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How to Love

by Alan Waugh, Sacred Valley Spiritual Retreat

This powerful sculpture entitled ‘LOVE’ and otherwise known as ‘Inner Child’ evokes the innocent child within us wanting to reach out and connect with the innocent, inner child within our partner.

It is symbolic of the deep yearning within us to connect with the core essence of our mate, despite the challenges and conflict that are so prevalent in miscommunication through projection or unrealized expectations.

It is a beautiful homage to that which lies within our own divine essence that is at its core our innate nature, wishing to touch the innate nature of our partner and ultimately all beings.

How many times have you had conflict with your partner, felt hurt, not seen nor heard, validated nor acknowledged? In those moments, have you wished to make it all right, forgive and let go of what appears to be so inconsequential or petty and yet has triggered you so strongly? In those times have you then turned away from your partner in anger and fear where you are pushed into a place of distrust or of not feeling safe?

How many times in those painful moments have you accepted responsibility for the miscommunication or even non- communication of your feelings or reactions before you quickly moved into the fight or flight mode, just wanting to get away, hide or even smash something? Probably not too many!

The sculpture ‘LOVE’ could also have been presented in a different way, in that it is really the Inner Child that is turning away, with the ‘parenting couple’ facing each other. Appropriately rigid and tense in their metallic form, they put an energetic guard, not just around their outer body but ultimately around their hearts, like a suit of armor to protect from all the perceived energetic and emotional arrows being shot at them via ill-placed words, actions or even critical looks.

It is the child within our sub-conscious self that that holds all the woundings and conditioning manifesting in our adult self that gets triggered and sends the message that we are in a place of conflict/ fear/un-safety.

Why would you respond with such a strong reaction with something that could be as petty as your partner saying that they are going out for a drink with their friends? Ultimately your partner just wants to go out with friends. But maybe your inner child is tapping into deep feelings of abandonment that happened as you were taken straight from birth to an incubator?

Or maybe because your Father left the family house when you were two? It is the deeply held unresolved memory of past experiences that hold most of the emotional/ mental or physical triggers for you that caused the present day reaction and not the fact that your partner was planning on abandoning you? Or maybe it is a past memory that somehow you believed that you are not good enough? So your partner going out without inviting you, triggers this inner belief or conditioned response that sends a wave of deep cellular patterning to create the re-action that your body/mind still believes?

Another term for this inner child within each of this is the Shadow Self. The very fact that they are referred to as ‘Shadows’ invokes the belief that they somehow are to be feared because they lie in wait for us hidden in the dark: unseen, unacknowledged nor cared for.

How can we be in Sacred/Conscious relationship unless we take care of all that is held within our sub-conscious experience that holds the limiting beliefs about ourselves, that we project onto the world outside ourselves?

Maybe you have more or less managed to create a safe container within your epidermal layer, that as long as you can live the life you believe to be authentically you, you can live a life of a form of inner peace. But what happens if one or some of those past traumatic or limiting beliefs get triggered by something that someone outside of yourself says or does, that seems like a hurtful gesture or action?

Guess what, that wounding that holds a personality with an associated inner voice kicks you and says “See, you’re not good enough! You will never be able to do that! You’re not pretty enough, they are going to leave you!”

So then what you do is push the responsibility for your pain or neurotic response onto the person that you feel caused that inner feeling of discomfort. “It’s their fault I feel that way!”

So in relationship work with another, the only way to release projections or blame on the ‘other’ is to accept accountability for the source of that blame. Yes, its good to learn communication processes through couples counseling and to better understand what hurts or displease your partner. But unless you learn to develop a better more loving, supportive and nurturing relationship with yourself, to yourself, nothing ultimately will change at the core.

Here at The Sacred Valley Spiritual Retreat, our skill-full facilitators help you gain incite into the originating cause of your triggers and conditioning and through a variety of powerful and transformative techniques, help you love that wounded child within you, that is the source of all love and help bring it out from the shadows.

This is the path of self mastery that the sages and gurus from ancient times teach as the path to inner peace. Maybe now, see the illuminated child in the above photo as an illumination of your heart center.

Look at it.

It is only through shining light into yourself that you can illuminate your capacity to fully love.

Big Love.

Sculpture By Ukrainian Artist Alexander Milov for 2015 Burning Ma Installation

Alannicolewhite

Shamanism & Sacred Reciprocity

As my Shamanic Teacher, Alan Waugh would say, “Welcome. We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

We have arrived at the precipice of The Old Paradigms’ Destruction and this is the opportunity for the Dawning of the Great New Earth. My Shamanic studies seem to be of paramount importance at this time.  We must renew our sacred relationship with the Earth or perish as a species.  Our generation and those below us are the Wisdom Keepers and Light Workers brought to Earth to save her and all living species.

As Alan’s great world-renowned Shamanic wisdom teacher, don Oscar Miro-Quesada states in his book, Lessons in Courage, “To harness the spiritual power of creation, as did our ancestral peoples, we need to return to a deep understanding of how sacred relationship works. “Feed the earth first and then you will have the strength to go out on the healing path, ” don Benito taught me. The more loving the energy that we can generate as we attend to these earth-honoring ceremonies, the quicker the transmutation of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies occurs…By doing earth-healing rites and ceremonies, we re-establish a conscious, awakened sacred relationship with the Earth. This encourages all the conscious beings who inhabit our beloved Pachamama to feel more comfortable revealing to themselves to nurture and support us. This is the nature of ayni (sacred reciprocity).

The Earth is our GREAT MOTHER, loving us daily unconditionally – offering us food, water, air and a place to live and grow our souls.  She’s our playground for evolution and yet we treat her like a dumping ground.   We must now walk our talk of loving relationship and take action.

We must learn the ways of the indigenous cultures to REMEMBER what it is to establish a loving intentional connection with our first mother and to live in the ways of the sacred.

How to get in connection with the Earth ways:
1) buying the book “Lessons in Courage”
2) signing up for a retreat with don Oscar Miro-Quesada
3) coming on retreat with Alan and myself to Mt. Shasta in July (yoga/shamanism)
4) attending Shamanism-inspired workshops (we lead some see below about February and there are many around LA)

These are ways to learn rituals and medicines of the indigenous and to deeply work on your inner healing which will change the world around you.

This February, Alan is coming to LA to offer a Shamanic Reiki Training for all that are Advanced Reiki (Reiki III).  This is a great introduction to the Divine offerings of Shamanism in combination with Reiki, a Shamanic Japanese healing modality.