Below is a transcript of the episode as generated by Otter.ai. (*please note, this transcript has only been edited to put in line breaks for easier readability and may contain errors where a word or phrase got lost in transcription.)

[0:34] Introduction to Episode

Aloha everybody. Welcome to Your Heart magic. This is Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright. And today we are talking about the topic staying grounded and our purpose. I was thinking today, as I was preparing a few notes and talking points to riff off of, for today's podcast about the idea of what is the purpose of your heart magic, what's the purpose of this podcast?

And I was thinking about the idea that this podcast originally I created it as a space to talk about heart wisdom, to explore concepts around personal spirituality, to take concepts that some might find to be like ethereal or metaphysical and like make them real and grounded and practical.

And to wrap all of that in this giant bow of psychological wisdom well being, and really have this be a space that encourages open dialogue, enlightened dialogue, curiosity, investigation, exploring how do we live by spiritual principles.

[1:53] The Purpose of Your Heart Magic Podcast

But in the heart of the matter of your heart magic, it's really about how do we stay anchored into our hearts, and learn to live a life that is carved out from the vision in our hearts, the desires in our hearts, the voice in our hearts? And how do we learn to listen to that, and discern between the mental chatter and what we're taught about who we should be versus what our hearts know about? who we really are? And how do we figure out how to hook up the mind in the heart. It's not like those two are independent of one another, they are coexistent.

It's just that sometimes our mental chatter and our projections and ideas and thought power is so overly developed, that we don't always know how to listen to our heart center, or to work with the intelligence of our heart and to be in coherence with their heart. So that's the purpose of this podcast.

And I bring that up as an example to say that it is what grounds my topics every single week, as long as the topics that I feel inspired to dialogue about can be umbrella under that greater purpose. Now, that was a lengthy explanation, I'm sure I could put that down into a short 50 word mission statement if I had to.

But in that longer explanation for me, as long as something falls under the jurisdiction of what I just described, about teaching us to live through the wisdom of our hearts, and exploring those concepts. It is fair game for this podcast, and I love talking about it.

And we need to have a sense of what anchors us. We need to have a sense of our why and this life. And there are many, many, many wives that we have in this life, from why we do what we do to why we are who we are.

That is my why for this podcast, it is an extension of my understanding of my bigger purpose and my bigger mission in life. And then I took it very specific and just jotted down my idea before I pressed play to record this podcast. And I thought to myself, well, what's the purpose of this topic today.

And this is what I just wrote down off the off the cuff to help empower listeners to align with their hearts vision and live their truth. That is what I would love for you to take away from today's podcast and whatever way that resonates with you to feel more empowered to really tap into your sense of your heart and what your heart tells you about who you are in this world, what you're about and to help you feel more empowered to live your truth at the heart even if it can run counterculture or run.

Contrary to what the people around you may expect or what others might be doing.
Sometimes we will find that our hearts purpose is in exact accord in harmony with people in our life. And sometimes we're running at a different pace and a different soul rhythm and our heart will ask something of us, that encourages us to go against the grain.

And so when we are able to anchor into that wisdom and anchor into, why am I doing this? Why does this feel meaningful to me? What is my purpose in this that allows us to have something to hang on to, and to practice discernment, to clarify our position on something to give us a direction.

And that's really what purpose is all about. We spoke about purpose on this podcast, I spoke about it close to one of the beginning episodes I did, I don't remember what number it is, I know it's somewhere in the chapter list, and it probably has purpose in the title, if you'd like to look for that one, I'll try and link it in the write up section of this.

[6:04] Why A Sense of Purpose Matters

But when we were speaking about purpose, the idea is, is that when we are connected to our sense of purpose, it is what allows us to create a boundary for ourself, that says in this big world filled with ideas filled with philosophies, filled with various belief systems, filled with all these choices of who I could be, or what I could do, filled with all these possibilities of how my life might become, and I could go right, I could go left, I could choose to do this, I could choose not to do this, you know, in this big, vast world that is both terrifying at times, and terrible, and also so beautiful and filled with inspiration and love.

Our purpose is what allows us to set a boundary around ourselves and say, I claim this space, I claim myself, I claim this little plot of being or this vast plot of being this is my essence. And this is what I'm about. And this is what guides me and allows me to make choices and move in a direction that feels aligned.

And if I realized, I'm moving in a direction that no longer feels aligned, well, this is what I can come back to and use as a touchstone and say, I feel like I've gotten really off track. And I'm no longer in touch with what this was originally about. And at that point, we either evolve our sense of purpose and evolve, what we're about, or we realize we're really off track and what needs to evolve is our choices, or I guess D evolve or go in a completely different direction.

So that's the purpose of our purpose. It is, as I said, a boundary in so many ways, and it's what we can come back to, to anchor us and to and I wanted to speak about that today, because I personally feel that our world just feels like it's getting noisier and more confusing. That's my experience as an empath. And my experience as an energy sensitive, I know, I'm not alone in that. There are so many voices out there anymore.

And as I have gone about working on my own personal mission, and who do I want to be in this world? And what do I feel called to teach on? There are times that it has been easy to feel like I'm getting lost in this vast sea of voices, especially in the spiritual industry, the wellness industry, any of those industries, writing industry where individuals are taking their creative work, they're inspired work, the gifts they feel pressed upon in a good way to offer to the world, the gifts of the heart, and they're trying to create a product or create a package or create a container to serve and share their gift with others.

It's very easy to get lost in that with Well, what's going to sell, or what are people going to respond to? Or how does this translate to other people. I spent a lot of time my first few years after I moved to Hawaii. And I was in this process of reinvention. And I was really trying to redefine who I was I knew I wasn't just a psychologist that I had all this spiritual, intuitive, creative stuff that I wanted to ground in somehow work that into my life's work and the work that I was doing. And I remember that I would keep running into like these big walls when it came to talking to people who did like marketing, or public relations stuff, or branding, and they would try and kind of pin me down like, well, what are you about? What are you doing? And it was almost like my work was like way too multifaceted.

Just sort of wait, are you a psychologist? Well wait, you do intuitive stuff. You do Akashic Records work, wait, now you're doing a children's book, you know, kind of how does that fit in with all of this. And nothing, not that any of that was critical. It was more like they were wanting me to be able to say, you know, I'm the psychologist with the mystic mine, I think I've used that for this podcast. Or I am a spiritual psychologist who blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, this is what I offer.

And it kind of makes it palatable, and it makes it pocketable. And people remember, you buy a catchphrase or the colors you use, or this branding, there's this very interesting psychology to all this stuff that goes into anybody's platform that you see who is putting out creative offerings and trying to reach an audience. And there's a lot of thought that goes into it and a lot of intentionality.

And for me, I am very much intentional about staying authentic and steering as far away as I can from anything that feels like marketing or salesy or just stuff that's not me, it's really kind of very off putting to me.

[11:26] The Quest for Purpose: The Struggle Was Real

But at the time, I was still learning all of this. And I felt like I was lost in this big sea of voices and big sea of offerings, and other people who'd been doing it longer. And they look like they had these glossy platforms. And they call themselves by these fancy titles, and have these like fancy things that they offered, you know, like, I do quantum sound healing. And I am a quantum activator or something like that. No offense intended, if anybody actually does that, I'm fascinated by what that is. I don't know, you know, but I would see things like that. And it wasn't my wheelhouse.

So I didn't know what it meant. But I would be like, Wow, how do they come by that and what evolved that that became their purpose. And they decided, like, this is what I'm going to do, like, This is who I am. And this is how I'm going to brand myself. And it took forever, and many, many, many phases of self, to just really come back to again, the heart of the matter, which is outside of clinical work.

My bigger purpose is I'm here to teach heart wisdom. I'm here to teach people how to get out of their minds and get into their hearts, and to listen to the voice of their heart and learn the language of their heart and learn how to work with what resonates with them. And what they're sensing.

Our intuition is connected to our heart, our heart is a gateway to our intuition. And we get into our intuition by learning to be in our heart, not so much by being in our mind, every decision I've made in my life that has really been brave and big, and really like been something in my life that changed the trajectory in a positive way. Eventually, maybe not always at first.

But every big decision that came from the heart, it did not come from overthinking it. And using logic and strategy and crunching numbers on paper, or looking at what was best, like the biggest leaps that I've been encouraged to make or inspired to make had been heart based choices. And whether or not I look back and say, well, I could have thought that out a little bit more.

Or if I had known, then what I know now I would have still taken that leap. But I would have done X, Y and Z. You know, maybe I would go back and do that. But probably not because I would miss all the beautiful soul lessons that were learned along the way. Those all came from my heart.

And anytime that I feel lost, and I feel that I'm out of sorts, or I have a question about a relationship, about a choice that I'm about to make, about how I feel about something, an opinion on something, maybe it's something as small as a political opinion or an opinion on something happening in our world and things that there is a lot of ideas floating around. I am inspired to ask my heart. What do you have to say about this?

And that is what informs my position statement on almost everything in my life. And if my heart does not know what it has to say that sometimes that's because one the mental chatter around something is so loud that I cannot get through and get into my heart.

So I know that what my heart has to say is probably more like you need to be still, you need to be quiet in order to receive for me, you need to tune down all the voices and turn up the volume on me. And sometimes I can tell that if my heart if I'm not getting guidance, it's because like, I'm still sifting, I'm still doing that deep process work of looking at things from all perspectives.

And there hasn't been something yet that I'm getting really clear guidance on. But I always bring it back to my heart. Having said that, I do actually have a personal mission statement that kind of fits into the criteria I'm going to be talking about in a little bit.

And it actually doesn't use the word heart in it, despite everything that I just said. And I will tell you how I came upon, you know, this idea for this, it's very simple. Back when I was it was the spring, it was May it was Memorial Day weekend, Memorial Day, actually, of I want to say it was 2019. And I've been on the island, after moving here from Alaska for about two years by then.

[16:11] It's Not What You Do, It's Who You Are

And I came over here with this expectation that my purpose was to do something, I had this attachment that I was coming feeling inspired to move to Hawaii to somehow create something or do something. And I spent a lot of time the first couple of years on the island, sort of doing the Are you my mother? Or are you my mother? Are you my mother thing, where anytime an opportunity would come along, I would have this mental story around it, like maybe this is it.

And I've talked a little bit before on here and shared some of these things. But, you know, I'm thinking about a time that I was asked to lead a woman's Moon circle. And I've been wanting to do circles and I thought, oh my goodness, maybe this is it. Maybe this is the start of like a thing, where I'm going to do a monthly Moon wisdom circle, and I'm going to grow it up on the North Shore and women are going to come and I will start to establish a meditation group.

And that didn't happen at all, it was a really great event. But the person that I co hosted with who is really the one who had the connections that brought people and she was pregnant and you know, gave birth, I think the next month and then was kind of off doing her own thing for a long time. And it just didn't work out timing wise that it happened again. And every time I would approach her or be like, Hey, do you want to do this or even think of doing it myself? It was like something came up. But it was never the right time. That never became a thing.

I would write something I publish a book. And I would think maybe this is it, I actually have published a children's book. It's called Talulah, toxic nature. I did the whole thing I self published it, it was really fun at the time, I planned this whole Talulah series. And I thought maybe this is it. I'm going to segue into children's book publishing.

And I had a lot of fun with it, I have no doubt that if they wanted to keep up the series, I could. But I never felt like called to ground that and inspired to keep going with it. I did feel so inspired to do the Lamentations trilogy and to finish that out and to bring it to a place of full circle.

So I know the difference between how it feels when something is right. And we just go with it. And we go with that flow versus when we're forcing something. And I never felt this sense of kind of clicking and taking traction, or being able to identify as that's my thing. I'm a children's book author. And that's kind of how it was, Are you my mother.

And so I was like this jack of all trades. I did all these interesting things. I had a lot of really cool experiences, I had a few speaking engagements, and again, went into those thinking, maybe this is it. And from this, I make this connection, I get my next speaking engagement or I figure out how to do a TED talk or whatever that story was.
And none of those things grew. In fact, many of them I would like come back with somebody's name or come back with a connection. And then it would like get dropped on their end.

There's so many things that I thought this is it and I'm like I'm here. I'm available. Let's make this happened. And then I would never hear anything back.

So I was perpetually frustrated and really in this place of feeling loss. Like why did I come here? What in the world am I supposed to be doing in Kauai and I was really mixed up about it. And I somebody had said what's your purpose at this time? I'm not sure how I would have answered. But I was doing writing. And writing always helps bring me back to the heart of the matter. Right. It brings me into my heart when I'm writing.

[19:59] To Be a Bright Light: A Journey of Becoming

And what poured through this day in this essay that I wrote around Memorial Day of 2019, was this realization that my purpose for coming here was not about what I was meant to do, it was about who I was meant to become.

And that in order to do anything that didn't matter until I became a bigger, expanded version of BethAnne, until I became more open to listening to spirit more open to listening to my heart, I had a lot of preconceived notions about how I thought intuitive information, and psychic information and spiritual information would look, I had these preconceived notions about what it meant to have a spiritual offering, and how that would look. And those were based on what other people were doing.

And what I was really being taught at the time was, it's not about any of those preconceived notions, it's about learning to be in communion with spirit. And it's about learning to listen, your purpose is about being what you do will be an extension of that.

It's really just about like who you are, and taking the space right now to become a more expanded version of who you were, and to really learn to embody these truths in your heart that you know, are true, right, I believed in living authentically, I believed in living intuitively, I believed and trusting our soul trusting my soul to guide me on this journey that I didn't have a roadmap on. And I was putting the cart before the horse in some ways, or it's like I just learned to crawl and then I was like, let's run a marathon. Now. You know, I have a lot of fire energy in my chart, my son signs in Leo. And I've got plenty of that just nice drive inside of me. And so really learning to like, chill the eff out. And just receive and learn to be, that has been a lot of the work of kawaii before anything else started to be built upon that.

So in this essay that I was writing, which is ended up being in my book, Revelations of the Sky, I wrote down that my purpose is to be a bright light, to hold space for the light. And in so doing, awaken the light and others. And that was it. That is my purpose. And it's not changed since I wrote that down. And it was already that before I wrote that down, that just put it into language.

[22:35] Our Purpose is Multidimensional & Fluid

And I think that brings me to a good talking point to kind of dive into this idea today of kind of understanding our purpose, and how do we stay grounded and it and that is that our purpose is multi dimensional, and it is fluid. And I think that sometimes when we think about what is my purpose, we can run into the air of being too linear about it of being too small about it, I was searching for a purpose that was attached to this idea of who I was.

And really, my greater purpose was about to be a bright light, to hold space for the light. And in so doing awaken the light and others. And how am i or bright light? Well, I am not through my spiritual work. I do that through like really working with my own stuff, if I'm not in a good place, that has to be shifted, in order for me to hold space for other people's light and the mediums that I might work with them.

Whether that is in one on one work, whether that's in something that I write, that they might read, whether that's in a course that I teach, whether that is in an interaction that I might have, if I go to the grocery store, caveat, I am not always a bright light, I am not always anchored into that I am like everybody else and I'm sure I've gone to the grocery store in a really bad mood sometimes and missed an opportunity to be gracious and warm to the checker and have probably been not rude I work really hard to never be that, you know, it's like Goddess, bless those who are in service positions to others and who help us have like the basics of everyday life.

But you know, I will oftentimes try and infuse my interaction with warmth, and meaning even if it's just a really simple exchange. So, in order to do that I need to be in a place of really being connected to my light and part of that too requires being filled up, being nourish, nourishing my soul, doing what I need to do to take space for my spiritual connection. I can feel really quickly anymore if I have strayed too far. Not necessarily from that, but strayed too far from being able to like anchor into that connection.

And when I say stray too far, what usually happens is I'm really busy, or I haven't had adequate time to journal and meditate and pray and do all this stuff that I do. And they all start to feel like I'm getting a little off track, I know it's time to bring it back in and connect with my life somehow.

And that can happen in so many ways that can happen through reading a book of poetry written by somebody who was absolutely inspired by this world around us, I will often pick up my friend Carolyn Riker is this beautiful poet, she's a beautiful author, I will drop a link to her latest book, at the bottom of this podcast and the write up.

But her latest book is called the colors I hear. And it's by my bedside. And I will definitely sometimes just pick it up and read a poem by her because I know that the words were received and this heartspace from her, and they were received from nature. And oftentimes, there's this beautiful, other worldly wisdom wrapped in her words. And that helps me feel like my light is being lit.

I could pull out a deck of archetype cards and work with them and ask some questions around my purpose. And that fills me up, I could just spend time writing in my journal, I might go for a run and go someplace beautiful in nature, I had many, many ways that helped me feel inspired to be in my light.

But usually, if I get away from that I'm too busy. And I'm too busy doing, you see the importance of knowing my purpose here because like I said, earlier, I fell into this trap that I came here to do something and it's nope being first then comes the doing.

And when I get too busy doing, then I'm not really in service to my purpose of being a light. I'm acting on like trying to hold space for other people. But I'm not anchored into my own light that has to come first. And then the hope through all that is is that others feel inspired to find the light inside of them. And that they feel inspired to live with more authenticity.

Or like I said, with the purpose of this podcast, to feel empowered to align with your hearts vision, and live your truth that others feel inspired to do that and say, Hey, I am not alone and wanting to live in a way that feels authentic, that feels meaningful, that feels sacred, and that aligns with my sense of spirituality. And that it's amazing sometimes how just seeing something where somebody else is in a space, and they're doing something that lights their heart up, how much that helps light our heart up.

[27:56] The Inspiration of Light: A Ripple Effect

And maybe we see somebody doing something they love, maybe we'll see they're a musician. And we don't feel inspired necessarily to go pick up a musical instrument, we'll say they're beautiful violinist. And you can tell when they play something in them, their soul is singing.

And we might not feel inspired to like I said, go pick up the violin, but maybe we after listening to that music or seeing them, maybe we feel lighter, maybe we'll feel brighter, maybe we feel inspired to dig into our own talents, or to develop a taste for classical music, with the violin and listen to it, maybe we feel inspired to try something new. Maybe we don't even make the connection.

And we go back to our own space. And we use that inspiration. And we're a little bit nicer to somebody or we do some writing and it feels more connected to muse. Because we're in this lighter space, this brighter space because somebody else tapped into that in us and helped us ignite that.

Sometimes it's not always a linear thing. But we shine our light on each other, to inspire each other's light. And each time we do that, that shines a light on to somebody else. And we can see how the light grows and how we're learning from each other, and inspiring each other and all kind of a holding space and a bigger way for light and good things and joy to happen on our planet at this time.

So our purpose is multi dimensional. It's not a role. It's not I'm here to do this one thing. Our purpose is best understood and a fluid way where we connect with an idea of what we're about from more of a higher perspective.

And we can encompass the roles that we do and to that we can absolutely say I'm this I'm a teacher and I'm a father and our I'm a runner or I'm an advocate for you know the cause, or I'm this like that very much could be a big part of your purpose, all of those things might be true for you. You know, somebody's out there who identifies as a teacher, Father, runner and advocate for certain cause.

But looking at something more multi-dimensional of and why do you feel inspired to do all those things? What's the greater energy that you're serving? What's the greater mission that you're serving? What's your greater understanding of what all that is about? So I think when we are looking at how to stay grounded into our purpose, we want to keep in mind that the idea of our purpose is something that is fluid.

And it's multi dimensional, it will encompass the roles that we serve, that might kind of make up the pie chart of our daily life. But it will also encompass a bigger sense of what are you about in this world. And there is a lot of fun that you can have in playing with this.

I love the fact that no matter what I'm doing in life, if I can come back to my Touchstone and say, am I teaching about heart wisdom? You know, am I being a bright light? Am I holding space for the light? Am I working with that personal mission statement that I want to also help inspire and awaken the light in others, if I can say yes to that, that keeps me on track.

And I might shift around and play with that some to think about what's the most joyful way I can do that right now, or the most aligned way. But that really helps me feel connected and stay connected to my heart to my sense of spiritual purpose to my sense of heart service in this world.

And even on a day, where let's say I'm struggling, or it's been a rough season, and I do not feel like I'm a bright light. Maybe I feel like a sad little moon beam or like Grumpy Bear walking around with my blinking sign on that says, like, not open, closed for business.

You know, maybe I'm in that kind of a mood, I can come back when I can get into my heart and kind of ask myself, how is this connected to my understanding of myself, and even that shadow work is really about working with the more difficult aspects of ourselves and difficult feeling states of being a human, so that we can transmute those and shift them and help grow light out of those things. I write about a lot of that it is the ingredients sometimes for talking about difficult things on this podcast, and inspiring others and encouraging others that like you're not doing anything wrong.

If you're having a bad day, or you're feeling difficult aspects of yourself, those aren't bad. Feelings aren't bad, your feeling states aren't bad. Negativity is not this bad, low vibration thing. It can become a thing that brings us down if we choose to stay in that place, but acknowledging it and saying-

Well, hello, I see you, what are you trying to teach me today, there's some valuable information that can come from that, like maybe telling us you're overtaxed right now, or burned out or you're too busy. Or this relationship is really, you know, bothersome and something's really not aligned. There's often really valuable information there.

[33:31] Creating Purpose Through Meaning Making

So my personal understanding is even on those hard days, that is still kind of serving this greater purpose and mission of working the light. So I like to think about it and embodying the light and kind of playing with the shadows in my life and experimenting and being curious about them. In order to find the growth and anything that we grow. Anything that we can find expansion or make meaning out of, we automatically create light from something that might have felt kind of dark.

We can always find purpose by just working constructively with challenging things in our life, if we can find a way to create meaning for ourselves and make it sacred. I was just doing this. I was working with this oracle deck the other day, just yesterday, and I was doing a reading on the last season of my life.

And if you're curious, the deck I was using was hidden worlds by I think it's Lucy Cavendish, I'll link it down in the write up to the podcast in my resource section. And it's just such a magical Oracle deck. I don't always use it, but I bring it out when I want to connect to sort of this other worldly, more magical aspect of things.

And I did this lovely spread that she suggested in the book about the seeker and the seekers journey. And I really Hold these cards that were really beautiful about this last season of my life and about what his year 45 been about for me, where am I out right now? How can I understand myself.

And I had this moment where I, after I kind of went through all the cards and wrote my notes in my journal and looked at what they meant. I thought, Man, I don't know how you did it spirit. But you just took all this stuff in my life that didn't feel very extraordinary and didn't feel very special.

And through these cards, you made it sacred, because it all took on new meaning when I looked at it through a different lens, I had one of those moments where I just stood a little bit higher above my own journey. And I saw how it was all blending together and working together to serve this kind of greater becoming of being that is, you know who I am, as a person who's a work in progress, we're all works in progress, serve my personal evolution.

And it just took everything, even things that didn't feel very sacred, and it somehow made it feel a little bit more magical, a little bit more special. And it's like the events in my life took on this glow this radiance, when I saw it through a different lens. And there was such beauty in that. And that right there is how we work our light. That is how we create meaning and create sacred and bring it into the every day it is by finding the things that help us see the ingredients of our life, the events of our life through the eyes of love.

Which brings me handily to our next talking point. And that is our purpose is best understood from the hearts point of view.

[36:43] Purpose Is Best Understood Through The Heart

The heart has a way of seeing the sacred, and the every day that our mind doesn't always see our mind see stress, maybe or a challenge or something that looked broken or looked hopeless. And when we can look at it through the perspective of the heart. And again, our heart is our gateway to our intuition. It is our gateway, if you want to think about it like that are portal to spirit that is our connection to the divine. It's your connection to the mysteries.

So our connection to love and love is a reflection, the reflection of the Divine. When we see it through the eyes of the heart, we see it differently than the mind does. And so the mind sees a challenge or something that was ugly and broken, and our heart will see something that is a beautiful work in progress that is still becoming our heart sees a broken wing on a bird.

And even though that might be really sad, that bird may or may not mend. Maybe the heart sees that that bird or taught us something about when we feel like our wings are broken. Maybe it taught us something about cherishing the life that we do have maybe it teaches us a spiritual principle. If that bird doesn't make it and kind of we have to ask herself, Well, where did it go?

A lot of times, I'll spiritually connect with an animal and think about spiritually if something sad happens, like well, they're free now. Like what happens next and think about them in terms of a greater being.

And I wonder why they chose to come as a bird. And I'll ask all these sort of esoteric questions. The heart teaches us something that is magical, it is sacred, it sees things it takes something that can look shabby to the mind. And it sees something beautiful and it it sees something that is either here to teach us a lesson to teach us how to become sees the growth it sees. Maybe that even though this is ugly, it was also an opportunity to stand in our power or to speak our truth. Or it sees the hidden lights.

The heart finds the buried treasure, the diamond, you know in the coal mine, I could keep going here with metaphors. I think you get the idea. The heart sees all that. And the heart is really what will tell us when we spiritually are receiving something and it resonates inside of us. You know the heart, let's say a loved one. We hear a song that reminds us of a loved one who's no longer here, they've crossed over.

And we think oh my goodness, I feel like for me it would be my brother. I feel like Bryant is trying to speak to me today. I've had that come up recently I've had music play like in a row of songs that are songs I associate with him. And I feel his presence really near I'm not quite sure if there's a reason for that or if it's just reassurance so I'm staying open, but by now I can trust my heart and I can trust that resonance.

But when I first started having these feelings of him, my heart would believe but my My mind would be like, What if people think I'm crazy for thinking that? You know, what if they think that I'm just like a sad sister projecting the fact that my brother's still alive because I want him to be or that he's speaking to me from the other side.

And I'm just making it up, I had all these stories, this is back in 2016, before I'd given myself permission to like, really just free myself from all of that and come to Hawaii to become. And my, our mind will often talk ourselves out of that. individuals who've been on the spiritual path for a while are already believers.

But oftentimes, I'll talk to people who are like they want to believe and they kind of believe, but they might have a lot of people in their life who don't, or who aren't sure what they think about those concepts. So they might kind of shyly say, Well, I kind of felt like maybe that was my loved one talking when this happened, you know, but I don't know, maybe I'm just making that up.

And so often I can see like, their heart is leaping with joy over this message that they received. And I can see where they're like lighting up about what happened. And yet the mind comes in and just like shuts it down, and is like, Nope, that's probably not happening. It's not logical, because there's still the story attached to it.

And I get to have the fun privilege of saying, Well, I'm pretty sure that your loved one look at how you might up and how your heart is just fluttering and lighting talking about this. If this resonates inside of you, you are having an experience with them.

And all you need as evidence of that outside of the light that you feel in your heart is how many times are you not experiencing them, I do not walk around feeling like my brother is close to me all the time. I know he's always there, if I am in need, and I can reach out to him. I know I can speak to him through my heart.

But I do not walk around feeling his presence. Like all the time I don't walk around perpetually getting signs and symbols from him every day, he's been gone now, six and a half years, I had more of that happening at first, it's less now. I'm not always in a place where I feel the strong sense and call and resonance of him.

So when I am and he's on my mind, and I feel his presence more strongly, I've learned to trust that. Because I know a lot of the time I'm not feeling that doesn't mean he's not around, but just means maybe I'm not feeling him. But when I do feel it, I don't question it anymore. Because a lot of times it's not on my periphery, I've got other stuff going on, I don't always feel lit up in my heart about it. So we can trust that information.

[42:42] Our Heart Connects Us To The Sacred

So when we can come into our hearts point of view, that is what connects us to buy sacred. It's what connects us to our spirituality. It's what connects us to the numinous. So if you haven't already done so, a beautiful exercise, intuitive exercise would be to get into your heart.

And when I say get into your heart, I just mean take some quiet space, go to nature, spend some time in your journal, maybe go to a quiet place in your home, shut the door light a candle, you don't do anything special. Just some anything that helps you feel like you are like coming into like your inner sanctum yourself.

And you can I put my hand on my heart to connect with it. And maybe we'll just take a few deep breaths and say help speak to me today. And then I might just write my journal, what does my heart have to say about what my purpose is right now and just write what comes through.

So we don't have to do anything fancy to get into our heart, we just have to be in relationship with it. And let it know, I really want to listen to you today. So please bring that your intention through. If that's not your jam through journaling, you can also just have like a little bit of a quiet time in the morning and say, I really want my heart to help me understand what's my purpose right now?

And then just pay attention to what presents itself throughout the day? What brings you joy, what catches your attention? What do you notice that's maybe a pattern, then put that into language or experience as best as you can.

So when we can look at it through our heart, that's really where those words came from, to be a bright light and hold space for the light and so doing awaken the heart that awaken the light in others. Prior to that. I was overthinking what my purpose was and trying to use fancy language and fancy titles on what to call myself.

And you know, I mean, whether or not I need to do that for branding. I don't know, I'm still learning this language. I'm just here for like, I'm here for the cake. I'm here for the heart wisdom. I'm here for the joy. I'm here to be a part of humanity at this time. The rest of it. I'm still sorting out.

But really that was my heart's language that led me to use those words. So we understand it through the heart. The last point that I wanted to make today is that our purpose is an evolving concept.

So when we think about staying grounded to our purpose, we want to create a purpose that evolves with us. And there are times that the way we understand ourselves and how we might think about ourselves will change. So far, I've kept my little personal mission statement, and that might change over time, it might not.

But our purpose does evolve. And so how I understand teaching about heart wisdom, how I understand being a light, it's different than when I first wrote those words. It's different than where I was at in 2019. It was actually a friend of mine who the heart wisdom thing, I think I'd already used that language, but I was putting a talk together, and she helped me write it and kind of shape it and clean it up, because I could not figure out how to shave it down from 30 minutes to 15.

And she read through it over and over and kind of listen to it. And she's like, so really, you're like just teaching people about how to listen to their hearts. And sometimes somebody else speaks truth in her life. Like, I'd been totally overthinking. And like being like, well, I'm teaching how to awaken and expand our consciousness.

And I'm teaching about the intelligence of the heart, and I had all this fancy language. And she's like, right, so you're just gonna teach people how to listen to their hearts. And I was like, Yeah, that's what I do.

You know, that was all this 2019 stuff there, I was really kind of grounding, what am I about, and how I understand those things has changed, I might still give the same talk. But I would shape it differently. And I'm in a different relationship to where how I understand that.

So even if I gave that same talk, it probably wouldn't feel as authentic right now, because growth and evolution has happened since then. But I would still want to evoke in the audience, here's how to connect with your heart. And here's what happened when I listened to mine. And I allowed myself to go through this heart awakening process.

[47:09] Our Purpose Is An Evolving Concept

So our purpose is an evolving concept. It is not something that's fixed, it's not static, it's not meant to be rigid, where it has to look a certain way, we are meant to surprise ourselves are meant to be curious about ourselves, we're meant to understand ourselves in different ways, and sometimes feel a little bit vulnerable or a little bit uncomfortable.

If we're letting a new aspect come out or expressing ourselves in a new way. Doesn't mean we've gotten off track. We want to give ourselves space to evolve. And we want to give ourselves room to grow.

So I once wrote something along the lines of when somebody says like, wow, like you've changed, like you are not the same person that you used to be, in some ways that could be considered a high compliment. Well, thank you, I do not want to be the same person that I used to be. I don't ever want that to happen in a negative way.

Or somebody means it like, you sometimes see this. And like 80s movies, where we were just watching can't buy me love the other weekend. And classic 80s movie or early 90s movie where he did change because he wanted to be popular, and he became somebody that he wasn't, and it was disastrous.

And it's this movie about just being yourself. We don't necessarily want somebody to say that to us. And that kind of way. That's not really what I'm talking about. But I remember when I was going through a lot of my spiritual awakening process and times where I've just been in a space where I'm understanding myself in a new way. And somebody will be like, well, that doesn't sound like you.

Or when I was going through my divorce, I remember people saying like, like you've changed, like, you are not like the person that I used to know. And it was actually a really positive thing that I was changing, even though they weren't meant to come with me on that part of my journey. And we were kind of meant to gracefully part ways there as gracefully as possible in situations like that.

But it was a good thing that I was changing. It meant that I was really becoming truer to who I really am. I had gone through such an awakening process and I was trusting that and I was listening to it. And even at the time, I might not have been able to speak with the articulation that I do now, about that time in my life and understanding that I can now about this fact that I was becoming and I was growing. I was able to at least say I can't be this person anymore.

And no matter how messy and awkward that felt, no matter how vulnerable I felt it was very vulnerable time no matter how embarrassed I felt sometimes or ashamed because I was letting people down with who they thought BethAnne should be It was a good thing that I was changing. Because I was meant to change. I was meant to trust what was inside of me and give it space to come out.

So it is okay to not be fixed. It's okay. If somebody says, Well, you're not the person I knew. And you are doing your best just to be your true self. It is okay. It means that you are trusting something in you, and you're letting it grow.

I recently had an experience where I said no to something that I would have said yes to in the past. It's not important today to say what I'll share it at a later time. But it was an opportunity that I would have just left out in the past.

And it's just not right for me right now. I could feel it inside of me, I could feel it in my heart. I could feel it. Just even not even feeling excited about it. But feeling almost burdened by I feel like I should say yes to this, because it's expected of me and I would have in the past and just feeling internally my something this on this very deep level of being like no, you can't, you're not going to be able to sustain that you're not going to be able to be a bright light. If you do this, you're going to look like a bright light.

Because you're going to meet the role expectation. And people will probably say, wow, it was so great that she did this, you'll probably get accolades, you'll have something else to add to your resume, you will look like a bright light. But I'm not here to look like that. I'm here to be it. I'm here to listen to my heart wisdom and to teach others how to listen to theirs.

And my heart was some said Your light is going to feel very, very dumb if you do this, because you're going to overextend yourself, and it's not the right thing for you. And so you're going to commit yourself to something that I being my heart, I'm telling you just no not not for you sit this round out. And when I'm not connected to that voice in my heart, then I feel like a caricature of myself, like I'm being who people think I should be, and not who I really am.

So listening to my heart wisdom - Wisdom meant heeding that it meant saying no. And it meant maybe surprising some people with wow, I thought for sure she'd say yes. And it was like, you know, not on this one. And it meant surprising myself. And kind of doing the scary thing where we turn something down, that would look great on paper, because I can feel something else wants to come through over the next few months.

I'm not sure what that is. It might be a book that I'm writing, I am working on a book. And I've kind of had to set it aside this summer for other projects. It might be something spiritual and some kind of growth, it might just be more receptivity and more being of self, I don't know, I can just feel something wants to come through.

And when I've been working with cards, and my journaling time and doing my heart guidance, I just keep getting these messages about something new wants to be born something news coming could be a different opportunity that is new in a way that I didn't expect. I don't know. I I Sure I will.

I'm looking forward to finding out I'm staying open to my own process, I'm staying open to surprising myself. And all I can do is listen to what's inside of me and heat up the best. I know how and let my sense of purpose evolve, and let myself evolve out of that role that I've been asked to fulfill so that I can I don't know what I guess become something stay tuned.

[53:30] Grounding Into Your Personal Purpose for Being

So my exhortation to kind of start to bring all this together today is to really think about what is your purpose for being right now. And if you don't know that is so awesome, it means you're open to finding out. So set an intention that over the next moon cycle, or throughout the rest of 2023 or however long you want to take to explore it that feels right for you.

Just set the intention and say, That's so cool. I want a personal mission statement. You know, write out what you know right now about what you're about. And if you're not sure at all, then set the intention that that comes through and give yourself space to refine it.

Give yourself space to play with it. Let it be multi-dimensional so that it is more than just a role that really encompasses what energy are you bringing to this world? How do you want to relate to the world around you? What do you want to evoke in your own life? See it from your heart. Ask your heart, teach me about my purpose. Help me write about what it is and then bring me the things that helped me feel a sense of connection to that and let it be an evolving concept. Language is just our best understanding and way to organize something that oftentimes defies language.

I love my mission statement. It might change. It's been working really well so far. are so far, but that might evolve. And when it does, and if it does, then I'll have to work on detaching and letting it go and saying, Well, those were the words, I best had to describe who I was at the time. Maybe by the time I'm at 90, if I live that long, I won't even need words. And it will be like my purposes, more about a feeling or evoking something who knows, I am here for it.

[55:28] Coming Up Next Week

Ah, so that is my guidance and expectation for everybody. And this kind of tag teams really nicely into next week's topic. So I'm, I'm going to start a new series, and I'm not going to do it every week, I'm going to probably do one or two a month, where we are going to be working our way through the archetypes and the Tarot deck, and talking about how do these how do those apply to our daily life. 

And I this will probably be like tarot with a twist, because the idea behind this isn't that you listen to this podcast and can read tarot cards. It's more about these archetypes are universal collections of ideas around what these representations of an aspect of humanity mean. 

So the fool is traditionally the first card in the deck. And we're going to be talking about what does it mean to be the fool? How are we the fool and our own lives? How do we take the Fool's Journey? How can we understand how to be playful and work with that? And how can we move into August? With that archetype in mind? How does that connect to the energy right now? 

So I'm looking forward - This was just a new idea that I got today - I'm looking forward to grounding that and bringing that through and weaving that into these podcast episodes. 

So that will be coming up next week. Until then, have an amazing week and be well be love, be you and be magic.