The brightest thunderbolt is always found in the darkest storm. Are you finding yourself in the middle of pain, arguments or emotional upsets and outbursts right now?

With Venus still in retrograde until the 6^th September, it can seem like Love has all but disappeared as the turbulent stormy energies of August have certainly been making their presence felt for many. Yet again they continue to shine the Light on emotional pain, conflict and all of our misaligned and imbalanced relationships – including the one we have with our self. For those who have been unwilling to do their inner work this chaotic energy will start to become more uncomfortable and exhausting. Those who have been purging and letting go of the old paradigm and old beliefs, are now finding a deeper sense of Self and awakening into a greater potential for Love, passion and purpose.

With the upcoming Full Moon, and an Eclipse next month, storms appear to be brewing as many rifts, fractures and imbalances are starting to show in ourselves and in some of our interactions with others. Old emotions are coming up to be released as we are starting to move away from the bondage of all our past hurts, and expand more towards freedom, forgiveness and healing. Our healing journey is an archetypal one and the purpose of our storm is to put us into a place of intimacy – an intimacy with our self first.

Although the force behind these energies at the moment may feel uncomfortable, they are forcing us out of our comfort zones. We can all ride these turbulent waves if we can understand that all conflict and crisis is a golden opportunity for healing to dissolve our patterns and emotional blocks, and release our emotional baggage and unresolved issues from the past.

So Love’s healing message this month is this:

What ails thee? Where do you hurt – and what needs healing?

The recent energies of the Lion’s Gate on the 8.8.8 have also enabled us to find the courage and strength to move deeper into the Heart, into our creativity, and allow more Love in ready for the incoming influx of Light in September…although the Lunar Eclipse has the potential to create even more volatile energies with our emotions than we are experiencing now.

Emotions could run high now as we are being squeezed (or forced) into looking at what changes we need to make to become more aligned with who we are. The old ways of living are no longer working for us and chaos is showing us the way forward and where our consciousness and our Hearts are expanding. Whilst it may be an uncomfortable process, to grow we must go through a crisis or conflict of some kind. All chaos and our life challenges are forcing our old foundations to crumble and fall. We are looking at our world shedding all its illusions – in preparation to be empowered. They are simply an invitation to release that which no longer serves us, find our passion, embrace life and the world as we know it in new meaningful ways, and give and share our gifts with the world.

Embracing our True Self

 My own commitment to Truth to deliver Love’s healing message means these blogs are offered as a beacon of Light to all who are lost in a storm, and to provide a guide map to the spiritual crisis that many are now in. It means to share what I have had to personally experience to demonstrate that no-ones life is perfect. I have to grow, heal and evolve just like everyone else, and by example, show that each one of us can find our way back home to the Heart – to the unconditional Love, Wisdom and the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine that resides within us all. We need both these aspects of our divinity, and we must learn to receive Love so we are able to truly give it.

Our healing journey gets us to realize that if we truly want to meet our True Self and step into our power, our False Self (ego) must die. To find our gifts and step forward to serve others we must take off our masks. The evolutionary challenge now means that to understand who we are and what we came here to do we must heal our own trauma, our deep childhood wounds, release the distorted beliefs we have about ourselves and change our reactive behaviour. It means staring our fear in the face and meeting it head on. It means to get in touch with our Core Wounds to heal our shame and unworthiness – and all the beliefs that keep our self betrayal in place.

Spiritual Mastery is available for all who are willing to do the inner work. Don’t leave it until your mask rips and your world falls apart, or your body gets your attention in the only way it knows how – through sickness, illness and disease. The door is being held open for all of us now with the influx of energies – I also hold that door open for others to step through and will be sharing an invitation soon into a new paradigm to meet your True Self.

Revealing the Wound

What ails thee? So what about the relationship we have with pain…physical, mental or emotional? That “dirty word” that most want to deny or avoid? Not everyone understands Love, but everyone can relate to the language of pain of some kind. I opened the door with an invitation for others to walk through in sharing my own spiritual pilgrimage in “The Importance of Healing Our Core Wounds”. I shared my own journey of emotional healing as a woman who had not only hid her lifetime of emotional wounding from her family, friends and clients, but how I had also (unconsciously) hid them from myself. In that storm of physical, mental and emotional pain, all the wounding I thought I had dealt with had just gone into hiding – and as my world fell apart through illness, I was forced to surrender to eventually face them.

And for me, it was in being handed a debilitating and disabling illness at the age of 56 that I revealed why and how my suppressed divine feminine energy went into hiding – and discovered the true source of all my pain. It was in this healing journey to wholeness I found and revealed to all how I had to be strong not only for myself but for others too, and because I had developed such a tough exterior, it did not allow anyone else in. I was a protector for others, and watching out for everyone – except for myself. So when my life crumbled, having been a supportive protector for others, there was no supportive protector there for me. But this was a distorted belief created by the subconscious mind, held in place by a deep pattern of being the proverbial care taker and care giver – this is a pattern that women now must address.

Uplifted or Depleted?

We are all the authors of our own experiences, and if any discord, conflict or mismatched energy is showing up in our connections or interactions with others, it is never about the other person and is always about us – how we react, and how we interpret the things that may be said to us or about us. It is not about blaming or being a victim. Everything now is providing us with opportunities for powerful transformation – and our feelings will show us whether we are going with the flow of what’s unfolding or where we need to take some kind of action.

“To err is human, to forgive is Divine”….we all make mistakes and mess up from time to time, so extending forgiveness through the Ho’o’ponpono prayer is a wonderful Heart felt act we can use at any time for healing a situation. Just saying the words in our head will invoke the universal power of Repentance, Forgiveness, Gratitude and Love. “I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you, thank you. The power of these words is in the feeling. Such a simple, amazingly effective practice.

Our Hearts are our compass now, so all discord and upsets are gifts to show us more about ourselves and how we feel rather than the other person. The Heart will always guide us if we listen to it. If we constantly feel drained or unfulfilled, perhaps it is time to look at our own programs and patterns, our own wants and needs, set stronger boundaries, or take action of some kind and move on – whether it is a job, relationship or situation that we have outgrown.

Our Feelings and Emotions are Messengers

I too have not been exempt from being on the receiving end of someone’s judgement and disapproval recently as they took my words out of context and formed another story from their own filters and perspective. This conflict was a blessing because after the proverbial had hit the fan it showed me clearly how this irritating scenario, and me trying to be a good friend with a negative person, had left me feeling not heard and totally misunderstood. No judgement towards the other person here, (or myself). It was about being fully aware of my own feelings and emotions regardless of the eruption that was going on around me.

I see through the toxicity to the person underneath who also deserves love, respect and appreciation, but if we are with people who do not see or have these qualities for themselves, it becomes hard work trying to draw it out of them. The lesson from the above was that the feelings of not being heard and feeling misunderstood were mine. I have the right to say what I have to say – or not to engage at all. There will always be others who take what they want to take from a conversation and edit it to suit their own needs, and we can waste a lot of time trying to figure out why someone said what they did. The truth is, what I had said to this person had triggered their own defensive response – which had nothing to do with me. And this is what these disruptive energies are doing – triggering what is within us and wanting to come up and out of our energy field. At the end of the day we are responsible for our own light and not that of another. If they are not ready or do not want to awaken or move forward that is their choice. We can’t force anyone to see our point of view. However, we can drop the issue, remain silent, or let go. It’s always in our hands.

The lesson is also having a constant awareness of who we invite into our lives and into our personal space – that includes our friendships, people we may work with, and including personal, professional or romantic. We need to take off our rose-tinted glasses and take a deeper look into the people we have formed unions with, because if we are not careful, our sacred heart-centred sanctuary of hard-earned energy can be stolen and siphoned off leaving us depleted of energy. More than ever now we need to be asking ourselves, whom do they serve? Are these connections serving me and my highest good? If the answer is no then we have to take some sort of action.

I am doing an inventory and going through a purging of my own at the moment. The kind of connections, friendships and unions I want in my life are ones of authentic openness and transparency, ones of luminosity – and I am privileged and grateful to have such meaningful heartfelt connections in my life. I want people in my life too who uplift, inspire, empower, teach, challenge and get me to look at what I may be blind to see myself. None of us now have the time or the space for people who we allow to drain or hinder our ability to flourish.

The point is, no matter how much we care about others, we have to be aware of our old people pleasing, caretaking and our co-dependency patterns and remind ourselves that others have to grow and maintain their own Light. Those of us that are in roles of “Wayshowers” can show others the way, but others have to go down into the underworld and swim in the mucky waters to find their own gold, and then lift themselves up to gather and expand their own Light. We are all being given wonderful opportunities now through conflicts or chaos of any kind to dissolve our emotional blocks, release our emotional baggage, expand our Light, master our emotions and grow into emotional maturity.

Emotional maturity means not suppressing our own feelings so as not to upset another or to make them feel better, not stuffing our anger for fear of negative consequences, or going on the defensive to explain or justify ourselves, and not trying to fix anyone or anything. All our feelings are messengers – and anger is no exception. It’s a fiery energy that let’s us know that we are not pleased with a certain situation and that there is a problem. Anger is a wonderful opportunity to bring our attention to something that we might otherwise have swept under the carpet or not addressed.

Emotional maturity is about understanding and managing our own emotions – focusing on our feelings and not those of another. This conflict also gave me the opportunity to understand the present. Whilst in the past it was not safe for me to express my feelings with this individual, it was not about “right or wrong” but more about entering into a deeper truth of who I AM now.

Where do you Hurt?

The more we feel pain is an indication of where we are not in alignment. That is not to minimise what anyone may be going through, or to deny pain, but to access the Light must come from a choice we make to align with Love and be willing to receive it…when we do, it doesn’t mean that we will never experience pain, we learn to manage it when we understand the mind/body connection and that although pain often starts in the body – all pain involves the mind.

One of my sons has taken a great leap of faith and at the age of 32 left his job of 14 years last week, and is bringing the opportunity for transformation to his world. He could no longer stand being in a job that he had outgrown and which was him making him irritable and stressed and squeezing the life force out of him. He, like many of us, has outgrown the old energies of his past which are no longer serving him, and is now being squeezed into being that which he is becoming. He has no job to go to but is following his Heart to go to college, live off what small savings he has, and is allowing his Heart to lead the way.

My own healing journey through illness revealed how pain of any kind is just our body’s intelligence trying to get our attention to love ourselves more. Pain is our body’s way of asking us to acknowledge, accept and Love all what is painful, for all pain is a physical manifestation of what has become crystallized within our thinking minds and it wants to be released from our cellular memory. My own crystallized thinking and attacking myself through self criticism and self judgement over a life time manifested as a physical manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis – my immune system attacking itself and my body’s intelligence trying to release all that had been suppressed and get my attention to embrace it and Love it all.

These times now can mean learning to build a more intimate relationship with ourselves, be comfortable with our own company, whilst all around us is falling away. For this is how we are being prepared now to move deeper into Self, and deeper into the Heart to find our Love, passion and purpose. And a timely reminder from last month’s blog is this:

The integration of our emotions is the key to our transformation.

If this article has touched or resonated with you in any way, please feel free to share this posting with your network or post a comment.

In Love and Grace,

Linda