Intention

Enhanced Cacao Journals: Bad Trip or Hard Journey?

~ Nicole Gnutzman

Every once in a while someone asks about “bad trips” or shares they have experienced one in the past–always without a guide and usually in a discordant environment–and is a bit fearful of a deep journey. I always share that I personally don’t believe in bad trips, only in bad preparation and intention.

The first rule for a safe journey (I prefer that word over trip, which has a certain connotation) is that set and setting and the sacred matter. Second, sitting with an experienced guide matters. Third, having an inward, closed-eye journey with curated music, matters. Fourth, the medicine you take matters. Fifth, having an intention matters. And lastly, knowing (and using) the empowering techniques that can support you when it gets hard matters.

Journeys are not meant to be easy. Sorry, if you’re looking for a quick fix. When held as a sacred, inward journey, they illuminate, clarify, release, resolve and heal. When a client has done the work to prepare, is open and curious, and comes with a pure intention, the journey can be joyful, healing and profound. Deep journeys allow for cathartic release, radical clarity and deep healing, all of which are necessary and can be a bit messy. When held as sacred and safe, with an experienced guide, the journey may be hard, but it will never be bad.

Let’s go a bit deeper on each requirement for a positive, healing journey and outcomes.

Set and Setting

Michael Pollan in his book, How to Change Your Mind, echoes and emphasizes the importance of set and setting, which other researchers and writers before and since have called out as critical to a positive healing outcome. Set means mindset. How you go into the journey with your mind matters. Are you curious and open or skeptical and closed? You must be able to suspend your disbelief and see the experience with eyes of wonder, not cynicism. Have you done research to inform yourself and ease your mind with creating unrealistic expectations? Remember you will receive what you need not what you want to what someone else has experienced. Has your guide provided an orientation session to answer questions and share how they hold the space, so your mind can rest? The mind is powerful and wants to control the experience and get its own way, but it will only get in the way. Prepare yourself, so it won’t. And if it still does, then there’s more work to do….

Setting is about comfort, feeling safe physically and being held in the sacred. Is the setting warm, inviting and comfortable? Do you feel safe there? Is it private? Are you away from distractions and interruptions? Do you have everything you need: extra blankets, water, eye mask, comfort items? Your journey space should feel like a retreat from the world. Sacred space feels different; it’s as if you have crossed a threshold and entered another world where the energy feels clear and clean and safe. You feel held in the sacred. To support that feeling, your guide may create an altar designating and honoring sacred space and clear the space energetically. Set, setting and the sacred matter.

A Guided Journey

Going on a journey alone, even if you have sat with a guide before, is not recommended unless you are very experienced or are a guide yourself. A deep journey is not an out-in-nature or at-a-concert or with-friends-at-a-party experience; it is an inward-looking experience, which may be and feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable. It is a new, unknown, inner terrain to be explored, not feared.

Ultimately, a guide is not just there to make you feel comfortable; they are there to hold the space, so you can go deep safely. If they have embodied wisdom, deep listening skills and compassion (you will feel it), trust that your guide knows this world well. This deep embodied presence only comes from deep self-healing, direct experience and supporting clients through their own.

I hold space so safely that I have even had former clients share that they called me in virtually and energetically to be “with” them on a journey where I was not present, and in which they felt fearful. One is a psychotherapist and was on a solo journey without a guide and thought he was “dying” (thankfully only metaphorically); and the other was in a large group experience, but had been given such powerful medicine, he lost all sense of himself. My “presence” was able to support both of them during their hard journey. A guide with whom you feel safe matters.

Inward Journey

Clinical studies have proven that positive and sustained healing and therapeutic outcomes are directly related to two conditions for the journey: 1) a closed eye experience, and 2) curated music with a journey arc.

A deep, inward journey with eyes closed allows for interoception–where you have access to and awareness of your inner state of being. Studies reveal that interoception may be deeply connected to consciousness. It’s the ultimate mind-body reconnection. A psychedelic journey may even be able to resolve interoceptive imbalances such as anxiety. An eyes open experience–exteroception–does not allow for this awareness as it is a different form of perception acting on different brain receptors. Closing your eyes matters deeply.

Music on your journey is also critical to the experience and not just any music. An inward journey has an arc–a descent as obstacles are faced and emotions are felt and released, and then an emergence from the depths with new wisdom and insight–and the music follows this arc deliberately. It echoes the mythological hero’s journey as described by Joseph Campbell. The music that is most supportive is sacred–indigenous songs and native instruments, chanting and mantra, not heavy metal or electronica.

Most clients love my music playlists and every once in a while one doesn’t like a particular song. I share that they aren’t meant to “like” the songs; the music has a purpose beyond their own preferences and there may a deeper message in them not liking it. If they are focused on the music or taken out of their journey because of it, then their awareness isn’t on their inward journey and they may be avoiding going deeper. I gently suggest they bring their awareness back to the journey. An inward focus and music matter.

The Medicine

Not every sacred medicine is the same. With psilocybin, like other earth and plant medicines, there are strains or varieties. Some strains are great for a purely psychedelic experience and good for recreational, eyes open experiences; others are good for micro-dosing; and some are more embodied, which is perfect to support emotional release, energy clearing and healing outcomes. Some strains are super powerful and can support breakthrough experiences, which should only be shared with more experienced clients, who are familiar with inner work and integration. The strain matters. Dosage matters. The consciousness of the growers matters. The wrong medicine in the wrong context and with the wrong dosage is how “bad” trips came to be labeled as such. The medicine matters.

Intention Setting

Entering a journey experience without an intention is like saying “bring everything you have,” which can simply be overwhelming or tells the medicine you aren’t serious about healing and holding the experience as sacred. The medicine is wise and knows your underlying intention. If all you are looking for is an experience, then perhaps a healing journey is not for you.

If you are serious and true, it’s best to have a focused intention that asks to release whatever is in the way of healing and to receive what you want to live into. This focus acts as a map or a guidepost and allows you to more fully receive, understand and integrate the message. Now, as I’ve shared before, the medicine brings you what you most need, not necessarily what you want, which can be two very different things. While it’s important to have an intention as it provides direction and focus, it’s equally as important to let go of the expectation of how it shows up or of the outcomes. Letting go of expectation helps in avoiding disappointment. Intention truly matters.

Empowerment Techniques

In a previous post, I shared that plant medicine has a consciousness and is trying to find a way to communicate with you. A journey does not have to be a passive experience where you only receive; it can be an active conversation that empowers you in your own healing.

If the messages are coming in too fast, then ask the medicine to slow down. If the messages are coming in a form you cannot understand or are too dark, then say, “I want to receive the message, can you bring it in another form?” It’s almost like changing a TV channel; it’s pretty amazing how responsive the medicine is. And you can always open your eyes to pause the inward journey (like a commercial break). The world will look pretty normal once you open your eyes. But remember, the healing outcomes come from looking inside. Empowered communication matters.

A healing journey requires being courageous and brave; open and willing; curious, engaged and empowered. Your journey may be deep, even a bit dark, and most certainly hard, but it never has to be a bad trip if you hold it and perceive it as safe and sacred. If you truly want to change or open your mind, or at least your perception, that starts even before the journey begins….

©Soulscape Coaching LLC

Enhanced Cacao Journals: Ego Dissolution

~ Nicole Gnutzman

“Could it be that the rational mind destroys the soul?” –from the film, The Next Three Days

I recently watched the film, The Next Three Days with Russell Crowe and in it, he shares the above quote in his college class discussion about the book, Don Quixote. He speaks to the “triumph of irrationality” over trying to be in control.

Many come to a healing session to get unstuck. They realize how much they are “in their heads” and not in their bodies. By allowing their rational mind to take over, they have become disconnected from their body, from their feelings, from their heart and soul. Without conscious permission, they have given their mind almost absolute control. And we know what absolute power can do….

While that may seem a little dramatic, it’s a hard truth. One that I know only too well. Once the mind is in control, it does not want to let go. It colors everything pretty much black and white or shades of grey. Stark or dull. The mind understands the rational and analytical. Duality, polarity and compartmentalizing become the default perspective and a limiting system of belief.

Caught in our minds and stuck in the ingrained grooves of our neural pathways, we repeat the same patterns and behaviors over and over again. Nothing changes until we become aware that we are stuck and why, and then choose to come back into wholeness. I read somewhere that 80% of change is awareness; the last 20% is hard work.

Some, who also are caught in their heads, but aren’t aware they are actually stuck, have as their intention to experience “ego dissolution,” often after having read Michael Pollan’s book or watched his docuseries. Ego dissolution is associated with experiencing being part of something larger than ourselves or feeling a sense of oneness, which is also known as the transcendental. They believe this is what they are missing; and once they have experienced it, they will have more meaning in their lives and see life in a new way.

They also tend to be quite attached to their rational minds and it may not really be their intention to change, even though Pollan’s book is called, How to Change your Mind, lol! They see their potential experience of the transcendental as somehow purely additive.

However, with mind-body separated and not integrated, they are fragmented. And if they are fragmented in their very being, the experience of the transcendental or oneness is a concept outside of themselves. Objectively viewable, but not personally attainable.

Psychedelics can provide a glimpse of the transcendental; however, it remains elusive and external to one’s sense of self unless and until that experience is fully embodied. So, how do you make it personal and embody it? Well, you need an embodied experience.

Unlike some psychedelics, which are known to fairly reliably provide a glimpse of the transcendental, plant medicine, including certain strains of psilocybin, provide a more embodied experience of it.

Plant medicines, which have a consciousness, are also tricksters and teachers, and may choose to provide a purely transcendental experience or they may bring you a full-bodied experience of ego dissolution, also known as “ego death” in the plant medicine realm. On that journey, the medicine may show you that you have some healing and releasing to do to come back into your body. Resisting this re-embodiment can be uncomfortable, so it’s best to allow it and move through the discomfort.

The experience of ego dissolution/death can take many forms: your entire body may become one with the universe/cosmos; dissolve into light and return to the stars or become mulch for the earth; or be dismembered or swallowed by a snake or another animal; or some other permutation of disintegration, which can be terrifying because it is asking you to totally let go of control. And our mind/ego does not like that…. Ego dissolution is not all love and light and transcendence.

Master plants are teachers and healers. Learning a lesson from them is neither linear nor easy. The master teacher wants you to have an actual embodied sense of ego dissolution/death instead of an out-of-body experience of it. Ego death asks for full surrender. You are taken apart–disintegrated, dissolved, disembodied–and put back together–reintegrated, resolved, re-embodied–in a new way.

It may sound scary, but it’s actually tremendously liberating. When you have died metaphorically enough times, not much scares or controls you anymore. Your mind is no longer in control as you become more fully embodied and connected to the Universe, Source, the Divine, Oneness; and ultimately to your own divinity. To face death (even if it’s just your ego) is to feel truly alive.

©Soulscape Coaching LLC

The Cacao Journals Plus: Umleitung?

~ Nicole Gnutzman

Years ago, an ex-boyfriend and I took my mother on holiday to Germany, where she was born and lived until she was 25. One day, on the trip, we were driving our tiny little rental car and saw a sign that said, Umleitung. Neither of us understood what it meant, so we asked my mother and she repeated the word, “Umleitung.” I asked her again what it was in English and she responded, “Umleitung.” By now, we were thoroughly confused and getting worried. I quickly realized she thought she was saying it in English, lol, and all three of us cried out at the same time, “Detour!” and made a sharp turn at the last sign. Good thing we figured out the translation and followed the sign!

I tell my clients when they share that their intention is to have more of something in their lives, how beautiful that intention is and that with sacred medicine, it may take you on a detour first because you can’t get from where you are to where you want to be on a direct route. If you could, you would be there already, right? Makes sense, but it doesn’t mean the road is without bumps.

Recognizing we are being taken on a detour, accepting it and trusting we will get to our destination is a key part of the journey. On the detour there are feelings to be felt, patterns and beliefs to be seen for what they are and stuck energies to be released. To reach a beautiful destination, sometimes we have to spend time in a remote and desolate place. Even in the desert there’s an oasis we can’t yet see; and we have walk in the unrelenting sun to get there….

Whatever state of being you are needing or wanting to release, the medicine may bring you face to face with it. It’s like looking into an inner mirror. The medicine knows you are ready to face it or it wouldn’t present it to you or take you there. It asks you to look at it directly, see it and work with and through it. Doing anything other than that is what we call “by-passing.” If you refuse to relinquish control of the journey and decide to create your own inner detour, you will get stuck in a roundabout, going around in endless circles with no exit.

When clients come to a session feeling depressed or anxious, the medicine may push them farther into that feeling during or even afterwards to confront it, work through it by trusting the medicine and integrate the feelings and learnings. None of this is easy work, but when it’s done, it’s profoundly healing.

Clients, after healing sessions, most often feel tender, tired and a bit raw because they have released stuck energies, felt and integrated deep feelings, and begun to smooth the grooves of old patterns, habits and beliefs. Many feel much better the day after and by the third day are in the “afterglow” of clarity, open awareness and lightness of being. They feel and experience the healing outcomes fairly quickly and directly.

However, some may feel stuck in a transitional, liminal space because the medicine is still working with them; they feel ungrounded and low, and worry that their depression and anxiety have not been (and will not be) alleviated. I always say to them, “be patient and trust the medicine;” it knows what it’s doing.

Everyone is on their own personal journey and their own integration path and timing. Trust that the liminal phase will pass. Notice everything over the first days and in the coming weeks. Keep your state of awareness open by noticing how you are different and what’s showing up or not in your life, and learning to pause and know you are always at choice. These intentional, conscious practices are vital to your healing outcomes and will be conscious until they become unconscious and are the new healthy habit.

You may need additional integration support with a coach or therapist, micro-dosing and/or working with cacao as a daily practice, during your transition, so you can begin to integrate and embody the state of being you are seeking. 

So, on your journey, remember to notice the signs, follow the guided detour and trust it will take you to your destination safely. While it may not be the scenic route or the easiest, it is the healing one.

©Soulscape Coaching LLC

The Cacao Journals: Integration & Innerstanding

~ Nicole Gnutzman

I am on fire about this topic and there aren’t too many things I get fired up about, so if I am more direct than usual, that’s why…. This fire deep in my belly arose after a potential client asked, “When does it not work?” I clarified by asking, “Do you mean the journey experience itself or after?” “After,” he said. Without hesitation, I shared, “When clients don’t do their integration work.”

A journey on its own can be a breakthrough experience; however, it only becomes truly transformative when it’s been integrated and informs a client’s behavior and actions. When a client interprets what they received and allows it to inform their choices with conscious intention, then it goes beyond just an experience. A friend in this space has called this “innerstanding”, which aptly captures how integration is about inhabiting the space within and living into it.

As Dr. John Churchill said in his recent podcast with Aubrey Marcus, post journey, we want to move from “state to trait development” and evolve our ego development, which requires integration. Otherwise, it’s just an experience like going to the amusement park; it may be entertaining, thrilling or even frightening, but it doesn’t change your life. If you want an illuminating and transformative experience, you need to innerstand and integrate what you received.

Not surprisingly, most clients do not know how to do this on their own. A few may because they have done some deep inner work already; others, with integration support, can find their way; and the rest, who choose not to receive or ask for support, are left wandering in the space of un-integration–where they go back to exactly the way they were–or even disintegration–where they can’t go back because they have let go of old patterns (come undone) and do not know how to consciously create the new patterns they want to live into on their own.

So, not only is a journey guide necessary to the actual experience, integration coaching as part of the overall process is vital. This is why my sessions include an integration call after always. Now, not every client chooses to have the call, which is where things can get tricky for them.

Integration involves not just capturing the experience in some way through voice memos, journaling, drawing and reflection; it is a deep exploratory and discovery process that requires decoding, translation and analysis to fully receive, understand and live into what has been “communicated.”

The reason it requires this level of under/innerstanding is that while the language of the experience can be almost glaringly truthful, it is not always so literal and direct. Sometimes, tricksterism may even be involved, where the message may be deeper than first thought or even inverted. Our plant allies can be jokesters and have a robust sense of humor!

Just like in a dream, your experience may involve symbolism and imagery, metaphor and archetypes, shadow aspects, and even word play. Nothing may be exactly as it seems and requires translation. Most clients don’t know what they don’t know.

The pitfalls of not going deeper and not fully understanding the message can show up in a myriad of ways: 1) nothing changes even though that’s what the client desired in their intention, 2) stuff shows up (usually as triggers) that the client does not know what to do with and falls back into old reactive behaviors, 3) the ego (or spiritual ego) gets inflated and behavior driven by that inflation creates disturbances in their life, seemingly out of their control. Without conscious practices, integration coaching and tools, life can get old and messy pretty quickly.

My co-facilitators and I are realizing more and more the vital importance and impact of pre and post inner work on healing/therapeutic outcomes. More soon on the supportive pathways and practices we’re going to be sharing.

©Soulscape Coaching LLC

The Cacao Journals: Inhabiting the Space Within

~ Nicole Gnutzman

When you go on an inward journey with ceremonial cacao or psychotropic plant medicines, you may enter a state of being you’ve never or rarely experienced before. You may actually feel inhabited by unconditional love or bliss or expansiveness as it takes over your entire being. And you may find that you want to stay in that moment because it feels so amazing.

This exalted state of being is usually reached after whatever needs to be seen and felt, and released and even transmuted, makes more space within to fully receive that state of being. An emptying of the “old” before filling with the “new”.

Although there are certainly times, when the medicine seduces you, gets right to it and gives you the state of being you are seeking as an amuse bouche. Hey love, it says, here’s something really yummy, our “chef” made just for you….

I’ve seen clients get seduced by the medicine in this way and what happens next is ego inflation/grandiosity, expectation building and attachment to the journey experience if the client does not balance the experience with gratitude and humility for what has been received and continues to work with the medicine. The medicine’s intention is to bring you into greater and deeper understanding of your true self and your connection to source/spirit/universe.

Clients, who don’t do the integration work, either go on with their lives as is, wondering weeks or months later why nothing has changed and they are even more stuck; or think they need to come back to a journey again (and again) to re-experience the state of being as if it is eluding their grasp (it is).

In most cases, on their next journey, they are given an entirely different experience, which is often the flip dark side of the exalted state, and is a sign that the medicine is playing with them and their expectations. Amuse bouche, haha, now here’s something dark and stinky for you to digest. There is no light without the darkness and vice versa.

The medicine is wise beyond measure. Your mind or ego are no match for it. It will get you every time; that’s part of the message and lesson. Just when you think you’ve got it, it has you….

In either case, given freely or with deep release, the intention of the gift–the inhabited feeling–is that it be integrated and embodied in life, outside of the journey experience. So, how do you do that? With conscious intention.

You can call the feeling back into your awareness by imagining it (the mind is a powerful thing) or in silent meditation where you fill the space of stillness within you with the feeling, allowing you to re-experience and re-inhabit it.

For those of you who are “mind” people, use your powerful imagination! Envision it to feel it, just like a professional athlete imagines their successful race, so it’s imprinted in their body’s response.

Doing this consciously creates an inner knowing and trust that the state of being from your journey experience was real and is not elusive. Little by little as you revisit the space within, it stays, dislodging the old state of being and its associated patterns, beliefs and stuck energy.

As you inhabit this state of being consciously, it will become your new, healthy unconscious pattern. When you slip out of it, which does happen in this crazy human experience, you will know how to get back to it quickly. Now, this does not mean you will feel peace, bliss or joy all the time, but they become the foundation, the ground of your being, as you feel everything without succumbing to numbing or suppressing the energy. Allow the feelings to come and go as your inner state of being remains steady and steadfast.

That inner state of being will begin to reflect your outer and will also support you in navigating chaos or dissonance with more ease and grace and flow. Allow the amuse bouche to fill and nourish your inner space.

©Soulscape Coaching LLC

The Cacao Journals: Exploring “Too Muchness”

~ Nicole Gnutzman ~ 2 Comments

Hola! I am writing this from Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. A magical place of supportive, nourishing energy mixed with the raw power of Mama Ocean and miles of gorgeous, white sandy beaches; vast desert with cacti and arroyos (natural gullies for rain overflow); underground aquifers and palm tree groves; and majestic mountains with the softest morning light. A beautiful balance and integration of feminine and masculine energies and power. One that is inspiring and unleashing my creativity. Hence the forthcoming blog posts after a very long hiatus!

Recently, my female clients have brought two themes into my awareness: one is the concept of “too muchness” and the other is feminine embodiment. Both are hot and sometimes confronting topics…so I thought I would write about them in two separate posts.

Let’s begin with “too muchness.” Women (never men it seems), who have expressive personalities and energy, are often given the “too much” label. More often than not, the person triggered by the so-called “too muchness” energy, has work to do around their own energy, boundaries and ability to express themselves. The question for them is this: “Why am I being triggered by someone who is in their full expression?”

Perhaps what they are seeing is a mirror either of their own inner sense of “too littleness” or even their own “too muchness.” Ironically, “too much” people don’t always appreciate other “too muchness.” The larger questions when we are triggered are, “How am I in relationship with/to: 1) my own energy, 2) How do I express my energy? and 3) How is it received in the world?”

Sitting with these questions and observing your reactions may support you in feeling less triggered by others’ energy, raise your awareness and allow you to choose to respond differently.

Now, let’s look at it from another perspective…. This one may feel more confronting for those who believe that there is no such thing as “too muchness” and that we are to live into our full expression always and everyone else just needs to get over it!

A recent female client, who shared she was often accused of “too muchness” said that she didn’t want to dim her “light.”

We all want to show up in our light–as the essence of who we truly are–and to be seen, received and accepted unconditionally. It is not about dimming our light, but shining our true, pure one.

This brought up for me the questions of “What kind of light are you shining?” “Where is it coming from?” “And how is it being received?” Self awareness of where our light is coming from and how we are showing up in the world can be clarifying and illuminating.

Here are few possible scenarios of how our light can show up when it’s felt and received as “too muchness”:

*If the light is a spotlight on the other person, which shows up as insatiable curiosity, questioning and a need to know, that can be intense and energetically draining for the other person.

*If the light is a flashlight or headlamp shining inward on another person, which shows up as deep questioning of their inner world, that can be too intimate and energetically draining for them.

*If the light is super bright and blinding, which shows up as full on expression, but with little to no perception of or interest in the other person, that can be seen as self-absorbing, disconnecting and energetically draining.

The key word in all of this is “draining.” Pure light illuminates and energizes; it does not deplete energy.

The purest intention in shining and sharing your light is not only about being seen and accepted for who you truly are; but also about allowing others to feel that you truly see them, which brightens and strengthens their light.

Feel into that for a moment. Your light can illuminate theirs. And their light will strengthen yours. It’s a beautiful interchange of energy and light, and ultimately love.

The light that comes from pure, unconditional love illuminates another’s.

When you perceive that your light may be draining or depleting others, the questions to ask yourself are, “Where is my light coming from? And more deeply, “What is my true, underlying intention and motivation for shining my light?”

If it is coming from one of these places of deep unconscious need, it will inevitably dim other’s light and deplete their energy:

*need for validation: seeking love and acceptance

*attention seeking: seeking to be seen and heard

*conditionality: shining your light only when you receive what you want/need from another person and turning it off when you don’t; your light is conditional.

Now, all of this can be confronting or illuminating, depending on your willingness and capacity to sit and reflect on how you share and express your light and how it is received.

Do you make others shine? Be the light of luminous love and you will.

©Soulscape Coaching LLC.

The Cacao Journals: Wo-Manifestation

~ nicole

Unlocking your intuition means that you can stop chasing your desires and allow them to freely flow to you. – The Alchemy of Miracles

Last December, I was sitting in meditation and suddenly a “voice” dropped into my awareness out of nowhere that said, “You need to go to the Modern Elder Academy.” I paused and wondered why this message was coming to me now. I first had heard about MEA when an acquaintance mentioned it in the spring after she had attended their beta program. At the time, she said, “Nicole, you would absolutely love it there and you could offer cacao ceremony.” I was intrigued, looked up MEA and the founder, Chip Conley, and was impressed; and then pretty much forgot about it until my meditation many months later.

Surprised by the message, I checked in that I actually wanted to go, and then said, “Okay, Spirit, I would love to go, and I need your help financially. If you want me to go, then help make it happen.” I’m not even sure if I said “Please.” I gave it over to spirit and released any expectation. Two days later, I received an email from a women’s co-working space where I’m a member saying that they had been approached by MEA, which wanted to offer a full scholarship to one of its members. A written application and 5-minute video on why I wanted to attend had to be submitted by the NEXT day! I jumped on it. Long story short, I was accepted and was invited to share cacao ceremony (without me even asking). I was overjoyed and so grateful, especially to spirit for her guidance and assistance.

I told this story to a friend, an intuitive and clairvoyant, and she said, “That’s how manifestation is showing up now. It’s more feminine, a more receptive way of manifesting.” This way of manifesting requires opening to intuitive guidance, acknowledging the message that comes into our awareness, asking for help, releasing any expectation of how it might show up and acting when something does. It feels softer and more guided than conscious, intentional manifestation.

When I shared this miracle of manifestation at one of my cacao medicine journeys, one of the conscious men, who had bravely joined a room full of soul sisters, coined it, “wo-manifestation.” Everyone laughed and loved it (and him). Manifestation has gone all feminine on us….

Since then, my wo-manifestation powers seem heightened. In my most recent experience, again in meditation, I felt guided and found myself saying, “I’d really like to work for that company in some capacity.” Two days later, their business manager contacted me and asked me to join their team on a part-time contract basis, which was in perfect alignment.

When we open to the “suggestions” of our intuition and higher guidance, we become co-creators of our lives and come into alignment with our highest self. We always have the option to say “No, thank you” if the suggestion is too far beyond where we are or what we want to bring into our lives. Or we can say, “Yes, I trust that this is meant to come through me.” It doesn’t mean there won’t be challenges along the way to test our commitment and faith.

Eventually, the more we come into full alignment with our higher self, manifestation begins to takes on a whole other evolutionary design, but that’s for another post…. In the meantime, what wants to come through you into the world?

Copyright ©2019 Soulscape Coaching LLC.

The Cacao Journals: The Paradox of Surrender

~ nicole ~ 4 Comments
The important thing is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become. – Charles Dubois

Photo by Laura Reoch of September-Days Photography.

You may have noticed that I took a little break from my blog. I’ve been focusing on other writing projects and designing classes to teach Cacao Ceremony both as a personal practice and for group offerings. I’d been asked many times to teach and always resisted it for various reasons (all of them quite lame). When I recently decided to commit to “everything cacao,” which was a message I received on a drum journey over two years ago, it made perfect sense to surrender to this too….

The beautiful thing about surrender is that when you finally do, that’s when things actually show up. Giving up the struggle allows the struggle to end. It’s so simple and obvious, and yet so hard for us to do. Surrender is not giving up or retreating; it’s both release and commitment, letting go and moving toward. It’s truly a paradox.

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back…. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. – W.H. Murray

Releasing and letting go means being honest with yourself about what’s not moving with ease and flow in your life, work or relationship. It shouldn’t have to be so hard. I’m declaring that one out loud. If we aren’t fully in alignment with who we are,  haven’t fully embraced our gifts, and aren’t fully reading, accepting and acting on the signs that spirit brings us, then, life is hard.

What do I mean by fully? Let me start by defining what it doesn’t mean; it’s not partially or somewhat or sort of. That’s neither fully in nor fully out. To put it bluntly, it’s not half-assed, not that I have anything against donkeys; they’re actually kind of cute, but rather stubborn. Fully means completely.

Life feels hard because we live in a state of resistance, ashamed of or not fully embracing our uniqueness, and not willing to wave our “freak flag high” (I borrowed that phrase from a friend who does it every day). When you’re being a donkey instead of a unicorn, it’s soul destroying.

Commitment and moving toward something means allowing for its unfolding: encouraging, revealing and responding to something in stages at the appropriate moment. Some cynics and critics claim “unfolding” is too passive and even wishful thinking. I beg to differ. An unfolding requires active engagement. A flower just doesn’t sit there and wait for the grand unfolding to happen; it grows up and out, responding to cues from the sun, the rain and the moon. It is engaged in its own glorious unfolding.

The process of unfolding is always evolving and changing. Instead of waiting for a magical unfolding or grasping at and forcing the unfolding, both of which are full of internal and external struggle (I can feel the tearing), we must find ways to be adaptable and resilient, weathering the elements, but first we have to give up the struggle. If we don’t let go, the struggle tears us apart.

I had been resisting the “everything cacao” message I received. While cacao was a big, powerful and beautiful part of my work, it was not my “everything.” Without that commitment, my work was unfocused, leaving me exhausted and feeling torn apart. I decided to give up the struggle and fully embrace and commit to cacao as my everything. I still don’t quite know where it’s going to take me or how it will all unfold, but I feel lighter and life doesn’t feel so hard. I’m following the signs that are showing up with full attention and intention. I decided to be a unicorn. What’s your everything?

Copyright ©2018 Soulscape Coaching LLC.

The Cacao Journals: Holding space

~ nicole
The blessing of letting go is creating and holding sacred space for healing. – Debra L. Reble

In my own personal work with cacao, I found this to be true, that it was in letting go of my mind, my need to be in control, and my disbelief that I created sacred space (an emptiness) within that held me, so I could begin to heal and feel whole.

This is what holding sacred space is:  creating a safe receptacle or container where things can fall apart, disintegrate, and dissolve, and then come back together again more whole than before.

When I hold sacred space in group ceremony, the process is similar. While each participant must create their own container to receive the wisdom, guidance or medicine that they most need in that moment, I hold the energy of the entire space, so that each person can trust that they will feel held and supported on their journey.

To do this well, I have to create with devotion and intention, and be completely present in the moment.

When I co-create ceremony with Spirit, I often receive a “download” of a theme. Sometimes it feels more like an “upload” as it emerges from the ground of my being. I might at first just receive one word such as “Grace” or “Gratitude” and then it starts to flow. My opening words and guided meditations often just arrive, although I do write them down (you can’t take the writer or editor out of me).

The music playlist is the same. It all just comes together in perfect harmony. If at any point, I begin to think too much about it, that’s when it becomes a struggle. And that’s when walk away for a little while….

My presence on the day of ceremony starts with grinding the cacao while I listen to the sacred music. It is both devotional and intentional as I honor and bless the cacao.

On my way to ceremony, I select flowers for the altar that reflect the theme of the day and reflect on what can grace the altar in addition to my sacred “always” pieces.

When I arrive at the studio to set up, I am fully present with each action–unpacking, checking the sound, setting up the altar, making the cacao elixir and greeting the guests–and the act of being fully present with each begins to create sacred space and fills the space with light energy.

By the time ceremony begins, I am fully there, both in my body and out of it; an embodied presencing, connected to spirit through the ground of my being.

It’s rare that an outside thought intrudes and when it does, I notice, laugh to myself and send it away. The music keeps me quite present and in the moment I often dance (while seated) as I hold space for everyone’s journeys. Clearly, I am as nourished by the experience as they are….

Sacred space brings us such clarity, nourishment and healing when we create it for ourselves and others. It asks us to be intentional, devotional, and present. It’s in the noticing of what we receive from it that we can answer the call. Begin by simply noticing.

Copyright ©2018 Soulscape Coaching LLC

 

 

The Cacao Journals: from Gratitude comes Abundance

~ nicole
The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see. – Dr. Robert Holden

If grace is ever present in our lives, just waiting patiently to be noticed, then once we do see and acknowledge it, what arises naturally is a feeling of gratitude. Grace is the unexpected gift for which we wish to give thanks.

Now granted, sometimes the gift may not be exactly what you asked for, but in the case of Spirit, it’s exactly what you need in the moment; it just may take a while to see it….

In indigenous cultures, giving thanks to Spirit and showing gratitude is integral to their way of being, expressed in their daily rituals, ceremonies and prayer. The indigenous peoples understand that we achieve nothing without the aid of the Spirit and that we must be humble enough to ask for assistance and be grateful for what we receive.

We of so-called “modern” cultures have lost this connection, this daily giving of thanks. It can take but a moment, and the benefits are beyond measure.

Gratitude is the open door to abundance. – Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Each day before I meditate while chanting a mantra, I share an intention, a prayer if you will, for what I would like to receive. Some days my prayer is for clarity on an issue I’m facing; on others I ask for financial abundance, so I may keep being of service with my work; and sometimes I ask for grace on someone else’s behalf. I allow the intention to rise from deep within me, write it in my journal and then let go.

Not being attached to the outcome, and allowing Spirit to bring what’s most needed, requires deep trust. It can shake you to the core of your being this trust piece. With trust comes abundance; with fear, scarcity.

Abundance is a process of letting go; that which is empty can receive. – Bryant H. McGill

Before I begin each meditation, I pause, reflect on how grace has shown up, and give thanks for what I have received. There’s a beautiful sense of reciprocity about the acts of asking, letting go, receiving and giving thanks. It is from, and into, this place of emptiness that abundance comes.

When we define abundance from a “modern” perspective, we most often think of financial or outer abundance; it’s rare that we think of inner abundance, the state of being connected to self and source in a reciprocal relationship.

To create a state of inner abundance in your life, find a way to give thanks each day. Start a gratitude journal and write something you are grateful for every day for 41 days (that’s the time needed to create a new habit that begins to “inhabit” us, changing our mindset and behavior).

Believe me, some days you will be challenged to find anything for which to be grateful. On those days, be grateful for the smallest thing: the clean water you drink, the nutritious food you eat, or the flowers that you see growing through some chains or through a crack in a rock.

When I did my own practice, I took an unbelievable amount of pictures of flowers growing through things, flowers growing freely, trees, the sun, the moon, water, the beach, and animals. I was grateful for them all and I began to see the world differently; it was more vibrant, more alive and more loving than I ever imagined. Eventually, you begin to notice more and more of the grace that surrounds you. And life feels and becomes more abundant.

To live in gratitude allows fear to fall away and abundance to appear. From gratitude comes abundance.

Copyright ©2018 Soulscape Coaching LLC.