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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. Author, psychologist and spiritual educator.

Dr. Kapansky Wright : 0:32

Aloha everybody, welcome to your Heart Magic. This is Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright, and today I'm sharing an interesting passage with you from my book, revelations of the Sky. This passage is called Things I Learned in the Fall of 18. And it's actually just a list of different lessons of wisdom that I learned and I extracted them from my journal when I put this piece of writing together, and so there's 17 different wisdoms that really address the topic of overcoming limitations, working through fears, things that were really relevant to my life at the time, and I thought it might be a fun and unique podcast episode to share these and talk a little bit about each of them and focus on the themes of overcoming doubt and finding faith in ourself and how do we stay in our lane and not compare and keep affirming our own journey and our own existence. All of these things really speak to that, and, before I dive in and share anything, just a little bit of a backdrop about this book is that Revelations of the Sky.

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The subtitle is 133 Passages on the Alchemy of Grief, and it was the third book in a series that I wrote that started after I lost my brother, brent, in 2016. And it follows not just my grief journey and being in Alaska at the time and losing Brent and all of those initial experiences and feelings. But it follows me making the choice to move to Kauai and that whole transition and transformation and this very powerful and profound time in my life, and then being here for a few years and continuing to find my path and having my spiritual and intuitive gifts opening up, and all of this happening while I was still working through my grief. Grief is not this one time thing and we have this big loss and go through it and life goes on. The idea of the alchemy of grief was this continual question of how did I take the loss of Brent and work with that at these different points in my journey to alchemize it and keep finding more courage or keep finding my path. Who did I become because of this loss? What do I feel now? How did what I felt about losing him? What were those feelings and experiences? So these books are really close to my heart and they are composed of all sorts of things. That includes poetry, and, and in the book itself it encompasses and concludes one of the sections where I've been writing about all these things happening and the wisdom I was learning, and so this is the takeaway chapter of, and here's the wisdom from, all of that, before moving on to the next section of the book.

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So, number one use your discomfort, your fears and your doubts as tools for growth so you can see where you're limiting yourself. Then reach beyond that. I think it's so powerful to see what we're afraid of, when we think about things that we'd love to do, but we feel like we can't, or when we feel like we get stuck or we're stopping ourselves, or we say, well, I really want to change, but here's all the reasons that I can't. I'd really like for this to be different, but here's all the reasons that I can't. Oh, this is so great. Right, those are your tools. This is what we have to work with, where we can really look at what are all those arguments and things I'm telling myself? Are they really true? Are these things permanent fixtures in my life? Is there any room for malleability here, where I could work at this and chisel away at it and look at it differently, and could I find a way to grow beyond that?

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At the time, I was hoping to teach online classes and put together some e-courses, which I did end up doing online classes and put together some e-courses, which I did end up doing and just making that first video. I was going to release a free e-course, which is still up on my website, your Heart Magic. It's a free e-course and that first video that I did, I was terrified. Thinking about strangers from the internet who might find my work and actually watch and listen was really scary to me and I kept remaking the videos and feeling like it wasn't good enough and having all these self-doubts. And so I was actively working, with that energy of noticing where I was stopping myself and what am I so afraid of, and having to remind myself you've come this this far, don't stop yourself now. Those first years of being here were such an exercise and creative courage and having to keep pushing myself past my comfort zone and push myself through the awkwardness and the discomfort and learn that lesson that you don't have to do it perfectly from the get-go Like you, just have to take a step.

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So lesson number two don't allow others' fears to dictate your inner peace. This could be a whole episode, a whole month worth of episodes all in of itself. How do we not allow somebody else's fears, their doubts, the things that they think might happen to not impact us and, as an empath, that was really challenging for me. Something that I work on quite a bit as an empath is boundary setting, because I feel so easily what others are feeling and it's very easy for me to shapeshift and metamorph myself I'm not sure if that's a word, but I like how it sounds to shape myself and to be what I feel somebody else needs me to be, not in a way that I lose my core self, not at this point on my journey, but more in a way where I can take on the colors and hues and it's done in an authentic way. But if I'm not careful, it's very easy for me to feel what somebody else is feeling and internalize that, and I wrote this a while ago now eight years ago, so I've obviously had a lot of growth since then.

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But again, I was deep in that lesson of not taking somebody else's fears into me and letting them become my own. If I don't like the story somebody else is telling me about my life or why they think I can't do something, do I want to make that my own? Do I want to have that threaten my inner peace? And how do we know when somebody else's fears are actually wisdom. They are cautionary things because they've had wisdom behind them and they've learned the hard way and so they're imparting knowledge to us, versus when they're coming from a place of fear. And figuring that out is called discernment and learning how to discern. There's so many rich, deep lessons when we let ourselves work with that and work with others' opinions and projections and their ideas on life. So there's no right or wrong to any of this. This is all very malleable energy that we can work with for our own personal growth.

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Number three create what you want to create, what's on your heart to create, and not what you think will sell or what you're expected to create. That's what true innovation is all about. Something that was really important to me at the time as a creative was just starting with my joy, like what do you want to create, and not having to superimpose on it, like what can you package into a product or what can you somehow sell? Whenever I tried to do that, I was really stopping the creativity process and I needed a lot of pure, unfiltered creativity time at that stage of my life where I was just doing it for joy and putting it together and then trying to figure out what do I do with this, as opposed to shaping something that I was hoping would land a certain way with a certain audience. And so that was just a personal lesson.

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And I think there's times that we create purely for ourselves and for the joy. And then there might be times, if you are a creative and you make a living or you're trying to have your work reach people, that you might think a little bit more about what might land with people. Who am I trying to share this with? But at that point in my life that was not helpful thinking that was just stopping me from my creative process. So sometimes it's nice to understand what do I most need right now in my creativity? Why am I creating this? And if we're able to be joyfully directed, I think that's amazing. If we're joyfully directed and we also feel called to do something with it and it lands with people, that's amazing too. But that purity of just creating based on what's in our heart I feel is so powerful. And that leads me to number four. The beauty of what you're creating in kawaii is all intuitively based. It is heart directed and you can trust that. You can always trust your intuition and heart.

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Number five learn to bring love into the spaces you fear. There's a lot of ways that we can work with bringing love into spaces that we fear inside of ourselves and things that feel dark or hard or self-doubt or criticism or any of those things. But I've actually found that one of my favorite ways of doing that is to see love as a color and imagine whatever it is that I fear or wherever the doubts are, or whatever part of me maybe feels wounded and that part is what is acting out or having the fears, and just picture the energy of that color of love flowing to that aspect of self or flowing to that space in my life. It's a beautiful way to bring love to that space in an experiential, meditative kind of way, and it's easy and it's simple and it's a really nice way to start to shift our energy, and that without necessarily having to do all this mental gymnastics and make ourselves feel love towards something if we're still struggling with it. Just see the color, see the color of love. Can you see that sparking or flowing to something that feels fearful to you in your own process or inside of yourself? And play with that a little bit and notice if it shifts those fears at all.

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Number six oh my goodness, I have to insert myself here and say I didn't read any of these before I started this. This is really free flowing today, but this one says you're meant to teach this. You are going to use your journey of transformation as a way to teach and empower others. It's just not quite time yet. You're still building the foundation. Well, how is that for something I wrote in my journal back in 2018. And here I am sharing this right now on this platform, which I feel is very much a platform on teaching heart wisdom and teaching authenticity and just teaching all of us to be our own wisdom keepers and to find those spaces of light within ourselves and empowering our light and magic. So how is that for self-fulfilling prophecy? Number seven everything necessary for success is already within you. Keep inviting spirit into the spaces you are already touching within you. Keep inviting spirit into the spaces you are already touching.

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I have found that when we are wanting to create something or do something different with our path, that if we can find our joy and find our bliss, that it's already inside of us. Like that is where our success lies, and sometimes we get really caught up on the question of, well, how am I going to do that? Or something really practical like I'll give you a good example right now as a creative, I have a vision to create Oracle decks, and I see a whole series of them and I know the one that I want to start with and I need a publishing home for that to support the work. I don't have it yet. That's something that I'm going to have to create a pathway to and find that connection and find that place that I can have a relationship, a synergy with. That will help make that process a little bit easier for me, so that I'm not doing everything on my own as an entrepreneur and fronting all the costs and selling it and all of that. That's too much for the vision I have, and so the starting place for that isn't to stop myself and tell myself that's not available to me. The starting place for it is to know that I have this dream in my heart of creating this thing and I have this vision of like what that might look like for the very first deck that I want to make. And start with that, start with the joy, believe that if the dream is in my heart and that I want to make and start with that, start with the joy, believe that if the dream is in my heart and that I am able to visualize it and to take it out and take that first step, that the success will eventually come. Success can be fluid. It doesn't always have to look a certain way for us to feel like that was a success and so being really open with that, to feel like that was a success and so being really open with that, but knowing that whatever we want for success in our life, it's already in us. We just have to connect with that joy and connect with that bliss. And that brings me to the next point, eight. However small a step, it is enough to get the ball rolling. Just keep taking steps and all else will flow All right.

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Moving on to number nine, don't let somebody else's lack of faith in the universe become your own. This is really similar to the one that I wrote about not letting others' fears dictate our inner peace, but slightly different, because somebody else's relationship with spirituality, with the universe, what they believe is possible, it's not your relationship. And I think that it is easy to internalize what others think, what they're doing, what they say, what they believe is possible, and turn them into our relationship with what we believe about our ability to expand and to grow and possibility. And it's their stuff, not ours. And so this is just a reminder to myself that still holds true to not let where somebody else is at like if they have a lack of faith, and the abundance of the universe or the support of the universe or the goodness like that does not have to become mine, and part of how we stay centered and stay in our magic, stay in our lane, is really coming back to well, what do I believe? What do I think holds true, what feels right in my heart, which leads me to number nine the universe will reflect back to you the story you believe and tell.

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This is true, perhaps not in a perfectly linear way. I talk a lot on here about being here on earth and the creativity of nature and how we are in a co-relationship with life, and sometimes life just happens and we intersect with it. But I do think that overall, that what we believe about the world around us is reflected back. We know that like attracts like, and so if we are really practicing gratitude and joy or believing in good things or saying, yes, hard things are happening and I still believe in the goodness, I still believe in love, I still believe that magic is possible, then those things are still reflected back. We just have to have the eye to look for them. And so I do see this mirroring going on, and that is one of the reasons, among many, many others, that the stories that we tell ourselves are so vitally important.

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And I love bringing myself back to a space. If I don't like the story I'm telling myself, write a new one, and every now and then I actually will write that down and I will write out a little sketch of the day of she took the darkness and shown her heartlight on it and turned it into magic and peace. This is a very Bethann thing that I might find in my journal, where I will write a little like she narrative on myself and I will write it in a way like I'm kind of spellcasting and writing out how I want to respond to something in life and I keep it whimsical and light and playful, because it's my journal and I'll write what I want to and because it feels good to change the story in a playful way if a narrative feels heavy or hard. So I love bringing that whimsy in and then seeing how life reflects that sense of humor and that play and that whimsy.

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Number 11, the universe loves a broken heart because it means there's plenty of space to fill it with new light. Universe loves a broken heart because it means there's plenty of space to fill it with new light, love and life. This is true. When our heart is broken it does not feel good for the human part of us, but it does mean that there's space in that break. And if there's space, there's room to be filled up. And I can speak from experience when I say that after destruction and loss always comes new life, especially if we can try and keep our heart open to that new life. And boy, the universe loves a blank slate and an open heart to pour something new into. Number 12, if the vision is coming from your heart, then of course it is meant for you.

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Engaging in self-doubt is like betting against yourself. And why would you want to do that? It is so true when we doubt ourselves and doubt our capacity to do something and feel like somebody else is better equipped. It's the equivalent of like betting against ourselves. Oh well, I don't think I'm going to do it, but this person over there might and like why would we do that? Why can't we be for ourselves and say I put like all cards down for me. I believe in me, I believe in my capacity to do this, especially when it's coming from our heart. This is a dream in my heart. It would not have been given to me if it wasn't for me to do, and only the unique way that I can.

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Number 13, when in doubt, make a list of teeny goals so you stay on track and have a sense of movement, however small. I still love doing that and I still love celebrating small wins and looking at these like little, minuscule things that we do and giving credit for them. I think it's so vital to feeling progress oriented and feeling optimistic and feeling hopeful for any of us on our path. Number 14, your relationship to how you see this world is entirely your responsibility, so try and create thoughts which empower your growth. You create the paradigm for how you understand life and the universe. Don't allow somebody else's structures to become your own if they are not living open-hearted and brave in this world.

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This ties back in with what I was saying earlier about the stories we tell ourselves and the thoughts and beliefs. And, as I said, for many, ourselves and the thoughts and beliefs and, as I said, for many, many reasons it is so important to find empowering ones and to be vigilant when we find that we are nurturing a story that's self-defeating. It happens to all of us. It's not about never doing it. It is more about, when we see those weeds growing in our inner garden and our thought life, just being vigilant about rooting them and thinking how could I reframe this, how can I flip this? How can I look at it from a different perspective? Number 15, there is little that a cup of mint tea won't calm and soothe. I still find that to be true. I love mint tea.

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Number 16, expectations limit spirit's playing field. The more we stay open to how our dreams will manifest, the greater opportunity there is for miracles and magic. I love creating a vision for how something might look, but also knowing that I can surrender that invitation and say perhaps spirit knows more than I do and has a different way of bringing this into my life right now, or a different form that might work better with the ingredients that I have. And so I love having a vision but also letting it be malleable and just putting out to the universe like this is the best I can come up with at this point in time. This is how I'd like it to look, based on my imaginings. This is how I'd like it to feel, based on what I know, and I will absolutely surrender that if you've got a better plan, and just ask that you match this vibration. Bring me what I need and help me to actualize this in some shape or form. So vision doesn't mean expectation. Vision just means that we envision how it might look and are encouraged to release expectation, so there's more room for life to dance with us a little bit and spirit to dance with us All. Right, last one, number 17,.

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Your connection to the universe is your true source of abundance and nobody can take that from you. A few episodes back, I was talking about the idea of letting your life be a love letter to the universe, right? Just because the universe is vast and miraculous and amazing and sometimes seems impersonal doesn't actually mean that we can't offer love to it, because I also feel that it's very sentient and intelligent in response to the energy that we're putting out, and so this idea of really finding that connection, which we might also call our spiritual connection, and whatever beliefs we have about energy and higher power and all of those things, it is our true wealth. Nobody can take that from us. Nobody can tell you what to believe about it. Nobody can take away your faith, your heart, the magic. They can't tell you that an experience that you're having, that resonates in your heart and feels magical to you isn't true because they're not having the same experience or the same intuition.

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That's all you.

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It's part of your heart magic, it's part of what's inside of you and part of your unique way of entreating with the universe and entreating with life and entreating with spirit and your heart and soul and all that is transpersonal and transcendent. That is all you and at the end of the day, no matter what else like, nobody gets to take that away. It is something in you that is your sacred birthright to explore and to grow in and to struggle with and overcome and gain new knowledge and wisdom of, to learn something new and say, wow, all these things I thought held true for me don't anymore, and so I'm going to stay open and curious and see well, how does it all really work? That is all your sacred birthright and your gateway and doorway to your magic and working with the magical, amazing being of light that you are.

Dr. Kapansky Wright : 23:42

Thank you so much for joining me on today's podcast episode. It was delightful to get to share this passage with you and I appreciate your openness and letting me do something different. I will be back next week with more psychology, spirituality, storytelling and heart wisdom. In the meantime, have a beautiful week and, as always, be well, be love, be you and be magic.

Intro/Outro: 24:17

You've been listening to your Heart Magic with dr bethan kapansky right tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your light.