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Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an illuminating space where psychology, spirituality and heart wisdom meet. Here's your host, Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright, the clinical psychologist with a mystic mind.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 0:32

Aloha everybody. Welcome to your Heart Magic. This is Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright, and we have a talk story time episode today where I will be sharing a few selected passages from some of my books and sharing some thoughts behind them. I love doing these episodes because they're so fluid. Whenever I do a talk story time each month, I usually will think about if there's a particular topic that I want to share. Sometimes the season inspires the passages that I share, and today's episode was actually inspired by an idea that I have been sitting with for a while now and really integrating into my life over the last four, five, six, seven, eight years, and it is the idea of doing small things with meaning and intention. And I actually took the document, the proof copy of my new book coming out and I did a word search on small acts and I pulled up some passages that had that word choice in it, and that is a selection that I'm choosing to share today.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 1:39

This week I've been thinking quite a bit about how it is so easy in this world to look around and think about what isn't right and what seems broken. I think I saw like so many renditions of people saying things like in our broken world also keep my heart open, like in this broken world. This world is so broken and this phraseology I've used it myself. I'm sure if I did a word find in my book on broken world, I probably would find multiple places that I use that same particular phraseology in, but I was actually reflecting on the fact recently that I don't really love how that sounds. One, it's just used a lot and I'm a bit of a wordsmith, so the more something's used, the more I start thinking I have to come up with a better term or something that's a little bit more unique. And two, I think that broken world. There might be some truth in that. There's certainly things in our world that are broken. There are systems that are absolutely broken. There are so many things that are breaking down and breaking apart, perhaps in order to awaken to, I hope, something better and something greater at some point. But I was sitting with the phraseology evolving world instead of a broken world, and it's not the first time that I've played with this idea of a world of transforming possibilities, a world of evolving possibilities.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 3:14

The Akashic Records in the year 2023 said the energy of 2023 was the evolution of the light, and it was the idea that the light on the planet is evolving at this time and certainly I think there is some cosmic and scientific and probably some galactic type meaning behind that if we really dove into it. But I take it to also understand that the evolution of the light it's us, it is our awakening hearts, it is those who are saying I want to make a conscious difference, I want to do things differently than just falling into the default setting and falling into the status quo. I want to find ways to challenge the structures created for me that perhaps I didn't put into place. I just found myself living in them and trying to grow within those circumstances. And the evolution of the light is happening across all dimensions. It might not always seem like it, especially if we have a certain point of view and we're looking at something and saying how in the world is the light evolving over there? And my understanding if I take my human Bethann and my own personal reactions and thoughts and feelings out of things is that evolution is happening on a multi-tiered level at this time and has been happening for quite a while now.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 4:40

We live in a world where the only constant is change, so it shouldn't be surprising that things are always changing and they're always evolving, even if it doesn't look like it. And so 2023 was the evolution of the light and the Akashic records named the year. 2024 is the anchoring of the light, and so, again, there's many interpretations of that and that is happening in a much more multidimensional way than I'm covering in my candid thoughts right now. But if we look at that from the lens of us being the ones awakening and evolving our light, then this is a year where perhaps we are anchoring into that and integrating the changes that we've made in our life in bigger ways and we might have a stronger sense of conviction, a stronger sense of movement, a stronger sense of who we are in the world. And tying all of that into today's podcast episode is something that I have been playing with.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 5:38

In this greater umbrella of these big cosmic energies and the Akashic record said this and looking at what's happening in our world in the last few years is battling a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness and feeling like I can't make a difference, that I'm too small with remembering that small acts matter. And I definitely feel that working with the Akashic Records is such a gift and there's an advantage there because, from the perspective of the records. They are always saying that we should not underestimate the impact of our individual efforts and that we shouldn't underestimate the impact that doing our inner work, showing up in integrity and coherence, doing the things that we can, that we shouldn't underestimate them, that on an energetic level those things hold more weight and more gravity and create ripple effects and the fabric of light, the fabric of love, the fabric of humanity around us, then we might imagine we are so used to quantifying everything and weighing it and measuring it right and saying it is this percentage and it produces this much, that I think it's really hard to wrap our mind around the idea that, like tossing a small pebble into a pond, does indeed create ripple effects and sometimes if we toss that pebble, we might not know where it will land and how it might spark a bigger wave. So I offer these passages today from that vantage point that this is something I've worked with for a while now and just finding personal meaning that, if nothing else, I can show up and make each day a love letter to the universe and be the best Beth Ann that I know to be and do my inner work and show up in the spaces that I touch and bring my best to it. If I can't bring what I feel is my best that day, then that is a opportunity to learn about where I'm at and perhaps do my best in my self-journaling and self-reflection time and ask well, what was the lesson today? If I wasn't my best self and I feel like I didn't bring the energy I wanted to, then I'm going to bring that now and I'm just going to do my self-reflection and look at what did I learn today about being human? We can always show up in a way that is vibrant and mindful, whether it's in the moment or whether we're reflecting on a moment or reflecting on a season, and we can learn something from it. Feeling hopeless or helpless is coming back to well, what can I do and what are small action steps, small affirmative steps that I'm able to take? So small acts today. That is our theme, and these three passages kind of tie together, but each of them has a slightly different idea behind it. So these are all from my upcoming book, small Pearls, big Wisdom, which is coming out on November 19th soon. I can't wait to hold a copy in my hand. I still don't have my copy, so I just have my online version, so I can't wait to crack it open.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 8:59

This is called the Great Web of Light. Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the thread we do to ourselves, all things are bound together. All things connect, chief Seattle 1854.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 9:18

I know it can be hard to connect and care in this world. There is so much that will break your heart if you take the time to allow it in. We know on a heart level that we are all connected. We know we are part of a greater web of light. Our hearts break for the individuals, situations and locations when we see, hear and read about anything that seems hell-bent on destroying our precious web of interconnection instead of helping fortify and strengthen it. Compassion fatigue is real. Our hearts can grow weary from the general sense of global grief. We often feel it takes courage to keep our hearts open in the face of this. It takes courage to learn how to grieve. It takes courage to let our hearts break for each other and remember that a broken heart is also an open heart.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 10:12

In that space of openness, more light can come through and we feel inspired to do what we can to move from broken to focusing our light. We can do small acts of care and find ways to make a meaningful contribution. In so doing, we cultivate light within and create a dispersion of light. We can take the time to say a prayer for peace and intervention, light a candle of grace and supplication, visualize clouds of angels descending into situations that require divine assistance and help strengthen triage and support the individuals there. In so doing, we cultivate light within and create a dispersion of light. We can reach deeper into the collective well of hope composed of the strength of our ancestors, the generosity of the earth and the human spirit's quest to thrive. In so doing, we cultivate light within and create a dispersion of light. The things that break us also awaken us. What grieves our heart can also inspire us to do what we can with meaning and intention. Even if all we can do is take a quiet pause and offer a prayer of peace, it is enough in that moment. Trust in the interconnection, trust in your contribution, trust that when you cultivate light, it creates a dispersion of light that also touches the threads in our ecosystem. All things are bound together, all things connect and your contributions of light help strengthen love's web.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 11:59

Part of this I wrote after the election in America in 2016. I wrote it on my blog and I remember using the Chief Seattle quote and writing about how to my ideas on how to respond to so much of what I was seeing in the climate and beyond my personal grief and feelings that I had and there was, there was quite a few I was also greatly grieved by the hate that I was seeing towards one another and the reactivity and some of what was coming out of people. It was just so disturbing to see. I think many of us can agree on that, because that is certainly something that we've continued to see and it really saddens my heart and I was really grappling with how to find my way and find my viewpoints and work through my raw process feelings. I wasn't taking those out on other people, let alone taking them out on the internet to anybody who could wander across, and instead just find wisdom, and that's really where I find myself today.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 13:08

I wanted this topic to be on something hopeful and on something that anybody who has struggled after the election this week, who might be having some personal feelings coming up, might listen to this podcast and find some hope or find something that gives you a spark to take and work with in your own way, and it was also important to me today not to hop on here and say anything that feels outside of my integrity, and so I intentionally chose this topic, because it's something that I come back to when I'm grappling with things and I'm trying to make sense of a bigger picture that I don't fully understand, and I don't want to speak too soon about and put myself in a position of saying, well, the Akashic records say this about this, or spiritualizing something when I'm working through my own human stuff. And so the first version of this was just on a blog that I wrote back in 2016, november of 2016. And then, when I cleaned this up for Small Pearls, big Wisdom, I actually not only cleaned it up and rewrote some of the passages, but I wove in something that I wrote after the Supreme Court's decision on overturning Roe v Wade, and that was this idea of digging into the collective well of hope composed of the strength of our ancestors, the generosity of the earth and the human spirit's quest to thrive. And at the time, I remember thinking about how stretched I was feeling and trying to grasp what I was seeing in current events and my personal feelings to those and looking at, well, how can these things be true if we're being told the light is evolving, and how do those things work in with my spiritual beliefs? And I came to the conclusion that I don't have the answers to those things. I have ideas on them and I'm working through finding answers, at least for myself. It might not be the answer, but finding a resting place and finding a viewpoint to compass myself by so that I feel like I can come back to my heart when everything else feels like it's swirling around me, and something that I was coming back to. I was just like Bethann you need bigger perspective, girlfriend. You are being stretched right now and you're really going to have to widen your understanding of things and your willingness to dance with and grapple with things that feel really challenging and difficult and things that feel so non-understandable, and you are going to have to stretch yourself here.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 15:52

And so I started coming into this idea of how do we dig into this idea of the collective well of hope. What is the collective well of hope? One way of understanding the Akashic records is this idea of the collective conscious and the collective unconscious, and Carl Jung coined those terms, and they are a psychological way to look at this invisible but very tangible energy that, when you look at the collective of human experience and perspective, that there are these ways that we can access that collective and tap into the greater library of wisdom and knowledge that has gone before us on an energetic level. That is one very grounded way of looking at the Akashic records, outside of any of the metaphysical ideas behind it. And so this collective well of hope is this collective record, this collective Akashic record, this collective record in humanity where humans have somehow found hope despite what has come at them, despite the challenges in evolution, despite the atrocities that so much of history has been through, the stories of brokenness there's that word again and how brokenness was evolved into growing something forward and forging a better path and forging a better way ahead. And then what wasn't a better way, how things just evolved haphazardly in the moment because people were trying to survive and some of those things are perhaps still trying to correct themselves and come back into harmony or balance and truth and justice. And so I was thinking about this huge collective history and really connecting with the idea of individuals that were alive way back when and how did they find hope, and imagining this kind of metaphorical ladle that I was dipping into this well and really tapping into the ancestors' encouragement and exhortation to keep going and to find ways to keep evolving my light. So that is woven into this piece as well and I just feel like it really spoke to my heart to share with you today.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 18:07

The next one that I want to share is called the importance of tiny anchors. We need the small things in life that help anchor us to ourselves, particularly during transition, challenge and change, when life feels uncertain and we feel like we are losing the usual tethers we've come to depend upon. The small acts of constancy can help us stay centered during times of life change, transition or any situation where our world is in flux and we're feeling scared, unsure and bowled over by uncertainty. During such times, it can be extraordinarily helpful to develop comfort rituals to help anchor you. The solidity of a familiar mug of coffee or cup of tea and time in nature helps contain us and dust off a layer of stress and fatigue. Soothing words and inspiring quotes or listening to a playlist can feel healing and supportive. Find the people, places and animal companions that warm you. Tap into the small things that feel comforting and help give you a sense of continuity in a shifting landscape. A person can find their way through many a winter of the soul by depending on such tiny anchors. Little acts of faith, comfort and grounding help us self-soothe and stay connected to something familiar as we learn how to weather life's storms and trust that eventually things will calm again and everything will be right as rain.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 19:43

Something else that I've worked with for a while is what holds constant for me. What are the things in the shifting world when I feel like my personal world is falling sideways and it's been turned upside down, or I feel like the world itself is tipped sideways and everything's just spilling out into one big mess? What holds constant? I actually wrote a poem on this that I don't have in front of me several years ago. It was back in 2017. Don't have in front of me several years ago. It was back in 2017.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 20:16

And I remember that because I remember I was about maybe six months into being in Kauai. It might've been a little less than that. It was the fall of 2017 and things weren't going as I had intended with this big old life move and this huge change, and I was really starting to run into some hardship, and at the time things felt like what have I done? And that was a theme that was coming up for me a lot at the time and was going to continue to come up. It was part of my Kauai journey and leaving a very well-cemented life in Alaska and coming to the island and declaring to the universe I'm here for reinvention and I'm here to live more spiritually, creatively and intuitively. Gosh, be careful what you ask for. I say that with a smile on my face. There's been so much beauty too, but at the time I was just at the beginning of feeling like things weren't exactly lining up and working with my failed expectations, but also learning how to embrace the gift of what was.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 21:13

And so I wrote this poem on what holds constant, and I'm paraphrasing here, but I remember I was like well, love is real. If nothing else, I can always come back to that. Like love, it is a very real force. We understand it in so many different ways. It wears a million faces and love keeps evolving, and so there's always a lesson of love to be learned in anything, even if we don't see it right away. And love is this amazing energy. It is its own form of intelligence. It is wild, it is wise. It has a mythology all its own. When I come back to a space of love, radical things seem to happen, even if it's not right away, and so love is real, and I will forever put my stake in the ground and say, like, that is a constant love, and the concepts around love and how I understand it might evolve, but the energy of love that is a constant in my life. Nature heals. That was another one.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 22:15

I came up with that. There is something about being out in nature that brings me back to a space of truth and simplicity and authenticity, and it might be the trees, it might be the oceans, it might have been the snowy mountains in Alaska. It might have been looking at the pitch black, velvet night sky in Alaska, when it was below zero outside, and I was inside, and I was just studying these scattered stars and the darkness and seeing how these tiny pinpricks of light offered hope. There's something healing about nature, though, and then authenticity matters. That was my last one being ourselves, being who we feel. We are created or have evolved to be bringing our essence out into the world and living in a way that honors that. I have more on that list, but that was my poem.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 23:09

Love is real, nature heals, authenticity matters, and I remember writing this poem and saying these things hold real. And these are my small anchors right now. How can I bring those things into my day? And that's really what a small anchor is. It is what things still hold true for you, what are the tiny ways that we can enact truth and do small acts of care, no matter what else is going on around us? And I feel like those little anchors are what allow us to keep a grip when life is ungripping and to come into something nourishing and come into something familiar, even if it's using the same mug of coffee every day. I remember doing that years ago. I'd gone through a divorce and had changed location and again it all felt upside down and different and having like these familiar coffee cups I had one or two that I brought from my previous home and like being able to hold those and be like, if nothing else, I've got my French press, I've got this giant blue mug with caps on it and it feels warm and it feels friendly and it feels comforting. That might be the time that I started writing about tiny anchors and I've just loved that concept ever since. So this last piece today in our small acts talk story time that I have chosen to share is called On the Matter of Light. All of these are from my upcoming book Small Pearls, big Wisdom, and this one is what I'm going to leave you with today.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 24:42

It's easy to minimize the power of our intentions and actions. It's easy to think that our deeds and works only hold value if recognized by many, to think that our deeds and works only hold value if recognized by many. It's easy to disregard the impact of our empathy, heartfelt intentions, quiet demonstrations of care and how we keep showing up for love. It's easy to get caught up in producing, achieving and results. Sometimes we think our contributions don't hold value if they're not being validated or acknowledged.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 25:16

We forget that what is most important isn't what happens when we shine our light, but that we shine it in the first place. We forget all creations have innate value and belonging, no matter how small the creation may be. We disregard our efforts and feel that our art, poetry, small acts of service, doing the right thing, sincerity, smiles, kindnesses to nature and animals and efforts of change are pointless. We forget that changing the energy inside of ourselves can impact the spaces we touch. We forget that when we create and act from a place of light, there is innate value, because the act of owning and working our light is the point. Our light matters. It can be challenging to have faith in your visions for your life, believe in your gifts and dreams and feel what you do matters and makes a difference. We are inundated with so much noise that it is easy to feel small and insignificant. Yet one little pen prick of light makes all the difference in a darkened room and inspires others to turn their lights on as well. Our light matters, your light matters. Please keep finding the courage to shine. This world needs your light and you need your light and I need your light and humanity needs your light, now more than ever.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 26:47

Thank you so much for joining me today for this Talk Storytime episode. I will be back next week. We have an Archetypes of the Tarot episode. We are moving on to the card Judgment and we are very close to the end of that series. There's only two cards left, so I'm looking forward to bringing through whatever I feel inspired to share about judgment next week. It feels like it's going to be a really interesting episode with maybe some juicy insights. I know I'm the one sharing it, but I have to tell you that these nourish my soul to create and that I always feel like I'm kind of co-creating with the greater energy of inspiration when I do them. So I never quite know what I'm going to say, so I'm looking forward to whatever presents itself and wants to be shared next week. In the meantime, have a beautiful week. Keep shining your light. As the Akashic record said for the month of November focus on the light, be well, be love, be you and be magic you've been listening to your heart magic with Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright.

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Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your light.