DONE about it too - not the kind you wait out and it fades away, but the kind that grows with time, begging to be acted upon.

Anger and pain are meant to be the POWER you need to change things in your life that no longer fit.

There's no judgment needed about WHY these things no longer fit - maybe you've outgrown an old part of your life that was once your dream come true. Maybe you're only now admitting something to yourself that didn't feel quite right before this, but you didn't want to "rock the boat" if conditions weren't excruciating...

... I know that may sound funny, but it's how many, many people operate ...

So, when the types of anger and pain come up that feel like action is needed,
Usually the kind of action needed here is DESTRUCTIVE.

Again, destruction is not a BAD thing! How do you think the tiny microscopic mold colony on the back of your water faucet feels every time you clean your kitchen? It's apocalyptic to them! That's definitely destruction. But when clean up is needed, destruction is part of the process.

Just this week, Lillithia caught a case of the fleas from some of our travels into the city. I've been chasing her around with a fine toothed comb for days, a wet paper towel in my other hand, drawing the little biters out of her sleek black coat, covering them with the wet cloth and then drowning them in a container of soapy water.
It breaks my heart to see them struggling underneath the paper towel I set them into the water with, trying to reach the surface...
Every part of my empathic, sensitive self wants to not let this creature die, to let him live, but I can't. I haven't figured out a loophole for this one yet. Even mosquitoes I will catch in a jar and put outside - but when it comes to fleas and my beautiful familiar, I have no other option, as yet. They can't go outside because they'll just jump back on her, and not only infest her, but infest my home. They have to die.
That is such destruction!
But it is necessary.

See where I'm getting here?

Just below is a video where I'll talk more about the actual technique of how to flow the energies of anger and fear to give yourself (and whoever is at the other end of this ouchy connection) a break from the drama. 
The greatest thing about this technique is that the love remains. Just the yucky stuff gets burned away. 

Try it out, the next time it's needed for you, and see what happens.
​Sending love from South Carolina <3

For the first month, I felt my brain restructuring. I couldn't even think about work - any time my mind would move in that direction, I felt a foggy, uncomfortable sensation in the frontal lobes of my brain. I knew that whatever was happening in there was right on schedule. I could feel the symbolic "under construction, do not enter" signs posted on the gateways of my work-oriented mind. I had to trust it. I had no other option anyway.

For the second month, I began to gently rebuild, letting myself be guided by inspiration. My goal is always to tune in to the world around me and help in whatever ways I can, to give what is needed in ways that I am effective and enlivened in the doing.

And so now, fresh out of the sabbatical, I find that yes, I am just as esoteric as ever, but that I have an entirely new understanding of the way I want my work in the world to look, feel, and generally just be. 

Back on the east coast again I ran away with a couple of kindred spirits to go camping in the woods for a few days. I read recently that "forest bathing" is all the rage in the health world across the globe from where I live, and I love that term. It fits. Forest bathing really does help with so many things. So does hanging out with soul family and, again, NOT tuning in to the internet.

Now that I'm back, I will definitely be approaching my online work in a new way. The internet "withdrawal" passed within the first week or two of my Sabbatical, and it is so lovely to interact on a deeper level with my here-and-now, physically present reality. I do love our technological age, it's true, but I love even more the fullness of experience.

So a new dance begins, as of today, where I intend to be present and helpful online, and in person, in new ways.

Of course I still want to connect and be around my internet family. Taking time away has also shown me how lucky we are to live in an age where we can have virtual communities that can hold our hearts and feed our minds in this new way that we've only been able to access for a few years.

And sometimes, on the other hand, I want to completely disconnect from pixelated screens and let my body be just as "real" to me. Being online too much turns us into floating brains and eyes and fingertips. There is a whole, rich, delicious world calling to us to play in it, to love it, to heal it, and to cultivate it, outside of our computers and smart phones.

Here's to doing all of the above.

It's good to be back.