Messages that may help those struggling during the holidays

On boundaries, compassion, obligation, expectation, and healing...

Between conversations with others, my own experiences, issues that arose from my own psyche during the Winter Solstice Retreat on the Four Purusarthas/Great Aims of Life (articles are coming soon, there’s so much info to organize that it may take a day or two), I’m going to share a few things that I know many people struggle with, and things that may offer some relief.

Holidays can be hard on people for a multitude of reasons. The ones I’ll highlight are simple yet widespread:

Expectations

Everyone on planet Earth is suffering. Of course to varying degrees, but no one is exempt from this. It is unreasonable and slightly comical to carry the weight of “alright, everyone all at the same time must immediately assume the position of merriment and enjoyment— and it better look like the cover of a Hallmark card or whatever commercials are on TV these days”

For some people, that may be the case. For many, it is not. Family dynamics can be complicated, people may be sick or dealing with personal crises. Then there’s people who have lost loved ones, and this may be one of the first holidays without them.

There are also people who have no one to share the day with, and on any other day it might not phase them much, but on a day where the expectation of being surrounded by “a merry crowd” is in their face, issues of shame, isolation, resentment or regret may be very pronounced.

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Obligation

I’ve seen several messages lately to the tune of:

“Do not do something out of obligation that puts your wellbeing or integrity at risk. If you do so, you are handing over your sovereignty and consciousness to the whim of someone or something else.”

In many cases, like a tyrannical unhinged government, this is common sense to us. But theory and practice are very different things.

This is especially challenging when it comes to interpersonal relationships, trauma bonds, co-dependent or abusive dynamics, especially when these are relationships we’ve had for most of our lives.

It could be family, it could be your partner, it could be your sibling or your friend since “forever”. It is at times baffling the excuses we’ll make and blinders we’ll throw up for parasitic or disingenuous relationships on the basis of how long we’ve known a person, or what our relationship to them is.

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Compassion has two wings:

The thing that really takes care of ourselves in the long run is opening our hearts to others. 

That doesn’t mean we don’t have boundaries, we do, we better— or we’ll lose our capacity to have our hearts open to others. 

That’s why the Bodhicitta is two wings of the same bird— the heart of compassion is both love and wisdom. 

If you have love without wisdom, you’ll be lacking boundaries. And wisdom without love becomes cold. 

So it’s the blending of first compassion, then the wisdom that comes through compassion. 

-Jai Dev Singh from the Winter Solstice Retreat 2023 / The Four Great Aims of Life

** side note, here’s what it looks like to have compassion with no wisdom: 

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The Lake Within

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Why did you stay?

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Wisdom, however, was garnered through experiencing things like inexplicable feelings of mercy and compassion.

The wisdom (discernment and boundaries) wasn’t there initially, and it was taken advantage of to a dangerous degree.

But with all that now in the rearview, my ability to have an open heart and compassion remains intact, and I now have a much sharper sword when it comes to discernment, boundaries, and in some cases, removing myself from certain situations entirely.

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Conclusions

Of course, practice and theory are different. Practice looks like wading through the mud to eventually get to the medicine, which can happen fast, or may take multiple lifetimes.

Point being, when we care for ourselves, because of the interconnectedness of all sentient beings, we take care of others as well. And in regards to the direct caring for others, we cannot do so if we aren’t caring for ourselves- not sustainably or for any consistent period of time at least.

This article is mainly a message to say:

First off, hi, and I hope everyone has a safe and relaxing holiday, whichever one you celebrate, if you celebrate. ❤️

Second, the articles from the retreat are coming, but there is an unbelievable amount of experience and teachings that will take longer than anticipated to formulate into articles, but they will be here this week.

Third, due to what I’ve seen and felt in the collective, I know there are people struggling right now, and often at a loss, because whatever their situation is, it doesn’t match up to what the machine tells us it’s supposed to look like.

I’m here to say that every challenge or point of pain we experience is an opportunity to expand our sovereignty - to test what it feels like to become more of who we are (truth), and less of who we are not (expectations).

Sometimes, you gotta wade through the mud to get to the medicine.

If something doesn’t feel right and you feel yourself feeling smaller, dimmer, and know what you’re experiencing is gonna leave a dent and likely be something you’ll have to process for a hot minute, you are allowed to remove yourself.

We often chain one another invisibly via expectation and other tactics, and sometimes we’re not aware we’re doing it.

Sometimes we’re the ones doing it to ourselves.

But we are all sovereign beings, so if you find yourself in a situation that you know is toxic or harmful, you are allowed to leave — even if it disappoints people or pisses them off.

What is more important, their approval or your peace?

If we are choosing to be in an environment but finding ourselves bothered or resentful due to someone else’s behavior that we likely haven’t seen all year, but are only seeing because society says it’s what we’re supposed to do, and maybe we’d like to have that family bonding experience with them, but it just isn’t working out how we’d hoped it would…

One thing to keep in mind is that everyone is suffering.

It doesn’t mean we can wave a magic wand and fix it, but it does mean that things like prayer for a love and a light far greater than anything we can produce as individuals may meet and transform them, and give them what they need so they may be set free.

It’s easy to pray and wish well on those we’re on good terms with - much harder to do so with adversarial energies, or those who wish ill upon us.

However, when we do this, the first person to be set free is us, because we’ve switched our energy from resentment to compassion.

And in the larger picture, it’s the logical thing to do, because people who are free, happy, joyous and fulfilled, do not harm other people.

So this wish or prayer for difficult situations or individuals is probably the best thing we can do, because if their suffering is alleviated, they will cease to create more of it for themselves and others.

The same can be said for ourselves, so please do grant yourself the same wish or prayer.

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If you are surrounded with love and harmony today, may it be amplified and projected— as your happiness is a contribution to everyone! Stated in a video I restacked last night, “If you really want to do something to help, learn how to be happy.”

Quantum physics certainly proves this, and this is heavily interwoven in many ancient beliefs and philosophies, including the concept of Tantra, the literal interwoven-ness of all things.

The Patroness of Miraculous Healing - When your soul selects her card:

It can feel effortless to ask for what our loved ones need. We can fall on our knees at times to pray for the health and highest possible outcome for our beloved children and partners or friends. What’s often far more difficult is asking for all that we need.

For many of us, lack of self-worth can get in the way of realizing that we can ask for so much more. And that ultimately, there is no difference between praying for our own needs and the needs of others.

There are so many miracles, graces, and blessings that don’t arrive simply because we don’t ask for them. Spirit is ethical. Spirit doesn’t interfere with our intrinsic right to choose our own adventure story. Free will is ours. So we have to ask for Spirit to intervene in the effort of our own healing.

Ask and you will find. This is a spiritual truth. And also, suffering is optional. Suffering doesn’t glorify us or make us holy. At any point we can ask for the highest possible good to shower down on us. We can ask to be healed in ways we can’t even imagine by handing that healing over to the Divine.

The healing might not arrive in the way we picture being healed. Our lower back may still throb with pain, but our heart has shifted, and there’s a miraculous amount of light within our lives again.

If we can hand over an attachment to what healing looks like, we can receive all the blessings waiting for us.

-Words by Meggan Watterson, artwork by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman, from The Divine Feminine Oracle Deck.

Talk to you soon, and will have much to share regarding the wild cosmic wormhole I just emerged from and am still processing from the Winter Solstice Retreat.