Accept or decline the mission

August 2, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

You may think you have no resistance to finding your purpose, but if that were true you would probably already know it. – Tim Kelley

Finding our purpose in life can be terrifying and sometimes perplexing. I know. As I was first exploring mine, I received a guided message saying I should make a documentary about ceremonial cacao. It came as a total surprise.

While I know a little something about cacao ceremony and am fascinated by the history of cacao, I know absolutely nothing about making a documentary. I, being the “doer” that I am, starting wondering how I could fulfill this “mission.”

My sister has an MFA, has taught film production and now heads the Media Studies program at a community college, and made a documentary film (a very long time ago), so I thought, she can help me! I even took the step of approaching her and she was mildly enthusiastic (she’s Canadian and still lives in Canada, so maybe I should have taken that mild enthusiasm more seriously :)).

Anyway, I soon realized that I actually didn’t want the responsibility of making a documentary. There are far better, more qualified people who could do it, and I had an inkling that my path lay elsewhere. It would have been a fun diversion, but documentaries need to be passion projects, they can take forever to be realized, and I just didn’t have quite enough passion or time.

Plus, to be honest, the thought of traipsing through the rain forest looking for indigenous shamans; the depth of relationship needed to gain their trust, so they would allow us to film them; and the time required to do this away from home and my husband, scared me. It was so far away from my current experience and I felt it put things I valued at risk.

I know now, and I even knew then, that what our soul wants for us is not always on the easy path. Could I actually say, “no,” to this?

So, I asked myself, why did Spirit give this to me? And then I just happened upon Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, in which she reveals that “inspiration will always try its best to work with you–but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.” So, I was off the hook…. I could leave this for someone else to take on as their mission and continue to look for my soul’s true purpose. Which is exactly what I did.

Just recently, not that I was looking for further confirmation, I read Tim Kelley’s True Purpose: 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make, in which he shares that “you can accept [your mission] or decline it” and “your soul can give you a new instruction that is at a higher level.” That’s what keeps happening to Tim, and that’s exactly what happened to me. I declined one mission only to have another one be revealed to me, one that fully supported what he calls my “blessing,” or what I like to refer to as my gifts, the things for which I am a “catalyst, a facilitator of some process.”

The reason that I like to talk about being on your “soul’s path” is that, while our purpose and gifts are foundational, our mission or “highest level instruction” continues to evolve and grow, building on that foundation. Our soul’s path is an unfolding, one which is revealed to us as we walk forward with trust.

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Effort or surrender?

July 18, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender. – Danielle Orner

I’m with Danielle. I too am learning to live in the liminal space between effort and surrender, and some days I’m better at it than others…. I see this same struggle in many of my friends and clients, who have excelled in life by being fully in control, until something told them in no uncertain terms that they actually weren’t.

When we experience a loss or a longing that cannot be filled by ordinary measures of effort, it can cause us to question our beliefs about life and ourselves. Few of us want to accept life as uncertain; we want certainty and guarantees, and safe risk (if that’s even possible). Uncertainty, unpredictability and ambiguity make us very uncomfortable.

When we realize that our belief about life has been mistaken, we find ourselves at a loss of what to go do, so we keep doing the same thing over and over again–and that’s like doing more of the same and expecting a different result. It’s an infinite loop that never ends or a wall we keep running into. Effort, although it feels safer and more familiar, may not be the place to go to find resolution.

When we’ve exhausted ourselves and our options, we come to the realization that we have to let go of something, whether it’s a belief, pattern, or issue, that’s holding us back from what we truly want (more joy, connection, purpose, etc.). That letting go is what is called in spiritual terms, “surrender,” and it doesn’t feel either safe or familiar to those of us who have relied solely on effort.

Finding the sweet spot between effort and surrender just may be the key to our frustration and discomfort. Seeing with new eyes that surrender and effort can be complementary–a “both/and” rather than an “or.” What if we surrendered to surrendering? And then acted from there?

Two resources that came to me as I was looking for guidance in this realm have beautiful ways of navigating this liminal space. The process in each, even though they come to it from very different healing perspectives, is strikingly similar. Each has tremendous value and power in itself, and I also found in working with both that blending the two is a truly powerful combination.

The first resource by Michael Mirdad, a spiritual healer, is, Healing the Heart & Soul: A Five-Step, Soul-Level Healing Process for Transforming your Life, which takes a more spiritual approach based on his work with A Course in Miracles. His healing method follows this path:

Recognizing the issue: the courageous step of recognizing the need for healing and choosing to make a significant change in your life
Accepting: taking responsibility for identifying the cause(s) of the issue and acknowledging the deeper emotions behind it
Surrendering: surrendering all issues, emotions, people, events unconditionally by giving them to a higher power for healing
Refilling: consciously calling in guidance and healing from a higher power and receiving the message
Giving Thanks: releasing the issue, showing gratitude for the healing and acknowledging your readiness to move on.

The second resource, which I mentioned in an earlier post, by Leslie Davenport, a family therapist and ordained minister, is Healing and Transformation through Self-Guided Imagery, which walks us through self-guided meditation to access our heart’s guidance. Her path to healing and transformation is:

Asking what you need guidance about: one word or phrase that encapsulates the issue
Accessing your heart: bringing attention to your breathing by breathing in “Clarity” and breathing out “Peace”
Discovering your inner sanctuary: allowing an image to arise of a place where you feel most at peace
Bringing your issue to heart: holding your issue up to receive guidance (surrender)
Receiving your heart’s guidance: asking your heart for “a wise and loving response”
Thanking your heart: thanking your heart for its message and integrating its wisdom into your daily life through action.

What’s so amazing is that each process only takes about 20 minutes to complete, and you can do them all on your own. With both, I’ve found writing in a journal helps with the discovery process and integrating the healing guidance into my life.

Surrender all that no longer serves you. Let all that remains buried in your heart come to the surface and be healed. Let there be space for new energies to enter. A new beginning transforms darkness to light. – Anonymous

For those of us who are used to efforting, these powerful, transformative processes provide us with the steps to find our way to surrender and access our inner knowing, which then guides us to right action. We live in that space where both surrender and effort reside.

Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching LLC.

The energy of place

June 12, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman ~ 9 Comments

Our heart knows what our mind has forgotten–it knows the sacred is within all that exists, and through a depth of feeling we can once again experience this connection, this belonging. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The belly button of all Creation. I’m not sure I could make up an image more evocative of the energy of place than that. That is what the indigenous people of Guatemala call Lake Atitlan. It is a deeply sacred place to them (and now to me).

I tend to feel the energy of places quite deeply and distinctly. When my husband and I vacationed on one of the Hawaiian islands, which I will not name, we found ourselves grousing and fighting on our first day, which was so unusual (we never fight) that we both looked at each other and said, “What’s going on here?” We felt into the energy and realized it was angry, almost rageful.

Once we named the energy and decided not to let it in, we were fine, but we agreed that it was not a place to which we wanted to return. Friends, who have visited that island and with whom we have shared our experience, also found themselves inexplicably argumentative on vacation while there. Some even went home early.

The energy of Lake Atitlan is like nothing I have ever experienced. As I boarded the boat in Panajachel that would take me to my solo retreat, I felt in awe of the lake’s vast expanse cradled amongst towering volcanos and highland hills. The energy was powerful but distinctly feminine. I felt sheltered and cared for, even held, by its energetic presence.

The wind off the lake was warm and invigorating, and it was deeply transformative, cleansing me of all monkey mind thoughts. It was as if the lake’s energy urged me to be present and the magic of the wind carried away all my worries and cares.

The wellness center for my retreat was nestled into the hills across the lake from the largest volcano; it felt as if it were watching over me, protecting me with a fierce nurturing love.

There are certain places in the world that are kind of energy vortexes, which are phenomenal. – Ian Somerhalder

As I spent my days relaxing into yoga classes, a massage, cacao ceremonies, a Mayan fire ceremony, writing in my journal, meditating and consciously admiring the beauty, I sensed a strange restlessness deep within me. How could I possibly be restless amongst all this peacefulness? It was then I realized how poorly I was sleeping and just how intense my dreams were. Something was not at rest very deep inside me.

When restless, I often meditate, so that’s what I did. And that’s when the realization came to me. I hadn’t fully embraced the energy of the lake; I was out of sync with her energy. She had been calling out to me all this time, and while I had acknowledged her energy, I hadn’t brought it into me. The only solution to my dilemma was to immerse myself in the lake. Literally.

I found a spot to wade in to the lake rather than jumping in off the dock, which seemed a bit too shocking to my system, immersed myself and drew the energy of the lake toward me. It felt like a warm bath. It was so soothing. I felt whole again. That night and each night after that, I slept like a baby and touched the sacred in my dreams.

I came home from my retreat open, spacious, fully present and reinvigorated. The light in my eyes stayed for weeks and weeks, and came from a deep place within me. This was no mere vacation glow. Touchstone moments and talismans from my retreat became reminders of that sacred, renewing energy. I could call upon it and return to that fierce and nurturing feeling anytime I wanted.

I vowed then to return to Guatemala, to the belly button of Creation, and the very first thing I will do is immerse myself in the lake, a ritual to honor the life-giving energy of a most sacred place.

Free souls club

June 7, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

Be the change you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

I’m going to admit something that I struggle with and am not proud of–I’m pretty hard on myself. I feel responsible for just about everything. And when it comes to blame, I’m spectacularly good at aiming it right at myself. I am a recovering self-blamer. There, I admitted it to myself. That’s the first step, right?

Now there are definitely some good qualities to owning responsibility and even laying blame at my own feet. For instance, I always look to myself first to learn my from mistakes and change what needs changing. Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Well, I am that “no one.” And I’m sure, despite what Leo says, that there are many more of us out there.

I have never felt like a victim in my life because I thought that if I took responsibility for my actions, how could I possibly be a victim? But what I came to realize was that I was making myself a victim of myself. Pretty twisted, isn’t it?

Over time, I have experienced how taking on all that blame is a huge, lonely burden. I decided I was done with being a victim; I wanted to be free of it. So, I asked myself, “what’s the antidote to that? Plain and simple, it’s forgiveness. And a little bit of courage too.

If I can see with compassion that the one who is doing the attacking or blaming “knows not what [s]he does,” then forgiveness comes more easily. And if I look closely at those times when I blamed myself the most, I now can see that I was indeed blind and unknowing.

If I had only known then what I know now, that all of us, me included, have access to three truths (I’m sure there are more but these are good for now):

We are wise–deep within us is an innate wisdom if we choose to listen to it
We are good–our intentions are good when they come from the right place
We are loved–if we love ourselves first, others will love us too, simply for being us

If I listen deeply to those parts of myself, where these truths reside, then I can choose, as a “free soul,” to act wisely with love, while bringing good into the world, and I can see more clearly with compassionate eyes both my actions and the actions of others. No one is to blame.

We all can be part of the Free Souls Club, while changing ourselves and the world in one fell swoop (hence the need for angel wings).

The dark night of the soul

May 27, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

There is no coming to consciousness without pain….One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. – Carl Jung

I was always afraid of the dark. Things going bump in the night (which was usually just my big sister under my bed). Where did that fear of the dark come from? From the uncertainty of it, from not knowing what was behind or within that darkness, or from wanting to avoid the darkness of pain or sadness?

My more spiritually minded friends suggested that I “embrace my darkness,” that I “surrender to it.” At the time, I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Despite their enthusiasm, the darkness–my darkness–still terrified me.

And I had gotten really good at avoiding it. I pretended it simply wasn’t there. I wasn’t angry or sad or in pain (was I?) or at least I didn’t go looking for it or dwell on it. Life was good. Somehow I thought if I worked hard and knew what I wanted, I was in control of my life.

And then IT happened. Everything I thought I wanted for my small business, the big goal I had been working on for over a year with a business partner, collapsed around me. I was left standing in the rubble, choking on the dust.

The darkness came without me asking it to. I was enveloped in it, I struggled against it at first, and then I just surrendered. What now, I asked? It was my dark night of the soul.

The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed. – Joseph Campbell

*I must also have a dark side to be whole*. – Carl Jung

I got it. This was the darkness I needed to face, to surrender to. So, I dove into it; I went deep.

I reexamined everything I “knew,” believed, assumed, and thought. I deconstructed myself bit by bit; decoded my dreams, which were full of messages; found a way to laugh at myself; faced and questioned my fears and demons with strength and resolve; made peace with them; and followed the slender threads that appeared before me seemingly showing me the way back to the light.

When I emerged from the dark, I felt like a whole new me. A more loving, compassionate and humble me. One that’s open to possibility, uncertainty and grace. A me that cares deeply about her soul and following its guidance.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have goals and aspirations, but they come from a different place inside of me now–a soul-directed place–and they sure as heck aren’t set in stone. We all know what happens to stone when a bomb goes off. Dust and destruction everywhere.

While I can’t say that I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes–that was a bit too Icarus-like to me (and we all know what happened to him)–I did feel like a fledgling learning to fly for the first time. My flight was a little precarious and wobbly at first, but the fact that I’m flying again with the jet stream instead of against it is absolutely beautiful and oh, so liberating.

Twin dreams

May 3, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

I dreamt–my Canadian English is showing–of twin girls twice. About two months apart. What is it about twins and the number two?

In the first dream, they were clad in black robes (a bit scary) and in the second they were in a basement (a Jungian therapist would have a heyday with that) and I could not get to them because I was blind–clearly I was not seeing something.

In dream analysis, when a dream figure or scenario recurs, it means the dreamer has not understood and integrated the message of the dream. Dreams tend to exaggerate for effect. In other words, if we don’t get the message the first time, the next dream will be even bigger, bolder, and always more dramatic, so we pay attention.

So, I played around with the idea of twins. First, I’m a Gemini. It could be related, but this felt deeper and more significant. After all, the twins were either clothed in dark robes or in the darkness. Geminis tend to be more lighthearted than that.

Darkness, in the Jungian sense, connotes the world of the unconscious, the shadowy aspects of ourselves that we tend to ignore, repress or negate. Hmmm, there could be something there.

A bit intimidated by that and not really wanting to go there, I thought of Castor and Pollux, the twin brothers in Roman mythology, who became the constellation Gemini, but they are the wrong gender, well, only wrong in that they weren’t female. No aha’s there.

Perplexed, I decided to drink some cacao (I’ll be writing a post about my passion for raw cacao soon) and reflect. It was early evening and I decided to sit out on the deck of our cabin nestled in the redwoods. As I sat down and took the first delicious sip, two black buzzards (known in South America by the more majestic name, Condor, which I quite prefer) circled above me soaring and floating on the wind. Their twin flight was so devastatingly beautiful that I began to tear up. And then just as suddenly as they came, they were gone.

And do you know what? I made no connection whatsoever in that moment to my dream. It wasn’t until I told my husband, Scott, about the buzzards, ahem Condors, and he started laughing that I made the connection. Again, twins in black, only this time they were “clothed” in feathers and appeared in real life.

What came to me next in my cacao bliss was the concept of duality. Not duality in terms of good and evil, but rather in terms of emotions or states of being: joy and sadness, innocence and what? What exactly is the opposite of innocence? Wisdom? For an adult, yes, but, in the case of children, the opposite of innocence is a term I will loosely call, “grownupness.” And the twin girls were clearly children–about the age of nine or so.

And then it clicked. When I was nine, my father became very ill, suffering from kidney failure. He lived, but was on dialysis for many years until he finally received a kidney transplant. And everything in our lives changed. It felt as if a part of him had died. And a part of me. The joyful and innocent part. I had to grow up very fast.

The message that I deciphered from my dreams was that I needed to acknowledge and reclaim all my twin feelings to feel whole again. There is such awesome beauty in that.

Dreams can be such wonderful teachers, showing us where we are and where we need to go in terms of our self-development. My twin dreams became a beautiful gift to my soul.

Soul messages

May 1, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

I’ve been working with my dreams for some time now, curious about and entranced by them because when I’m seeking an answer to or grappling with an issue in my life, they not only are more vivid, so that I recall them when I awake, they also are more profound. It’s undeniable that they have a message for me if only I can decipher it.

Some scientists and researchers believe that dreams are merely the body’s way of discharging energy or processing and organizing events of the day. If that’s true, then why do we dream about people we’ve never met or encounter things we’ve never experienced? Hmmm.

Our dreams may have more intelligence and purpose than mere energy dissipation or memory organization. If we can accept that the language of our dreams is symbolic and not literal, then dreams may have intricate messages for us that we can decode and from which we can learn. And that’s exciting stuff….

*“The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul.”* – Carl Jung

Dr. Carl Jung, the preeminent psychoanalyst, in exhaustively analyzing his own dreams, discovered that “the dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul.” He believed that our dreams seek to “express something that the ego does not know and does not understand” and that by looking more closely at the symbolism of our dreams we can begin to find meaning not just of the dream but for ourselves.

Jung determined that the figures in our dreams are not literal (your husband is not actually your husband in your dream), rather they are symbolic; they stand for an archetypal energy that is trying to get your attention in some way. Oftentimes, it is an energy or aspect of yourself that wants or needs to be acknowledged and integrated. So, let’s say your husband was a bit reckless while a car driving in your dream, you may want to look at whether you have been reckless recently and if slowing down would bring more balance to the situation. With Jung, a healthy, integrated self is all about finding balance and wholeness. And that’s a good thing, right?

My dreams have allowed me powerful and clarifying insights into aspects of myself that I did not know I needed to acknowledge or accept. When I take the time to record my dreams, decipher their meaning–what the symbols mean to me, not what dream interpreters claim they mean–and come to that “aha” moment where things click, I do feel more whole.

“Only the dreamer can know what a dream means.”– Jeremy Taylor, Dreamwork: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams

There’s so much more to share about understanding our dreams and how these messages that come from our soul can restore us to our true selves. I have a dream that I very much want to share with you, but it can wait for another blog post. Sweet dreams….

You are beautiful….

April 27, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

So, today I had my annual eye exam. Hmm, you’re probably thinking, what does this have to do with the soul’s path? Eyes are the windows to the soul? Yes, they are, but that’s not quite where this post is going.

During the exam, my optometrist and I talked about our families, how our teenagers were coping with school and my coaching business, and we shared stories about past and upcoming trips to faraway lands as we always do. She was attentive, authentic and genuinely interested in our conversation.

As I was paying at the front desk, I mentioned to the two assistants how much I loved my doctor, who clearly cares deeply about her patients. In fact, I have been so impressed by her caring soul and soulful practice that I have been going to her ever since I moved to the Bay area, which is over 10 years ago now, even though I no longer live in the city. Based on my glowing recommendation, my husband sees her too.

Her assistants enthusiastically agreed with me and said the reason they had worked there for so many years was because of how caring and wonderful both doctors are (she and her husband both manage the practice). They clearly loved working there. And that was when one of the assistants smiled and gave me a sticker that said, “You are beautiful.” It so touched my heart, I graciously accepted it.

Intrigued by its effect on me, I turned it over and spied a URL: you-are-beautiful.com. A quick Google search and here’s what it had to say, “You Are Beautiful is more than a little sticker, it’s an idea. It’s a way to brighten someone’s day, a way to pat a stranger on the back, a way to remind ourselves that even when things aren’t going great, it’s ok.” How beautiful is that?

And if you send them a self-addressed envelope, they will send you five stickers for free, so you can touch the hearts of five more people. I’m going to be all over that! We need more love and soulful expression in the world.

It’s amazing how a small act of acknowledging the caring soul of my doctor turned into a little love fest, stickers and all!

Did I happen to mention that the assistant who gave me the sticker was wearing fabulously stylish glasses, of course; a sleek suit with slim, fitted pants that grazed the ankle displaying to full effect his gorgeous turquoise socks? Now that was one outfit with pure soul. Right back at you, beautiful.