What magic unfolds when we unleash our imaginations fueled by our hearts and powered by love? What nightmares unfold when we unleash our imagination fueled by our fears and our pain?
Our human senses are so limited. What we perceive is only a fraction of the truth, and our ego minds love to fill in the gaps with tightly-held assumptions to create a narrative for our lives that keeps us stuck and powerless.
I know the “reality” that is fed to us in a steady drip diet of fear and competition and hopelessness and scarcity and separation only serves to fuel the fear-based assumptions. “Fear the worst,” they say. “The worst is happening.”
But I know that this is not the TRUTH.
This is not, in fact, our reality. It’s a manufactured, self-perpetuating, nightmare that we are stuck in. I only have to bring my awareness to what is ACTUALLY happening around me to recognize a completely different reality. My truth.
How does my experience with Forget-Me-Not fit in with this narrative this Moon Cycle?
I have been thinking a lot about loss and loneliness.
How is it that I can feel so isolated and alone? How is that even possible within our busy, modern, ultra-connected culture?
I am thinking about how, many years ago, when I began this Soulflower journey within, I chose solitude. I chose to focus on my family and my own wellbeing. In order to connect with my heart, in order to stay in my truth and make sense of my perception of reality, I had to disengage from the mainstream, physically and virtually on so many levels.
A natural introvert, I can't do small talk, or crowds, or school functions. I value one-on-one connection where I can truly be myself and so often that means I am spending most of my time in the garden with the flowers.
And so, with my oldest now officially living 3000 miles away, I feel the lack of her presence acutely. There’s an energetic hole in our home where she used to be. And for the last month, I have been feeling like I have no one to share this experience with.
In my solitude, my mind has been triggered easily into old stories of self-pity and “no one loves me” or “no one cares,” even though I know this is far from the truth.
And so I have been sitting quietly with Forget-Me-Not allowing what I am feeling to bubble up and be released, energetically through the flow of my tears. Allowing my awareness to expand beyond my old stories to include what I know in my heart to be the truth.
What I discovered is that our minds are NOT cameras, even though the standard line is "seeing is believing."
Our perceptions and our ability to perceive are not this simple. How we view reality varies substantially from person to person. We don’t all perceive the same experiences in the same way.
Our minds then, are more like projectors which create varied narratives based on our own unique scripts. Each of us making our own judgements and assumptions and filling in the gaps in our perception, our awareness, to support our stories. Which makes it kind of hard to step out and create a new story, but not impossible.
“If you don’t take reality for granted, at all, any of the time, then whatever that is in front of you is absolutely miraculous, particularly natural beauty.”—Peter Van Straten
And so, instead of getting lost in my story of self-pity and loneliness, Forget-Me-Not has been gently guiding me to reframe my perception, by tuning into my conscious awareness, and taking stock, often, of what is actually happening around me and within me at any given time.
And when I do this, what I come up with is a completely different story.
There is no drama. There is no sensational twist. No shocking entertainment value. Nothing newsworthy. Instead there is a simple peace.
Instead there is the awareness of the turning of the wheel, and the seasons, and the movement of the gentle cycles of life as they unfold. There is the transition from child to adult, from hands-on caregiver to listener and observer, from action to non-action. And I wouldn't want it any other way.
Around me the leaves are starting to turn, the shadows are starting to lengthen and I am aware of the exquisite beauty of letting go, even of those that are precious to us. It brings me down to Earth in a way that is comforting and understandable within every cell of my body. Rather than trying to fight, hang-on, and battle the inevitable. There is freedom in the allowing of life to cycle, and in aligning myself with the ever-spiraling flow.
My heart feels and knows what my senses cannot pick up on. It knows what my eyes cannot see and my ears cannot hear.
And the truth is my baby is blossoming. I am not losing her. She is transitioning, and so am I. And I know in my heart that she will never be separate from me, no matter the distance.
When I have allowed the outside, media driven narrative in, all I feel is fear, and powerlessness because I can’t protect her anymore. She is on her own in a big, scary city, in the big, scary world.
The fact is that this is a narrative completely out of alignment with my hearts truth, and hers! She is having a great time of course! So it is no wonder I feel so isolated and lonely and disconnected. Because we are more than just physical bodies remember?
We are mind, body and soul and then some. And when these parts are out of alignment we feel discombobulated, and that is when our opportunistic, rational minds, that like to control the show, supported by our worst fears, begin feeding a rampant imagination that can create suffering of all sorts.
How do we write a new story? How do we spiral in deepening levels of self-awareness rather than cycling endlessly on the hamster wheel of unproductive thinking?
We have to work on trusting our senses and expanding their bandwidth through practicing awareness, as often as possible. We have to turn off the external noise that is keeping us “informed” and in a state of fear so that we can create something new.
Assumption is the opposite of awareness. If we really want to expand our awareness we are going to have to utilize our senses (and engage our heart-led creative imaginations) rather than numb them with constant sensory overload.
Remember there is nothing that exists in our reality that wasn't first imagined.
As a species we are collectively and individually traumatized on so many levels and we have to work really hard to sift through and let go of all the layers of what is not true, not our reality, so that we don’t continue to create/project from a place of fear and trauma to create more pain and suffering.
We can support this with our miraculous bodies and with our senses, which unlike our minds, are always in the present moment. Always telling us the truth.
We can support this using our hearts as our guidance system, connecting us to Source and our higher selves and always telling us the truth. We are loved. We are supported. We are enough.
And if our minds are more like projectors, then we have the ability to project a new truth, through the power of our imagination to create the true reality that lives in our hearts and souls.
Dig deeper with Forget-Me-Not (AWARENESS) here.
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Over the years, the Soulflowers have lovingly helped me to understand change to be the natural order of things. They have helped me to trust completely in the inherent intelligence of Nature and the necessity of all the seasons to support life, sustainably.
We are cyclical beings. Life (life force energy) is never lost—it is only constantly changed, transformed.
“All suffering comes from resistance to the truth of who you are. All suffering comes from resistance to What Is.” Milk Thistle adds.
Let that truth bomb sink in.
cec
September 18, 2019
Thanks Lisa, i love this card and the meaning with it, my favorite saying is “believing is seeing” x