When Happiness & Joy Arise, Watch Out for This Dangerous Tendency

January 30, 2024
Posted by lana

I was a couple of months into a new relationship, so very much in the honeymoon phase.

This romance had caught me by surprise. I’d been online dating for a few months and it had been a comical, lukewarm experience.

This beautiful man, however, I had met in real life. He asked me out in person, off the apps entirely. I had next to no expectations for us and yet somehow found myself swept off my feet, feeling all the in-love, fluttery feelings I stupidly thought I had outgrown.

Being older, experienced, and aware of the intoxication of this phase I knew that it just couldn’t last.

So I found myself asking, while in deep telephone conversation with him one night: how long before we get tired of each other, do you think?

I had tossed it out as kind of light, flirty, jokey, aware.

Of course, the question belied my own insecurity and a kind of protective need for inoculation against what I viewed as inevitable pain. Right now things are good and it can’t last. Obviously.

Instead of answering me in a light, flirty way he was silent for a bit and tried to answer my question seriously.

Which woke me up in that moment very, very abruptly.

Why was I asking a question whose answer I didn’t want to hear or experience?

We humans do this kind of thing a lot when things are going well. We begin to get fearful. Things can’t stay so good. The other shoe’s has got to drop soon! What’s about to happen? How can I best prepare myself for the inevitable worst?

Of course, there are reasons for this. I appreciate what Brene Brown says about it which is basically we’re terrified of joy because we’re terrified of being vulnerable so we try ‘to dress rehearse tragedy so we can beat vulnerability to the punch.’

It’s vulnerable to care about people so much. It’s vulnerable to have such sweet, deep connections because the reality is all of it does end one day. We will feel pain at losing what we love.

Brene says the key is to be grateful. And I love this and agree.

Being truly grateful allows us presence in the moment. All of us will die one day. All of what we have will turn to dust. In this moment, though, we can be grateful.

When we can be in the present moment gratitude, instead of asking what will go wrong, we can orient ourselves towards what can go right…bringing us to the magic question:

How does it get better?

It took a me a minute but when I saw what was happening in that phone conversation with my boyfriend, I stopped him.

I didn’t want to know the answer to that stupid question, I really wanted to know: ‘How does it get better?’

‘How does it get better?’ has become something of a mantra. I pull it out in the joyous moments with him. And even when I think things can’t get any better, somehow they do.

It’s not to say things are perfect, that there are no hiccups, no tough spots. Of course there are.

But the relationship and our time together keep exceeding my expectations and the limits of my known experience.

So now I try to catch myself in the questions I ask in all areas of my life — do I actually want to have this answered? Do I want to be orienting towards this answer?

This is a practice. We likely ask a lot more questions than we realize — especially in the realm of our thoughts and mental chatter.

It certainly doesn’t work if we’re in a bad situation where we feel miserable or despairing to ask how it gets better. It can land as a futile, sarcastic, offensive, or even bypassing question.

But we can always look towards a better question and an orientation more towards what we do want such as “What can I appreciate right now?” Maybe it’s sunshine and cool breezes. Maybe it’s having my warm coat on this cold miserable day.

I did something like this the other week as I found myself incredibly grumpy and irritable coming home from downtown (a place I often loathe being).

I sat on the streetcar and watched my irritation grow as I found ways to privately complain about nearly every person I saw.

I asked myself — what could I look at with appreciation? What are some things that I like right now and that are pleasing to me?

I began to pick out colors of the clothes people were wearing, and some of the styles. I noted art on the street that I could appreciate. I saw many dogs who brought a smile to my eyes with their sweetness and innocence.

I continued that for the entire trip and when I got off the streetcar, my grumpiness had left me.

I continue to find that the right questions are truly magical and offer us a solid way forward in this maze of life. If you find that that the track you’re on isn’t quite what you want, I invite you to look at the questions you are asking.

Where do you really want to go? What are the answers you really want to know?

Ask those questions.

One Way to Truly Make the Holiday Season Joyful

December 17, 2023
Posted by lana

The marketing messages would have you think this holiday season is all about joy. For most of my life that message has landed like a massive gaslight.

I know I’m far from the only one for whom this season evokes a lot of grief.

And even though we don’t like talking so much about things that don’t feel good or run counter to the narrative that many want, I think it good to talk about.

Yes, of course there’s grief.

In our personal lives, the holidays can be a reminder of those who’ve passed and whose physical presence is no longer with us.

Collectively, of course we feel grief at all that is happening in the world. If you are not feeling some grief, you are not paying attention to what’s going on.

We don’t typically allow much space for grief amongst all the joy we’re supposed to feel. Grief just brings things down for everyone, I suppose.

Well, I encourage us all to honour and feel our grief.

Not to suppress it as we’ve been taught to do or to put some arbitrary time limit around it.

And importantly, not to fear our grief.

I think why grief is so challenging for us is because it forces us to confront our helplessness. Grief is a loss over which we have no control nor any recourse. There is absolutely nothing we can do to change what’s happened.

In our dominance-based, mind over matter, control-loving society this is incredibly hard to accept.

So instead we seek to exert control over how much this hurts us. We try to control feeling it.

We may think this strategy will work but ultimately it never can. This energy to control, dominate and deny the grief becomes a lot more work and more of a beast than actually feeling the grief.

Feeling the grief requires us to face our helplessness, our humanness. Of course there is pain with this, and fear. None of this feels sexy or powerful.

Many of us are are also caught up in the idea that we have to stay positive. In order to heal, we have to stop dwelling or being caught up in the negative emotions I am told.

Which is a fundamental misunderstanding. We can’t build anything lasting on top of unstable ground.

It is actually allowing yourself to feel all of the emotions – including the ones that feel bad, scary, painful, hard – that allows one to stabilize that ground for something new and strong to built upon.
What happens when you allow yourself to feel the grief? What does it mean to really feel any challenging emotion?

There is some technique and skill to this. Many of us fear that we may become lost in the grief or the fear or the pain and never come back from it. (Certainly if you have experienced severe trauma, you want to take care and ensure you have a well trained facilitator or specialist.)

This act of truly feeling is new for most of us. It helps to have a skilled practitioner or group to guide you with this.

It begins with feeling your body and noticing and naming out loud the sensations you discern there.

Sometimes this is hard to describe and metaphor can even be useful here. We can tune into whether there is a temperature to it, is it tingling, buzzing. Anything.

If we are able to embody it – that is, bring our full attention and awareness to it – we may want to move or make sounds. It’s important to allow this.

Usually as we attune and get closer to the true witnessing and feeling of the emotion, something about it may shift. We may feel a release or we may get information about it in the form of a memory or a piece of wisdom for us.

But likely not on our timeline. It doesn’t work to force or expect or demand. This work takes time and so much permission.

I’ll tell you a bit about grief and how I’ve experienced it in my life.

The first time I really understood and was able to name what I was feeling as grief was as my mom was dying. At that time, I had a strong yoga practice as well as a couple of years of chiropractic care all of which had been moving me more towards understanding the importance of embodiment – feeling things in my body and letting them flow.

When I connected to my grief – because my mom was dying and there was nothing I could do to change that – the sensations that would most often arise would be this weird feeling in my throat like pop rocks candy going off in there alongside a kind of dark choking kind of feeling.

As I let myself feel it, I would cry and cry. Sometimes it became outright sobbing.

Often this would overtake me in public places. Many times in the first couple of years after she passed I would end up stopped, overcome and sitting on a city bench crying.

This is part of what makes it hard for people. This feels so vulnerable to be so – what – weak? Or perceived as weak? Or crazy?

All those times though I don’t think anyone ever truly noticed. Everyone is too busy in their phones first of all and second of all, everyone is concerned and in their heads about themselves.

Second, there was something about this loss that was so precious and deep that something so trivial about looking weak or pathetic to someone just couldn’t touch it. I didn’t care.

Does it make you uncomfortable? Fuck if I care. I’m grieving my mama.

And more than that, I realize now, I was honouring and taking care of myself. We can’t be healthy for long if we’ve got these trapped emotions taking up space and eating away at us inside (in combination with the resources we’re using not to feel them means so much diminishing of our life force energy).

Now, the thing is grief (or any emotion) will feel different for you. I’ve experienced grief in other ways in my body as well.

We have assigned words for delineating emotions and isn’t as helpful as some of us think. For example if I’m angry and I check into my body it will feel different than what you feel when you are angry.

If we aren’t aware of this and practicing this checking in, we can, and do often, mislabel what we are feeling. We may think and say we’re angry for example but what we really are is afraid. How will we know? By going into the body sensations.

It’s important to know this. It means that simply naming an emotion will not allow us to heal or move through it. Because we will all feel it in different ways and places and therefore require different remedies to moving with them.

Here’s the thing about grief though. If you’re able to sit and be with it long enough, you’ll come to something else underneath it.

That something else is love.
We only grieve the loss of someone or something that we’ve loved, that we’ve cherished, that meant something to us.

When we can stay long enough with the grief to finally feel the love underneath it, we can perhaps get to knowing and feeling that the love can hold the grief.

The love is big enough and strong enough to hold the grief.

Having to now experience the grief is worth it to have known this kind of love.

Some of you may disagree and say, Lana, no. This pain is so bad.
And I would say: yes it is. And you haven’t allowed yourself to feel it all. There will be more. This isn’t a one-time pain.

It’s 12 years since my mom died and I did cry a bit writing this.

Surrender and feel it all to find the love.

Nothing short of that is going to work.

You may think you’re going to die. Yes, in a sense you will die and it will feel torturous but isn’t it a worse insanity to fight your whole life something inevitable and unchangeable.

I still grieve, I still feel pain but it’s become more exquisite now. It gives me so much compassion. It’s allowed me so much liberation.

Feeling grief has finally made space for joy – true joy.

I want that for you too.

Love,
Lana

How to Find True Happiness and Worth as a Woman in this World

October 28, 2022
Posted by lana

Photo: Levi Guzman via unsplash

Photos of young, naked women peppered the pages of my father’s newspapers. It was a serious newspaper (non-English) speaking to matters of politics and foreign policy and, yet.

Here were these photos too.

There were never any naked men in there. Just women.

I had already begun to internalize messages of being less than boys – my father outright told us such things.

These pictures, with the general conditioning of the culture-at-large had me believing that my value lay in how attractive and sexy I looked – to men – with as few clothes on as possible.

I felt a strange cocktail emotions relating to my body and my gender – disgust, anger, resentment, inferiority. I felt trapped. I felt at war with myself even if I probably couldn’t articulate it as such at the time.

One way in which this manifested itself very strongly in incredibly painful periods. Every month, a torture (until I was able to heal it).

The world we live in now is not quite the same as the one I grew up in. There are far better and more positive messages towards respecting and cherishing women and the feminine. We have more of a voice and the means to speak our truth and have it be heard.

Still, it’s not quite good enough. Misogyny is so pervasive it’s the air we breathe, most of us can barely distinguish.

It’s just normal or the way it’s always been. Sigh.

Even for women, we’ve internalized so much misogyny it’s a lifetime to extract and separate from it all.

So if you find difficulty in finding joy and your true purpose in your life, especially as a woman, you are not alone!

And the practice of finding joy and pleasure and purpose in being a woman is a lifelong one of discovery.

Below are my suggestion on where to start re-discovering your joy, purpose, power, and pleasure in being a woman. It’s based on decades of my own practice and in working with hundreds of women.

It may seem simple but I truly believe to begin these steps will liberate us. Start with one and I would suggest it be this first one:

Dance & Move Your Body. In Private. Just You.

When was the last time you danced? Or, more importantly, moved your body to music? If you can’t remember, or it’s been a really long time, you’re not alone.

And this needs to be remedied.

The discernment between dancing and moving your body to music is important for some of us to understand.

Sometimes we dance and we think it has to contain certain choreographed movements or look a certain way (like polished or sexy or ‘good’ in whatever way). This can be fun and challenging in interesting ways – nothing wrong with it.

However when we slow down and become present to our body with our attention and our breath, we can allow our body to move in the manner it wants and needs to move. I would still call this dancing but it’s not choreographed, it doesn’t necessarily look good. It can look chaotic and strange.

This is why it’s important to dance and move alone with no one watching. With safety and freedom to truly feel (and even discover!) yourself and move in all sorts of weird and unusual ways.

Pay attention to your hips and pelvic area. Chances are these are tight.

Pay attention to your jaw as you’re paying attention to moving your hips and pelvic area. Chances are this area is tight too. What will it take to relax all these parts at once? How can you move? How are you being moved?

What feels good can be your guide. Be prepared to have different feelings come up. Welcome them. Use the feelings to guide you in how you want to move. Bonus points for letting sounds out too.

Move the body. In private. Just you. Move in weird and different and unusual ways. Breathe. Breathe.

Pick your favourite music. Then pick music you don’t know or don’t particularly like. Try out different things is what I’m saying.

Do this every day! Yes, every day. Even just 5 minutes.

A stiff body breaks down. A body that moves is a body that lives, is a body that can respond and flow with the inevitable and unpredictable.

Of course, not every body can move in the same way.

There is a starting point for everyone. It doesn’t need to be the same. We start with where we are.

Where and how can you start today with movement and dance?

Dance with Others

When I was a young woman, one of my greatest joys and thrills in life was going clubbing. Music on full blast and dancing with people, flirting with strangers, being out with my friends was the thrill of finally being an adult.

But somehow, I got it into my head that once I reached a certain age and once I was married, going out dancing was supposed to stop. Like it was a flighty thing appropriate for young people only.

I’m not sure where I got, and why I had, that idea in my head. But those years where I stopped dancing were some of the most miserable in my life.

Whatever age you are, get yourself out to where people are dancing and dance. Find the safe spaces for this.

If you have ecstatic dance happening near you, please try that out. It’s dance as meditation. Dance for expansion. Dance for the sake of pleasure and as the name implies, ecstasy. No one else is looking at you, they’re dancing ecstatically themselves. If it’s done right, it’s a safe and supportive space where the new parts of ourselves we are uncovering can begin to emerge.

Dance and move with other people. Allow your self-discovery and emergence to continue in the presence of others.

We don’t fully heal alone.

Befriend and Spend Time with Women Who Love, Nourish, and Uplift You

And minimize the time with those who do the opposite (even if they say and do ‘love’ you).

Most of us carry deep wounding we’ve experienced from the behaviours or words of other women and we’re yearning for re-connection, trust, safety, and the love of female friends.

A good place to start could be to spend some time contemplating and even journaling on the women in your life right now who love and uplift you and those who do not. (And sidenote: if someone falls into some middle category between the two, slot them in the ‘do not uplift’ you category).

Make a commitment to surround yourself as much as you can with the positive, loving, affirming women. Create and attend gatherings. Make friend dates. Do errands together. Find your like-minded people and agree to support each other in the manifestation and creations of your life.

I think ‘Sex & the City’ is so iconic and enduring in part because of the strength and constancy of the friendships of the 4 women. This is something we need and want in our own lives. The thing is, we must be proactive in creating it. I think this is the mistake a lot of us make. If doesn’t really just happen, we have to make it happen.

It’s such a gift to have even one such friend, and honey, not uncommon, if you’re feeling you have no one. If this is you, you might like to think back to someone at some point in your life. Perhaps a kind, thoughtful teacher or an auntie, or someone who was kind, loving, and generous towards you. Someone who really saw you for you and loved you.

Remember how that felt and feel the gratitude of having had this person. Remember how they made you feel- comforted, special, loved, etc. Come back to this feeling, and the memory of this person often, as you go out and explore different ways of making new friends.

I’ve heard the lament that it gets harder to make friends as you grow older. I dispute that. I’ve made more friends, with ever deeper connections, in the past 10 years of my life than ever before. I fully expect this to continue.

Some of the places where I’ve found these friend soulmates: work, self-development workshops, trainings, women’s circles, in cafes, at parties, concerts.

We need the presence of people, and especially women, to reflect our beauty and light back to us. People who we can trust and have the best wishes in their heart for us. And like sunshine, we will always need this even as one day we begin to believe that yes, we are beautiful and wonderful.

Create or Make Things that Bring You Pleasure

(and that don’t need to serve any other purpose!)

This can be just about anything! We are creative beings. I know I’m not alone in drifting away from doing things I love as I grew older (like in my aforementioned dancing story). Is this you too? Is there something you loved doing and creating, that brought you pleasure and made you lose all sense of time? Are you still doing it? Time to start!

We need generative, creative experiences.

When we make something with our hands and bodies, we are in some important way blessed with beautiful evidence of our wonderful existence.

Some women want to create babies. Some women do not.

But I believe we all have a drive and desire to make something. To see and hold something of ourselves beyond ourselves.

I love cooking food especially for others. I love singing and making up songs and sounds. I love writing words and creating transformative, moving experiences for others.

What do you love to make? Are you doing it regularly?

Or, what did you used to love to make that you no longer make time for? Or that maybe feels frivolous? How can you start again?

Choose You First

You may naturally find your way here after you’ve been doing the first four recommendations (dance privately, dance with others, befriend uplifting women, make stuff that makes you happy).

Chances are that you are now experiencing (or beginning to experience) what it feels like to feel good. To feel satisfied and at home with and in yourself.

Which can start you on a path toward naturally making choices that are right for you.

Not making a choice because someone else wants you to, or expects you to.

You choose for you.

One of the harmful ways we’ve been programmed to think is in ‘either/or’ terms. This has us pitted against one another as though for one person to be satisfied or happy the other one must be unhappy and dissatisfied.

Try on ‘and/both’ instead the next time you have to make a choice.

Instead of saying:

I can do ‘yyy’ OR I can do ‘zzz’ (the either/or scenario)

Try on saying:

I can do ‘yyy’ AND I can do ‘zzz’ (the and/both)

You can apply this re-frame to any decision you need to make. See how it feels to use ‘and’ instead of ‘or.’

At times, it may be that someone is going to be disappointed or frustrated or unhappy by your choice, but I say let that frustrated person not be you.

We have been conditioned forever to be accommodating of everyone’s needs before our own. The more we veer into sacrifice of our own needs, the most burnt out and unhappy we become. This, too, serves no one.

Get more practiced at choosing you.

~~~

So this is it, the start to finding happiness, power, pleasure as a woman.

Note I said the start!

Now that you’ve read the steps go out and do them. The juice is in the action. Do these steps. Expect to encounter resistance and dance/move through it.

It’s very easy to stay in the mind about this and be critical. Like, I don’t get it. Why would any of this make the difference? The point is not to intellectualize and figure things out. Do it and see what happens inside the doing of it.

Click the image to the left for the list – feel free to print and put it up where you’ll see it.

Practice it all. Do it! Have fun with it!

And by all means, add to it!

It’s not in reading this blog that you’ll have transformed into joyful woman.

It’s in doing these things.

Now, go dance.

Transformation: We Want It & It Scares Us

May 5, 2022
Posted by lana

Transformation by Robert Lovejoy

The other week I watched my niece, 7 month-old Kat, on her belly getting set to crawl.

I had seen her and Mira (my sister) about 4 days earlier and enough time had elapsed for very visible change. Kat felt weightier, heartier, even more energetic. Watching young ones during these times of rapid development is such a gift!

It is possible to literally watch her grow.

So I did. I watched her as she squirmed on her belly. Mira said she is a minute away from crawling. And it’s true. She shimmies. She moves. She swerves. She uses her hands, her arms, her feet, her legs, her belly. She uses everything she has. She’s propelled forward by her curiosity, her interest in that colourful thing in front of her, that place she wants to get to.

Pushing, grunting, working.

A short time ago, I watched another baby a few months older who has mastered crawling and can shoot swiftly across a room before you’ve even had a chance to blink.

Consider how one’s world opens up?

I was taking all of this in while watching Kat, wondering if this was going to be the moment. Would I get to witness the moment of transformation?

This is the moment life evolves. The moment after which nothing is ever the same again.

And, while I have the privilege of watching her and knowing what is coming up, she herself doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how much more exciting and interesting life is about to get.

Watching her, and really getting into the energy and the electricity around this impending milestone, I had a new appreciation and understanding of transformation.

The nature, and the very definition, of transformation is that we CANNOT know what awaits us on the other side.

Transformation requires some blind faith, requires that we give up trying to know or control what awaits us, requires giving up the expectation of a reward or gain, requires us to continue driving forward, propelled, unconcerned with failure, innocent, untroubled by the unknown.

To just keep going with no guarantees that anything awaits us on the other side.

Lots of us get to a point where we are done. We’ve learned and mastered all there is, we think. Maybe we are complacent. Maybe resigned. Like that’s all there is, at least for us anyway. Let someone smarter/richer/stronger do the other stuff. I’m fine

I’ve been there. A lot.

Where have we given up? And why?

Are we really okay with what is so or are we in some denial about some nagging feelings of regret or anxiety that stir around just under the surface?

Do we have to wait until our present situation is so bad, so untenable, that the only choice we have is to leap. Aren’t we there yet??

Present day mystic and spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss, refers to us humans as being in a time of predicament. It isn’t that we have a lot of problems in need of solutions. We, humans, are in a time of predicament with regards to our survival on the earth.

There are no solutions to predicaments. Predicaments must call forth transformation. Transformation starts with me. And it starts with you.

The more we are willing, and we allow ourselves to be in this uncomfortable space, the more we make it possible for others to do the same.

Where is it in life that it would serve to keep plugging away, squirming, getting sweaty, being okay with the discomfort, grunting, working…without attachment or knowing what it will bring? Without any measurable, visible show of progress?

Can we be okay with failing over and over and over again? And still getting on with the work anyway without any guarantee that anything will happen.

It’s actually an electrifying and powerful place to come from.

Of course, many of us are dealing with a lot of trauma. It may be here that we need to start.

Truly consider that our collective lives on Earth depend on our willingness and capacity to transform and throw ourselves into the scary unknown.

I share these insights and experiences on transformation here because the work we do here is transformational in nature. Reclaiming our Feminine selves is powerful. It can feel scary. It is diving into the unknown. But I’ve never known anyone who would go back to the time before.

You know, before crawling.

Why Some Women Have Difficulty Conceiving

April 18, 2022
Posted by lana

Rainbow Spider Woman, Giclee’ by Sheranda Ann Kumara

Most of us are in a state of considerable disconnection from our wombs. It’s not our fault.

We’re not taught how to have a relationship with our wombs. Much of the world still struggles with wanting to maintain control over what happens here, and in our bodies in general.

We store a lot of trauma and shame, whether we are aware of it or not. Our wombs are a repository, a living memory container not just for our own pain but the pain we inherited down from the ancestral line.

As a result, far too many of us have painful periods or some kind of cycle-related dysfunctions that affects nearly every aspect of our lives.

Furthermore, it can be really hard to talk about this. We may feel stuck and alone.

Conventional medicine often has little to offer and when it tries, it’s typically from the framework of how to ‘fix’ periods and women’s problems versus acknowledge the bias and misogyny that exists and causes the problems to begin with.

This space of the womb is highly beyond our control.

The womb, in fact, is in charge. We are better off to befriend and surrender to its wisdom. And I know, this isn’t something we are easily able to do.

I mean, how outrageous and backward might it seem to even be reading this? Reduced to a womb?

But the womb is so much more – wisdom, aliveness, creativity, power – than we know.

Beyond just making physical life, our wombs contain intuition, guidance, safety, and inspiration.

Even if your mind *knows* this to be true, is it actually how you feel about, and relate to, your womb?

Consider that before we can conceive a baby here, we need to clear and prepare the space.

We may need to deal with what may be there festering – and I’m referring to the emotions and energy.

We have to listen and hear the needs of the womb and this relationship will likely take some time to form trust.

The reality is not everyone will be able to conceive of course. However, healing IS available for us all.

It doesn’t mean there is no grief ever or no sadness.

But we can feel great about ourselves as feminine beings. We can feel whole and in love with who we are, just as we are.

We can find an unconditional and whole-hearted acceptance of ourselves. No matter what.

I don’t know what the specific answer or path for any one woman is.

But I know that your womb space knows.

With Love,

Lana

What if you just can’t have some things now! now! now!

September 28, 2021
Posted by lana

Art: Dawn Harrell

Someone made a request in an online group I’m part of asking for resources on how to help heal and clear womb issues FAST.

Ah, yes.

I understand this tendency and desire to have something immediately. Probably you do too. I’ve done it often and continue to catch myself still. I want or need X number of dollars right now or to drop some pounds immediately.

We have become somewhat accustomed to getting things quickly. And sometimes we get lucky. Even in healing, we hear stories of instantaneous transformation. Miracles happen. Everything and anything is possible. So why can’t it happen for me in this situation?

In reading this woman’s post, I felt how at odds this request was with actual womb healing. In my experience, womb healing is a process. The healing happens in that process. It’s likely never fully over while we’re alive and what we need to do is allow it to happen and take the time that it will.

The nature of the womb, and the feminine, is to be more on the slow side of things. We may experience it as kind of passive, kind of held back. Diffuse. There is no rush about it, no force that can be applied. I’m talking here about energy, but you could look at it from the point of view of the physical for example. A baby requires 9 months to gestate. It may be born sooner but it will be premature and require special care. It may even die. The 9 months can’t and shouldn’t be rushed.

Again, this is difficult not only because we are used to gratification coming to us quickly but also because we’ve identified qualities such as ‘slow’ and ‘passive’ as somehow negative or not as good or worthwhile as ‘fast’ and ‘active.’ As opposed to seeing these as simply qualities and acknowledging all exist for good purpose. What may appear to us as passive for example in yin yoga has a lot of healing going on underneath the surface as the held posture releases stored up tension.

Consider also that we acquire and store trauma in our womb over our entire lifetimes. Add to that, we also come into the world with an accumulation of what our ancestors before us carried within their wombs. This is to say, a lot of ‘stuff.’ When we understand and feel the full weight of this, it’s imprudent to think that this can all be resolved quickly or even that this outcome would be the best one for us.

Because…

The slow healing journey is what brings healing to the womb. If it were fast, it wouldn’t be healing. Do you understand?

Ultimately what I have found to be true, whether specifically womb work, or healing and spiritual life in general is that the journey is the point. The uncovering and discovering of what we’ve been holding within us is the key to forging a new and strengthened relationship with ourselves. This is what we need and crave.

It is ongoing.

At the end of the day, the world will continue to throw misogyny at us; it will continue to offer toxicity. It means that our womb healing journey asks us continually to be connecting, purging, releasing, composting, creating newly. It’s not a one-time, open and shut event.

Womb clearing and healing is an ongoing journey full of riches. So just get started without trying to control the pace of the outcome or the outcome itself. This is beyond our scope. Bring openness, curiosity, compassion, and kindness. Patience we can all learn.

You’ve got this.

P.S. – If you’re interested in getting started in this work, download my Womb Clearing Handbook & Manual here.

The Amplification Time of the Mother Archetype

July 23, 2021
Posted by lana

And ideas on how to make the most of it.

Art: ‘The Passion’ by Helen O’Sullivan

In the northern hemisphere, currently the earth (summer) and moon (full) are in this corresponding phase we can call Mother. Are you ovulating in your cycle? Then you are synched up too. I’ve been exploring throughout the year how this overlap of energies may offer some deeper connection or even portal to experiencing these archetypes fully.

The Mother archetype is one that we all have some experience with and may confuse with the role itself. The energies of the Mother archetype are very expressive, nourishing, fruitful, warm, flowing, loving

Some of what I’m noticing or feeling strongly in this time:

~ nature beckons, envelops, warms, loves us up; is primordial Mother to us all.

~ this time of year offers an incredible abundance. It is an enchantment to contemplate the heavy, dripping fruit on the trees and branches. The raspberries in my yard are ripening these days. The fruit grows plump and full and simply awaits release with any effort and I can’t help but meditate on how this can translate in our lives.

~ these are days offering much in the way of a potent and charged sensuality. Nature offers so much in the way of sensual delights:

the sights (infinite variety of flowers, blooms, colours, leaves, shapes, etc)
the smells (the fragrance of so many flowers, herbs, sea or ocean, etc)
the tastes (so much fresh food)
the sounds (birds, rustling sounds of trees, lapping of waves, etc)
the feels (breeze on the skin, grass under bare feet, rain on your skin, etc)

~ earth and mother is our primary, physical nourishment. In a climate like the one I currently am in, there is a tendency to want to grasp these times really hard and hold on to them. Life is easier, supportive, and more pleasurable in the warmth and the sun and the summer is relatively short compared to the rest. If we are grasping, we can’t be relaxing nor opening up to it. In our grasping and trying to ‘make the most’ or ‘squeeze every last drop’ we are in some states of lack or desperation. This phase is one in which to begin to explore release and surrender. We know nothing lasts forever and we know that the fall and winter must follow.

Below are some suggestions for utilizing these current energies for a deeper communion and experience with the Mother archetype. Use what works and ignore the rest.

~ explore some ways to bring softness and gentleness into your life, and your body in particular. Stop to take some deep breaths and notice where there might be tension. Good places to check in are the hips and jaw. Use some movement (wiggle, massage, yawn, sigh, etc) to keep relaxing these spots.

~ find ways of allowing the natural world to enter and nourish you through ALL of your senses. I listed some of the ways above but the possibilities are endless. Even if you live in a dense city are there trees (or a tree) you can seek out for communion and appreciation? Or find a spot to gaze up at the full moon?

~ consider where in your life you might be grasping and holding on too tightly when you could relax and let things unfold in their own time. There are things we want but worrying and grasping actually never guarantee that we get them, just make our lives stressful and compromise our health.

~ spend some time meditating or attuning to the energy in your heart. Does it feel tense, guarded, or closed? Or soft and open? Can you use some of the communion with nature and your senses to open and feel into your heart more? Even as this means feeling the grief that may be stored there?

~ do you have people in your life with whom you would like to spend more time or share more love? The capacity of the Mother archetype to nourish and love is immense but in order to do it in a healthy way we need to be filled up ourselves. If we are allowing the opening and sustenance of our own hearts and souls, we will naturally want to give it to others. This may even be a time when forgiveness might come easier. Or even just having a difficult conversation that we may have been avoiding.

We are living in a time of great information, great awakening, and great destruction. The plethora of abundance I see in my own backyard isn’t the experience of all, as so many places on our earth are being scorched, many are flooded, many are being clear-cut of their ancestor trees, and so much more. Many are suffering.

These are some of my personal questions in this Mother phase – how can I love more? Can I be more of Mother now to offer the sustenance the earth and her species need right now as so much is ravaged and suffering? How do I do this?

As always, I love to hear about your experiences. Thank you for reading.

Can We Begin To Find the Temple in the Place We Call Home

June 6, 2021
Posted by lana

Goddess of the Mountains by Laurie Crain

And why it’s vital now more than ever.

In conversation with a dear friend the other day, we shared some personal pandemic ruminations. He said there are some things he is in no rush to do once restrictions lift. Like drinking in a bar.

I understand that, I said. That particular activity isn’t one I indulged in often so I haven’t missed it. I’ve missed being able to throw parties and have people over; I’ve missed rummaging through thrift shops for treasures. I have missed most having a sense of freedom and being able to go somewhere and travel.

Despite not even having a budget for travel, there is still something of a ceiling on even my imagination that I have felt. The right word to describe it is probably ‘depressing’. As in this stark reality, pressing down upon me: you are trapped here, you can’t go anywhere.

Yet, to be honest now, I am not feeling in a hurry to travel.

Home has been Toronto (Tkaranto, the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit) and during this time, due to poor leadership and mismanagement, we have had one of the longest lock-downs in North America. I am fortunate and privileged in having a place to live and food to eat and still it has not been without challenges.

I have taken myself out for daily walks in my neighbourhood. I have reminded myself of my fortune and privilege in living both close to the city’s largest park and the waterfront — which has always factored into my decisions when choosing where to live. I will gladly sacrifice some comforts for nature and beauty at my doorstep.

I prepared myself mentally for a long-haul winter but the early spring, as per usual, was the challenge. Especially with no prospect of escape. Here I was walking the same old streets like a crazed mouse in a maze. Where was the reward? When, freedom?

We are still locked down being taunted with things slowly re-opening. Soon. Soon. I, like many others, like my friend, are watching places from afar opening up again. It’s unsurprising to read of flights selling out as travel resumes in some of these places. While obviously I understand this, I’ve come around to feeling disappointed about it.

What is it about our ‘homes’ — cities for most of us — that we relate to as pit stops or perhaps just ‘good enough’ that we have to escape from as soon as the ticket queue opens up?

Is it possible or desirable to begin to relate to ‘home’ differently?

Has it become clear that cities are difficult places for humans to live in happily and healthily for extended periods of time? Here in Toronto, we have seen one of the largest condominium booms in the world. On and off for the past decade, I have worked in one of the most condo-dense areas in the city. There has never been a single time in these past 10 years that at least one hasn’t been construction literally surrounding the building I work in.

(Meanwhile, the number of people pitching tents they call home in the city’s parks grows.)

I have watched and felt how these condo-dense downtown areas have become darker and shadier as more of the sun is blocked out. I have noticed how the green and open spaces have disappeared to be replaced with scraggy random token trees not given enough soil and space to grow so they die after a few, sad years.

I understand that if you live in such a dense area, you are likely experiencing more of this itch to escape. I would be too, I don’t blame you. But it highlights why it is important to look at where we are living and how our environments may support or harm us. I also understand not all of us have a lot of choice in the matter. It’s complicated.

Once upon a time not so long ago, commercial travel was expensive and it was rare. People did (and many still do based on ability) live their lives in one relative space without ever traveling very far at all in their entire lifetimes. Travel was a luxury and a privilege. It’s disappointing, though again unsurprising, that many of us want to pretend that everything was great and okay before pandemic times and that we can seamlessly go back to cheap travel and the way things were.

Pandemic times have not erased the reality of climate change and the cost of cheap travel to our environment.

So in good faith I am not in a hurry to travel. I will not be first out of the gate in booking a flight out. Part of what has been illuminated in this time for me is how important and possible it actually is to see where I live with ever new and appreciative eyes.

So we come back to how I titled this piece. How to find the temple, and the sacred holy ground in the place where we call home, where we lay roots, the place where we spend most of our lives. Ask:

Where is the holiness to be found here?
Is there more to be seen and known beneath the surface of this familiar and ‘known’ space?
What have I not opened my eyes and heart to?
Should it be that I’m never able to travel anywhere again, can I be happy and content here?
What can I create?

What I increasingly know to be true is that, while it is special and wonderful to be able to travel and experience different climates and cultures, it can be borne of a restlessness and search for meaning that will never be quenched. If I can’t be happy and fulfilled and whole in the place I call home then I will not find it by roaming elsewhere. I will, at best, distract myself for a time.

I keep at it. It isn’t always simple or easy. I step out from my house and it can feel as though there is nowhere new to go, nothing new to see. So I search. The sky is always different, the way the breeze feels on my skin. Every day brings new growth to the plants and the flowers, the trees. In the park there are so many, how could I have ever thought to know them all?

Walking this familiar maze of streets, I’ve been able to open my eyes and melt my heart into seeing the pulsating life, the ever-changing yet eternal renewal, growth, and decay of the earth. It moves me to deep reverie and a growing connection to this place.

I have seen in the Bosnian mountains shades of Oahu. There are times here in Toronto, in the park, where I’m brought back to the feeling of being in Sedona. I gaze at the vast pines, their crowns high in the distance of the sky and I sense that I’m in British Columbia.

It is all one Earth and the holiness and divinity of this place can’t but be everywhere if we allow ourselves to soften and see. We don’t have to go anywhere to find it, it is already always where we are.

As the world begins to open up, many of us will like, or expect to, jump right back into the familiar ways of living (and let’s face it, consuming) we’ve known before. This may be possible for at time but for how long? The reality is that many places in the world are still struggling to contain this virus. Nothing is assured for any of us.

Which is why it makes the most sense to cultivate this connection with ‘home,’ wherever it may be. To touch and commune with the ground underneath our feet. We don’t know what awaits around the corner. Most of us could never have conceived of enduring the situation of the past year. Anything is possible.

But to feel connected, nourished, and held exactly where you are without need to escape…that is an immense gift. It needs nothing added, nor can anything be taken away.

Will you try it today?

How to Ride High on the Maiden Energies this Spring

April 16, 2021
Posted by lana

Artemis painting by Ria

We are firmly in spring now in the northern hemisphere. Spring corresponds energetically to the times of the waxing moon and, if you have a menstrual cycle, the phase right after bleeding, referred to here as the Maiden.

Whether you have a cycle or not, these waxing moon days, during the earth’s spring season, (approx Apr 16-23, 2021 and again May 15-22, 2021) offer an overlap and amplification of these energies which we may engage for our personal use and development. If you do have a cycle and overlap on these days with your own Maiden phase, I would suggest you have even more of a portal into these energies!

What does this look like and what does it mean?

The energies of Spring/Waxing Moon/Maiden are of coming into the light and experiencing a re-birth and renewal after the dark and cold days of winter. We are emerging, thrusting out into the world. Observe the ways the green stalks begin to shoot out from the soil, the breaking open of the buds on the trees. This energy is bold, unfurling its life and beauty.

It is a beginning. It is being in action. It can accomplish a lot. This energy is optimistic, sharp and bright, courageous and ready to learn and grow ever brighter. (You can look to the Goddesses Aja, Artemis, Athena, Persephone, Freya to name a few)

If we think about it in terms of life cycles, we can see that Maiden is exploration and playfulness. It is a time for adventure, trying new things, taking risks. She is passionate, fearless, bold and carries a nothing-is-going-to-stop-me kind of vibe.

Below are some ideas & suggestions on working with these Spring/Waxing Moon/Maiden energies, followed by some important cautions. As always, try out and take what works, disregard the rest. 😊

Spend time out in nature with full attention and presence (try leaving your phone at home); commune with, and talk to, the saplings, the babies, the goslings and so on. Notice and appreciate the growth, the new shoots springing to life. Drink in the emerging colours and dynamism. Allow it to fill, nourish, and inspire you.

Play & express yourself! Remember back to your teen years and before. What brought you joy? What had you squealing for delight? Connect back to that energy and how it made you feel in your body. Is there something you haven’t done in a long time that would be fun to return to? Things that come to my mind are howling, skipping rope to songs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rucp0rWs4pU ), hula hooping, juggling. Have fun! Conversely, perhaps there was something you weren’t allowed to do or explore… can you gift this to yourself now?

Strengthen your body. This phase is the amplification of a lot of energy. How can you best use it? It may be especially useful applied towards tasks that may have seemed difficult or overwhelming in the past. A good focus here could be on building core strength and generating a momentum (and nourishment) to last through the next phases and to power confidence and self-esteem.

Try new things! Is there something you’ve been putting off beginning because it’s felt somewhat scary or out of reach? This could be the perfect time to get to it.

Focus, brainstorm, plan, create structures and routines, work out the full details of things. Consider keeping an idea notebook. You may find that the ideas and inspiration comes at a pace beyond your capacity to implement. Capture these for a future time.

Cautions & Pitfalls:

It is important to remember that this phase and these energies do not last forever (though they will return).

There may be a very easy and tempting tendency for some of us to get kind of high on this energy and grasp to it too hard once it is over. This could be a largely unconscious desire yet easily derail us once we emerge. Watch how your personal energy and your actions in this phase are affecting the people in your life. In particular, keep an eye on anger.

Ride hard here if you have the stamina and the inclination; throw yourself into your passions and what is important to you, but remember it will pass and when it does, let go with grace and ease. Rest assured that it will return and the time in the new phase (which will be Summer/Full Moon/Mother) brings its own gifts to explore. We create pain and suffering for ourselves when we resist the cyclical nature of life.

It is vital to stay attuned to our needs and our boundaries. We may experience Maiden as quite independent and self-sufficient. It is a lot easier in this phase to allow things to roll off our backs. It is easier and perhaps more tempting to agree to things that aren’t necessarily in full alignment with our own values and goals. Being loose with our boundaries here can come back to trouble and haunt us in a later phase (that would be the Enchantress).

Ultimately we want to balance and contain Maiden energy with good routines, intentional stillness, and reconnecting to the overall big picture and vision for our life.

I would love to hear your experiences in this Spring/Waxing Moon/Maiden phase. ❤️

A free Womb Clearing Manual & Workbook for You!

March 24, 2021
Posted by lana

I am honoured to be able to offer all Womb Bearers this gift of a Womb Clearing Manual & Workbook.

While it was originally borne out of an idea to help recovery from miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth what I have discovered in my years working with hundreds of women and womb bearers over the years is that this is the space where we tend to store a lot of trauma and ‘stuff.’ Some of it isn’t even ours to hold and it weighs us down!

Over time, this ‘stuff’ can create problems for us on an emotional and spiritual level and on a physical one as well. Consider all the womb related problems there are and the few ‘cures’ that are offered by the allopathic model of care.

This manual contains instructions, reflective questions, and links to audio meditations to help you safely and gently begin to clear out anything within your womb that is not yours.

It is offered as a gift though you are more than welcome to make a donation if you find the work beneficial to you, or you may like to book a one-on-one womb healing session with me directly to go deeper into this clearing process.

Blessings and blessings to you and your womb!

Sisters Awake

Creativity ~ Fertility ~ Sexuality

Author Archives: lana