Wednesday, April 4, 2012

F is for Facing your Fears

I have been blessed this past little while to have been able to journey down my shadow path with two very dear friends.  The support that I have been given by them in facing my fears has been incredible and it is only just the beginning of this journey.  I did not realize how much better the shadow working experience could be when done with others rather than faced alone, suddenly things seem less insurmountable and there are people who understand and who can offer an outside perspective.

My journey into the shadow is an important part of the spiritual path I'm taking right now, I feel that in order to truly tap into my own spiritual being I need to address the issues of my shadow.  Until I have faced some of my fears I cannot truly embrace the mysteries that my chosen path has waiting for me.  One of my biggest fears is letting go and that is an important element if I am to truly journey down the rabbit hole of mystery traditions.  Due to experiences in my past I have a serious need to be in control all the time - the idea of giving up my self completely to an experience or deity scares the crap out of me to be blunt.  The idea of allowing myself to let go enough to do certain journey work is also a big fear of mine and these are key ingredients that need to be addressed.

In the short time that I've been working with my shadow I have seen vast improvements - I can't recommend it enough, although only when you feel you are ready.  I have a long hard journey ahead of me but so far the rewards are proving worth it.  Fear exists to be conquered and through shadow work I'm conquering mine.

F is for Finding Time

Given how late this blog posting is I find the title rather appropriate.  I have obviously been struggling with finding time in my life for all things, but especially for this project and other spiritual activities.  Why is it that as soon as life gets busy my spiritual practices are the first things to get put on hold?  This is a failing of mine that I need to work on but obviously there are outside pressures that make it easier to put this on the back burner rather than work or school.  Lets face it nothing is going to come down and smite you for not practicing your meditations or chakra work etc - however, should you not show up at work or fail to hand in an assignment things have immediate consequences.  Of course that isn't to say that not partaking of activities to nourish the soul don't have consequences - lets face it, we become disconnected if we don't, but they are less 'in your face' so we tend to pass them off as not existing.

So this is my dilemma, making myself make time for myself and my spiritual path.  I work full time, I am going to school part time to do my Masters degree, I have a house to maintain, I play soccer and I have my coven group and that pretty much fills my week (I'm so glad I don't have children to add into that equation) - I'm usually so exhausted that any down time I have I spend not wanting to engage my brain or napping, its a nasty little cycle.

So I'm trying to learn to make time within my busy schedule.  I found an awesome chakra CD that has music that I can feel stimulating each chakra so I listen to that at work while I'm working (trying to multi-task).  I may end up putting this project off to a once every two weeks thing - I have every other Friday off so I can get two posts done then and just deal with it that way, its not how it is supposed to go but I also don't want to give up on this.  Need to get back into the habit of doing my daily oracle draw and hopefully the Monday night shadow work I've been doing will pick up again.

But if anyone has other suggestions on how to sneak it all into a busy schedule I'm open for ideas.  I've thought about dropping something but I just can't.  I need to work (bills, mortgage etc), I am so close to finishing school I'm not giving that up (four classes away), Soccer is sometimes the only exercise I get in a week (although giving that up may be out of my control if we can't pull a team together) and I will not have a stranger come in and clean my house (I just don't trust them no matter how vetted they are) and of course my coven is very important to me also.

So there are the ramblings of a distracted woman...but they are off the chest now :)