Firing my Fire

I have decided that I will be writing a bit more frequently now and into the future. Sure, I can write as a mechanism for visibility to let others, both in and out of my sphere of influence, know that I am a fully alive and contributing member of society, trusting that others might be looking to pick up what I am putting down. OR, I can just write because it allows me to discover more about myself. Both of these ‘reasons’ for writing are equally true.

There was a time when I had no clue about my direction in life, even when it looked like I had direction, investing heavily in time and dollars to create my own evidence of proof that I was enough. The problem with that was that it was NEVER enough.

Sure, I discovered that I had beliefs I did not know I had… beliefs so unconscious that I was out of touch, vibrationally, with what was structuring my reality, counter to what I said I wanted… even though I really had no clue about what I wanted. What I know now is that I did not believe I had any right to any of it.

Recently, I discovered that while I was speaking to anger/rage in terms that were OK for others to understand for themselves, I had great difficulty, in/for myself, to access its essential elemental signal of FIRE in my own body. So deep was the conditioning to not go there for fear of having to experience that intensity rise up in others, I got enormously proficient at avoiding, defending and denying it by holding my breath to stave away any and all perception of danger. With that, I could feel safe (temporarily at best) from any possibility of having to feel shunned and left behind, adding yet another layer of humiliation and shame to an ever increasing mountain of unconscious (likely mysterious to others) behaviours yielding unwanted results in my life.

Years ago, I had an epiphany that, to the degree I could not own my own rage, I would not be able to access passion and compassion to manifest a life of my own design. AND, no matter what, it IS ALL my own design. Truth is there was only so far that I would let myself feel. Beyond that point, resistance reigned supreme with a big no-go.

Fast forward to now. That epiphany I had so many years ago is still true; however, my realization has moved beyond ‘could not own my own rage’ to ‘would not own my own rage’. These are two very different things. I had ostensibly fired my fire. Who knew?

So, what’s up with the ‘would not’; what is the intelligence in that? Believe it or not; every word casts a spell; every word is a prayer; every-word pre-supposes a directive, a possibility. Every word is a metaphor for how we are choosing to live our lives. None of it is good, bad, right, wrong. What is most important here, for me, is that I now choose to consciously notice how I am conversing with myself and others AND to curiously question ‘How is this working for me?’ It is a non-directive invitation to get honest with myself. And, it is amazing how easy it is to forget; I do so at my peril. It is worth noticing just how often an invitation actually sets up resistance, where none was ever intended, thus making it easy to forget.

’Could not’ invited my capacity to not trust (myself), where as ‘would not’ was a firm directive to not trust (myself). And, since it was all about owning my fire, it also constituted a firm decision to not access the fullness of passion and compassion available to me FOR myself. I realized that I could not know the fullness of my passion and compassion without knowing the full intensity of my rage (the label I had attached to the intensity of my personal fire). Rage had always felt dangerous, igniting fear.

So, did I alienate my own fire to feel safe? I realized that a decoupling of all or nothing was in order. To the degree that I would not give easy rein to the full expression of rage, I would not give full expression to my deep passion to contribute to others. As well, I would deny myself the full expression of compassion toward myself that I have always been so hungry for out of all conscious knowing; all of that was unfolding completely out of my conscious awareness.

It is only time when it’s time. Evolution by intention for its own sake is how I choose to live. So, the journey is never, ever done. Such an indication that abundance lives in the fact that there is always, in all ways, more of everything to discover - both the beautiful and the ugly, the wanted and the unwanted.

What I know for sure is this: your epiphanies connect the dots… and once you see the patterns, there is nothing more to do than to take ownership of your awareness AND stay awake. You must commit to the practice of changing your mind. More information, different decisions. And, if you conveniently fall asleep/forget again, so you don’t have to know, so you don’t have to feel the chaos inside, so you don’t have to hear the cacophony of internal and external voices shouting over each other, so you don’t have to see what you cannot stand, then choose to take a breath and exhale all that truth, self-validated, out into your world, even if you can’t stand it. And, own that you can’t stand it, too.

Just because you validate its presence - wanted or unwanted - in your world, does not mean you have to sanction it. It does not mean that you are ‘right’ OR that you are ‘wrong’. It does not mean that an internal battle to prove yourself either way, must ensue. What it does mean is that you are choosing to no longer be captive to any blind spots which have brilliantly served to distract you from knowing, feeling, hearing and seeing the truth of your self-created reality. Again, not good, bad, right, wrong. Then, what you know and authentically reveal to yourself as not actually working in your world becomes both a telescope and microscope for what IS working. THAT is the choice point by which to choose your locus of focus.

Shifting that locus/focus is what changes your life. Your stories about it all will lose intensity, as you come to see that they, indeed, are intended only to leverage the context we each choose to live by. We get to manage our circumstances OR we get to unequivocally create our lives. The former will serve to solve a problem; the latter will serve to transform your life, transcending any solutions to your perceived problems. The change in your quality of life then becomes palpable and joyful, no matter what is happening outside of you in any given moment.

So, what we believe matters; what we tell ourselves matters; our stories repeated and augmented matter; disowning the truth of our experience matters; owning the truth of our experience matters. Positive affirmations applied to non-ownership of our unrecognized and unvalidated victimization will not change our lives. Positive affirmations applied to our ‘resistance’ as platitudes for hope will not change our lives.

So… what will change our lives? I believe that we must choose to actually own the truth of what we cannot stand to admit - even to ourselves - is not working for us. It all starts with a willingness to get nosy about our own lives and ask bigger questions, not for answers, but instead for ignition to direct our unique selves onto the path of designing a life that is both meaningful and sustainable.

Listening for how and what you are actually saying to yourself and others in every moment is significant to your own personal healing. It is a massive response-ability. I can just hear the collective groan being emitted with the idea of listening for everything. When we have been so culturally conditioned to listen for what is being said at the surface of communication, rather than for what is not being expressed, yet is deeply structuring personal reality, the very idea of listening for everything can feel overwhelming and exhausting.

Truth is, while your intellect can brilliantly distract itself, so it does not have to know, your body is listening in to everything, taking its cues from the quality of that expression received in you, by you, from you and from others. Your central nervous system and your immune system, just to name two of the body’s quantum biological processes, are taking their directives from you. That includes all the ‘stuff’ you are consciously aware of AND all of the ‘stuff’ you are unconsciously unaware of which is structuring your personal reality.

I’ve got to tell you, that your life will never again feel boring to you, when you choose to live this way: directing life-force fire, on fire. I can also tell you that you’ll come to trust yourself in ways that exceed description, even when things outside of you look like they are going ‘south’.

Choosing to live by context (consider just who and what we are as quantum biological humans) rather than by content (the stories we tell ourselves to make it OK to be whom we have come to believe we are) is a game changer. When we give up the story (always based in historical and habituated belief that demands managing distinctions to suit the situation at hand), we find ourselves simply free to create. Fire on fire.

In the realm of the quantum, we get to ask - with great clarity - what else is possible? Truth is that our answers are always presupposed by the questions we ask. All we have to do is stay awake, notice and take action. Questions really are the answers.

To quote my dear friend, mentor and colleague, Louise LeBrun of the WEL-Systems® Institute, “You are not the flesh speaking the words - you are the words in flesh, having been spoken“. Indeed, words are matter in the domain of sound.

For women only. When you are ready to discover more, please explore my programs, here. Connect with me at anytime at sheila@sheilawinterwallace.com to determine what can be possible for you.

Thank you for reading.

Sheila