Zinnia: The Ultimate Gaslighting

August 01, 2020 3 Comments

Zinnia: The Ultimate Gaslighting

Zinnia energy really connects you to your inner child. The light hearted child that knows herself as pure, unconditional love. The baby whose eyes hold no pain, no suffering, no judgement, that opened unto the world with such wonder and delight, filled with divine creative potential waiting to be expressed. 

You know how that feels in your body right?

Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine you are looking into the eyes of a baby. 

Remember. Deeply remember.

It is so hard to look deeply into the eyes of an adult. So much hurt has been held within, so much suffering and betrayal and trauma. 

When did it become so hard to look? 

Eyes cannot lie. They truly are windows to the soul.

When did that child start averting her eyes? 

At some point she start looking at the ground so as not to reveal the pain that was held inside. At some point she learned to protect herself by not looking into the eyes of others. Eyes also clouded with suffering, and confusion, and deeply held beliefs about themselves that she would rather hide from—that were too painful to see.

When did we cut ourselves off, separate ourselves, from the truth of who we are?

In our world everything is learned, passed on to us by our families, our culture and a system with structures that ultimately seek to control us in some way, shape or form. 

Without consciously realizing it, we lovingly pass on our hurt, and our pain, in the form of survival mechanisms and behaviors designed to keep us safe. 

We have sacrificed so much on the altar of safety.

You must act this way to be loved. You must do these things to be happy. You must dim your light in order to fit in. In order to belong.

Remember that child that delighted in the sound or their own voice? That child who would sing at the top of their lungs and demand an audience for all manner of magical miracles.

“Mamma look at me!!” you would yell. “LOOK at me!” 

Desperate to be seen. Really seen.

Feeling our emotions, allowing the energy of them to move through us, comes naturally as children. When a child experiences a difficulty or a challenge, they let their anger and frustration rip and the tears flow. They have a big tantrum to release the inner conflict, which when gently witnessed, is soon resolved and the child moves on to the next moment, pain cleared.

These strong feelings however don’t always get to run their course and be released...yelling and displays of anger and frustration are not socially acceptable after all.

Holding on to your anger, your failures, your disappointments, and bottling them up is something learned. Not expressing your love, your joy, your amazingness is also shamed out of us as we are told not to brag, not to be show-offs. 

From whatever angle you look at it we are taught to suppress our feelings, to create inner conflict, in order to avoid outer conflict.

We are a world of emotional illiterates, toddlers having a collective meltdown, a mass tantrum. Our collective bubble (or balloon) has been burst and the pain is so deep we can't even look each other in the eyes.

Why? 

Because, for years and years and years we have collectively experienced the greatest gaslighting that ever was!

What?

Oh yes I FEEL it! And I can SEE it! And I can see how I unknowingly contributed to it too. I remember how I bribed my girls with candy and numbed them with screens so that they would be quiet and manageable and “good” when I was visiting my parents. So that my parents would love them too and judge me as a “good” mother. 

I can feel in my body and see in the collective (as there is no separation), a massive release of pent up emotions that have been suppressed for generations and generations, perpetuated by the systems that are designed to support us but have separated and imprisoned us instead. 

“It is scary for sure...but there is nothing to fear. You are safe.” says Zinnia.

Everything that is coming to light around us, everything that is triggering us, is triggering these deeply held emotions, poking the deeply held pain of the collective that needs to be expressed.

This is the healing journey we are collectively on.

Each one of us is seeing something different of course, experiencing something different (and that is important because one soul cannot process all that is being brought to light at the moment and we each have our part to play,) but the common thread that stitches us all together is that not one of us has been untouched by this experience.

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!

Our innocence, our divine creativity, our light and inherent joy, all that we came into this life with has been systematically brainwashed out of us so that we could belong, so that we could feel loved, fit in and ultimately survive and be successful on this harsh planet where only the strongest survive. 

This is the collective story, the collective lie, we are waking up to, processing and healing.

This is how our beautiful, kind, loving human hearts and divine souls have created and perpetuated a system that allows poverty, inequality, injustice and war to prevail even when there are more than enough resources to meet everyone's needs and then some. 

It’s not our fault. 

We don’t know what we don’t know.

Does that mean there is no joy in our world? Not at all. But happiness is elusive and so attached to external conditions and deeply held beliefs about what constitutes a successful life that most miss all the magic and light and joy that is to be found and created from within WHICH IS OUR BIRTHRIGHT.

We are so busy working and paying and struggling to keep the roof over our heads, so tired from all the efforting and doing so that we can be valued, that we miss the birdsong, the raindrops, the quiet moments of magic that the universe is always sending us.

We have forgotten what it means to really live and what a gift life is. 

We have forgotten how to see the world with the eyes of a child, with wonder and curiosity. And we are so scared to express our true feelings for fear of external judgment that we have forgotten our divine creativity. Our innocence. 

In all our busyness adulting, we have forgotten who we are.

What if we could start over? 

What if we could just allow all the structures that seek to control us to crumble under the weight of their own density?

What if we could create our lives, and our communities, with the spirit of play and with the deep understanding that we are all interconnected expressions of divine love?

"Yes! Yes!" shouts Zinnia.

What if we could be held in our strong feelings, so that we can allow them to move through us as our beautiful two year olds demonstrate so well?

Children’s play allows them to experience a range of emotions/energies, none of which are permanent or stuck in the body because of fear of self-expression. They just feel the feelings and move on. We have so much to learn from these little people.

Zinnia, with all her beautiful bright colored petals, unfurling and reaching for the light, you can almost hear them giggle with delight as they vibrate out a wave of light hearted relief. Blowing a giant raspberry to release the seriousness that we all have programmed within us. 

Zinnia says to look to the children for the answers, look to Nature. 

Let’s take a moment to look away from watching the world burn and instead marvel at all of life buzzing and wiggling and exploding around us. Let's revel in a joyful light hearted celebration of what it really means to be alive. 

We need to go back to that child that we were and remind them of their inner light, remind them they are so loved, that they are enough just as they are and help them tap into their imagination again. 

Our imaginations will help us move through these difficult times by dreaming up infinite possibilities rather than focusing on fearful, worst-case outcomes.

The only way to live a full happy successful life is for it to be a creative expression of your own heart's light.

We need to remember how to play and dream and create with the spirit of a child—where the world is our oyster and anything is possible.

Never doubt your feelings! But absolutely we have to question the attachments and stories and beliefs your mind creates from them! Doubt is dense dark energy! Fear is a dark energy. We need to create our lives from a place of love not from a place of fear. 

I want to live in a world that truly honors all the children. A world that SEES the divine potential in each one, allowed them to explore and play and nurturing their passions and heart wonderings without an agenda, or standardized anything to adhere to. 

What if we took to heart the truth that we are all God's children? All children learning how to feel and process our emotions safely and without creating more pain for ourselves or others. 

Water is so cleansing. 

Tears hold all our memories, all those times when we couldn’t express what we were feeling, when we didn’t feel safe. We need to let them flow.

Mother Earth is wise. Holding us all as we scream and shout and cry rivers and rivers of snotty, blubbery, cleansing tears back into the ground. She is crying too. Tears of love and joy, and gently encouraging us to keep going as we go through this excruciating painful process—this process of growing up.

 
Dig deeper with Zinnia (LIGHT HEARTEDNESS) here.


3 Responses

Debbie
Debbie

May 25, 2023

Beautiful insights around, What is my authentic voice? And what, how this reflects me? (Voice or Self). Love and appreciation for your cards thank you
———
My Soulflower replied:
Thank YOU so much Debbie.

Cindy Freeman
Cindy Freeman

August 28, 2021

I am just now reading this. So much truth here. So much resonates with me. I am 62 years old. Back in 2016, a sister-in-law asked me this question: Were you ever nurtured as a child? I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. I had never considered this and was speechless. After a few moments of shock, I had to answer, “No. Not what I would consider nurturing.” Since she’s married to my brother, she felt she already knew the answer. I told her the first picture that came to my mind to describe our childhood was The Sound of Music family, pre-Maria, when Capt. Von Trapp blew a whistle for the children to come out to be introduced to Maria. While our childhood wasn’t quite that martial, it was very disciplined. That question broke me open and I have been “dealing” with issues ever since I was not even aware I had. Or I knew I had, but wasn’t aware of the source. About 20 years ago, when my ex and I were moving toward separation due to my unfaithfulness (with the man I have now been married to for almost 20 years…long story there), my dad took me out for a drive and asked me, “Are you angry?” I knew he was asking if this affair was due to anger toward anything from my childhood. When I was growing up, we could not express anger against our parents. It was considered disrepectful and we were spanked. When he asked me that question, again, I felt I had been kicked in the gut. I said, “No, not that I know of.” And that was true then. But his question stuck with me.
My dad passed away in 2012. My mom just passed sometime in the night last Thursday/Friday morning. Mom had been in an assisted living facility for the past two years after she fell and broke her hip. Then with the government response to COVID, we were not able to visit over the past 1.5 years like we had before. Most of my feelings about her had been put on the back burner, but with her death, they are bubbling back to the surface. This reading on Zinnia is confirming so many things for me.
Thank you.

Peggy
Peggy

July 26, 2021

Thank you for this deep dive into creative expression, joy and authenticity. I love it when I pick Zinnia from my Soulflower cards. And now the zinnias are beginning to bloom in the Garden, I look at each one with joy and gratitude! Blessings Be!

Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.


Also in Plant Spirit Deep Dives

Wintering: Coming Back to Life
Wintering: Coming Back to Life

February 14, 2024 1 Comment

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. 

Continue Reading

Finding Grace
Finding Grace

December 15, 2023 1 Comment

“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. 

Continue Reading

White Pine: Response Ability
White Pine: Response Ability

November 17, 2023 1 Comment

This is my work—growing my response ability to the world around me—so that I can contribute and support the whole from a place rooted in wisdom, love and unity consciousness, rather than from a place of reaction, guilt and unexpressed pain. Having a place of sanctuary and calm within may make all the difference for peace to prevail in the world

Continue Reading