state of being

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: 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