GROWTH THROUGH CHALLENGE

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  Welcome to Medicine in Mystery for the month of July. This month the theme is, or should we say, the syllabus for SPACE by Mama Medicine is, Growth Through Challenge. As much as we try to avoid challenge in life, as much as we try to find the path of least resistance, the times in our lives that are the most challenging usually also help us to grow the most. Because there's no difference between healing and being healed, often times, what we experience and what we go through is also helping us to have better context of where and how to help other heal from. I think that the places in life where we are the most wounded, the places in life where we feel that we are the most raw, or that we haven't even necessarily feel like we've healed from ourselves, or feel like we will ever heal from ourselves, are actually the places where we can help others heal the most. So, I feel that while challenges are usually something we try to avoid and we try to find that path of least resistance, and there's something really beautiful in the grace of that at times, it's important that when life sends us a challenge, we just allow ourselves to really step up that challenge. We face it. And, you know, yes we might fail, and sometimes the chances of us succeeding and seeing ourselves through that challenge are very very slim, but the confidence that comes from the courage that we've had to step up to the challenges in life, helps us to grow so much. Courage helps us to grow so much. Confidence helps us to grow so much. And failure helps us to grow so much. If you are going through a time in your personal life where you feel like you are being really challenged, know that this not the universe or god or goddess or a higher power, whatever you want to call it, working against you... This is actually your higher power working in your favor to help you to grow, to give you more grit, to give you more confidence, to help you to heal and to help you to set that example of healing in the world for others. When we're facing a moment in the collective, maybe an extended moment in the collective, where there's a lot of challenge, and it just feels like it's just one thing after the other, after the other, after the other, we can take that personally. We can look for someone or something to blame, but we can also say, maybe this is all happening -- as painful as it all is and as hard as it all is, maybe this is all happening to help us grow. Maybe to help us to grow more raw, more sensitive, more aware... and hopefully, that will also mean more compassionate, more considerate, more loving. I think a lot of times when we're going through really intense moments of challenge, where it's personal or it's collective, or a lot of times it's usually both, we can want to try to grasp onto control at all causes... when all of life feels out of control, what can I control, right? And, I think that's why we see in moments in the collective, when things feel really intense and hard, someone coming in and trying to control, some authority figure trying to control others, or if something feels just like total chaos in your personal life, are you getting really controlling about your diet? or really controlling about even your self care regime, right? It's really interesting because I actually feel like in these moments when it's like challenge stacked on challenge stacked on challenge, it might actually be more beneficial for us to release the illusion that there was ever any control to grasp onto in the first place. To understand that that control or that illusion of control isn't really serving us or anyone else, in fact, it's just keeping us in some illusion of stuckness, when in fact, we were never stuck, we were always in flow... we were always water. So, you know, in those moments when there's chaos in the collective or there's chaos in the personal life, or both, I really like to tune into the sacred rebel. And, you know, if I'm being controlling or I feel like some external authority that I do not adhere to in any way, shape, or form, is trying to control me, I try to make sure that I'm deeply, deeply in touch with that indigo aura, nettle-y sacred rebel, and I think that it is the courage that comes from being able to challenge and being willing to challenge those who seek to control outside of us or our own control dynamics within us, challenge the control...and then this is a way to have the courage to step up to the challenge. So, I just want to throw that out there, because I know that a lot of us have been feeling quite controlled, maybe it's in a romantic relationship, maybe it's from a place you live in, maybe it's from your own habits and patterns, or maybe it's from some other form of an external authority, like a boss or whatever that may be, but when you feel like there's just so much control around you, just tune into your sacred rebel... the one that really dances to the rhythm of her own drum and the one that is not afraid of confrontation by any means... conscious confrontation, loving confrontation, but not afraid of confrontation by any means and is willing to accept the challenge of the challenge... you know... so growth through challenge, I think it also give us a bit of, you know, a really loving, really compassionate warrior energy. It's not just that, the challenge happens and then we get through it and then we grow, I think the challenge happens and then, through that challenge, we see how strong we are, how courageous we are, how able we were to stay true to ourselves and true to who and what we love and true to what feels right for us... and that helps to give us confidence... and from that place of confidence, we grow. And from having courage to face the challenge in the first or even the courage to tune into our sacred rebel in the first place, we grow. I know that that word rebel can feel a little bit charge, but I've always really loved that word, and I don't know if it's because I hail, my bloodlines hail from the rebel county in Ireland, or maybe it's because of being a scorpio and when someone tells me to do something, I have to feel what it's like to do that exact opposite thing, or maybe it's of growing up under the confines of a really strong dogma and needing to break through it, but I know that there's a difference between rebelling for the sake of rebelling and that rebelling becoming self-destructive... that's not necessarily the rebel energy I'm speaking to. I'm speaking to, like the sacred rebel energy. The one who really feels something in one's heart and says, this is what feels true. This is what feels right. This is what feels honest for me. Follows that and is not afraid to step up to any challenges in the path of that growth. So, right now, as we start off this beautiful, sacred month of July, I wish you so much growth. And any challenge that you face, I hope that you are able to see, it is so incredibly in your favor, as hard as it may be... Health, relationships, work, home, whatever it is... finances, whatever it is, I hope that you're able to feel everything you feel... the anger, the frustration, the sadness, and also underneath, see that everything is working out in your favor. You know, I had a few medicine readings earlier today with some folks who had been through so much... and there's usually always a theme with my medicine readings and today the theme seemed to be Growth Through Challenge, but the medicine readings I had today with two different people who stick out to me in particular, are these two people who have been through so much in life, from childhood all the way into the upper years of adulthood and they've been through so much and they've faced so much, but as I was speaking to them in their medicine reading, I did not hear even the slightest bit of scarcity consciousness or victim consciousness, or the slightest bit of "why is this happening to me?", instead, all I heard was gratitude consciousness and generosity consciousness and them showing up to the medicine reading, no matter everything that they've been through, thinking about "what can I give?". "What can I give?" And, I think that in these moments in a challenge where you feel like everything that you know has been taken away from you, if you can just pause for one moment and go, okay... in this moment that I feel that I have nothing, what is it that I can give?

  So this is the practice that I want to share with you and I promise you when you practice it, it will help you grow through any challenge.

  So take care and I'll see you soon.