Intro/Outro Music: 0:13

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. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 0:33

Aloha everybody. This is Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright and welcome to your Heart Magic. I was thinking today at the start of a new week I'm making this podcast on a Monday and so earlier this morning I was spending a little bit of time in my journal before the work week began and the busyness started to get going and I got caught up in it and I was just taking a little bit of space to self-reflect and write some intentions and I was thinking about how important it is that we continue to really focus on training our eye to not only see the beauty in the world but to work on finding appreciation, finding gratitude, being fairly persistent in trying to create the story it is that we want to write with our lives, and that's what I'm focusing on today in this podcast is just some perspectives and thoughts on those kinds of topics, and I use the word persistent I think we could also say relentless when it comes to our ongoing relationship with ourselves and our thoughts and our energy and how we are taking in life and the story that we're telling ourselves about the world around us. It's so easy for automatic thinking to creep in, it's easy for negative thoughts to creep in. It happens to all of us and I think, unless one is really well-trained in mindfulness or is somehow blessed enough to have life set up in a way that they have a lot of space and they're really set aside from a lot of stress, for most of us that's not our day-to-day reality and it's not necessarily what reflects our life circumstances or how we feel called to show up in the world.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 2:22

I think the world itself can be very stressful and many of us, no matter how much we're working with shifting our mindset and staying in our hearts, we have the effects of stress. We have the effects of life challenges. We are planning to go in one direction and life knocks us over sideways and we have to reinvent and adapt and have a thought process around those changes. Sometimes they might not be welcome. We go through stresses that might impact our physical health, our finances, our relational health, our emotional health. We go through spiritual crises that will sometimes awaken something in us and shake us up and help us brush off an old identity and go through something that helps us step into a deeper space of authenticity. But in that transition space there's often a lot of challenge and so I think, realistically, no matter how much we are trying to stay in a higher mindset, to stay in our hearts, to stay on the path. It's easy for many of us to get caught in the old default cycles of stress or negativity or feeling down or stories of lack or something like that.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 3:38

And I really think that, like building a muscle inside of ourselves, we have to keep teaching ourselves to appreciate the beauty of the world. I think of that as developing the poet's eye, a poet's gaze. It's the whole idea of romanticizing our lives. And if you are writing a poem about your day or a poem about something you observed in nature, how might you need to slow down and notice and pay attention and focus on these minuscule things that make a moment special or magical, or observe something in that moment that you might miss if you were moving through it quickly? And as a poet, I often feel that when I'm in my poetry mind and using my poet's gaze to see the world is when I am most likely to tap into beauty and appreciation and notice the moment and really pay attention to the words, the stories I'm using. What story do I want to tell about this? What wisdom am I learning from this? And so, for me, poetry is such a gift to my heart and a gift to my life. But you don't have to be a poet to develop the eyes of the heart, the poet's eyes, an eye for gratitude, appreciation and beauty. You just have to be open and you have to be invested in being an active storyteller of your own life and taking time to think about what narrative are you creating? What do you want to write? What story do you want to tell?

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 5:12

So I actually have a poem today that I want to share with everybody. I wrote it this morning. It's very unpublished. I'm pulling this from the pages of my journal and it's still a little bit raw and in rough draft form. I would probably clean this up a little bit if I was going to fold it into some sort of publication for a future date.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 5:31

But the point of writing poetry isn't always to publish it or put it in a book. I think it's a practice that, for me, sometimes helps me take a moment and slow down and set the tone for my day, and I often feel that some of my best poetry isn't super fancy, it's not poems that would necessarily win an award, or somebody who's very literary would read it and say, oh wow, look at her use of prose and metaphor, it's magical or something like that. I think they're more these reflections of life wisdom that I try and capture in more of a fragment or a prose form, these shorter little reflections that tell a story and that help me stay really connected to who do I want to be in the world? What story do I want to tell in the world? How do I want to interpret what's going on in my surroundings and what say do I want in my day, whatever's going to happen in my day, what energy, what qualities, what essence do I want to bring into the day and the week ahead that might help shape the outcome of that. So I was delighted today when this little poem came through.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 6:41

I wasn't sitting there trying to write one, it was more like I could hear the first words in my mind, which is something that will sometimes happen when I feel called to write. And I am busy enough right now that when I receive a poem like that and receive that inspiration, it feels like such a gift. So I want to share that gift with you today. So I want to share that gift with you today, and this is untitled. Can you be in this goodness, recognizing that, while nothing is ever perfect, perfection is not the purpose, but growth and wisdom, taking the time to appreciate what is beautiful and blessed. It takes a brave soul to notice such things and to keep finding the courage to focus on the brightness when the world is affixed in gritty grays, and to find the wisdom of grief, growth and change found in life's shadows and valleys. It is there for the noticing the bright and the wise when your heart stays connected to the cause of love who seeks forgiveness and grace and trust beyond the space. The world has its own story to tell, but so do I. And when the rain is softly falling and dewy streaks, a cat and old dog curled up at my feet, coffee and a faithful mug taking the time to set the tone for the week, I realize I am writing my own story of authenticity, self-empathy and peace.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 8:15

Something that I often do is I will think about what qualities do I need in my life this week? What energy do I want to try and create right now? And no matter where life is at, no matter how stressful or not stressful, no matter if I'm looking forward to the week ahead because wonderful things are happening or maybe I'm gritting my teeth and I have a lot going on or I'm in a place of challenge. It varies week to week, but I really like thinking about what qualities do I need this week, what do I want to manifest, what do I want to receive, and I like just finding key words like forgiveness, grace, love, support, abundance. I think for this particular piece when I chose authenticity for me. That is always something that I think about is how can I be authentic this week and how can I give myself permission to be an authentic expression and to be at peace with wherever I'm at on my journey and to practice self-determination and being a spiritual homesteader and knowing that my choices and my mistakes and my growth and my wisdom and my intuition those are things that I could always get feedback from others about if I have questions for my path. But I often think like, hey, that's all on me to figure out, like, hey, that's all on me to figure out. It is a joyful right and a privilege and a challenge to have so much space and freedom to practice soul sovereignty and to find out what is my path in the middle of all of this, and I feel like authenticity really plays into that, with just trying to be my most authentic self and own myself and own my choices and try and step forward in a way that is honest and true and in my integrity.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 10:13

And then self-empathy is another word that I chose for this week and the poet in me wanted something that kind of went with authenticity. But I really love the idea of self-empathy. I think we always want empathy for others and I would imagine that many who might be listening to this are naturally empathic. You might even identify as an empath or somebody who just tries to be sensitive and aware of others. But the idea of self-empathy how would we speak to ourselves as if we were a friend to ourselves? What might we say to ourselves if ourselves said, wow, I really blew it with this. And we might come in and put an arm around ourself and say with compassion and say with empathy like, hey, everybody blows it in life. It's not about that. It's about figuring out how do you keep going and find your way forward. Maybe we would just give ourselves a hug. How would I talk to myself if I was being more empathic, more friendlike, more kind, more compassionate? Easier to give that to others than it is to ourselves. It's linked very closely with self-grace, I think, and really taking time to resonate with our own experience of self and see it with sensitivity and kindness and forgiveness.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 11:37

The other quality that I chose for this week in my little poem was peace and really wanting to move through the week with as much peace and ease as possible, and for me, peace has moved away from this idea that things need to be peaceful on the surface for me to feel peaceful, because I have learned that if I am waiting for that, I'm going to be waiting around a very long time. It just hasn't happened. Life is too busy and there's too many working parts, and even when I'm working really hard on saying how can I make life more peaceful, right now things happen. Last week on the podcast I was talking about our sweet old dog Frodo and how he was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and it has taken most of his vision in a very short amount of time really a matter of weeks. If that it might have just been a few days to a week is when the worst of it happened and he went from being fairly capable of seeing to almost blind overnight. He can still see a little bit, but it's pretty sketchy and he runs into stuff a lot more, and that was a curveball in life that I couldn't see coming.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 12:48

And so I find that, even when I try and designate space and organize everything, life is moving of its own accord, and that's okay, that is beautiful, it is what life does. Life is not happening to us, it is happening with us and we are moving with it and moving with the flows. And when we're engaged in dynamic relationships and dynamic relationships with ourself and the world around us and people in the world around us animals, nature, plants, ideas, causes that we believe in when we have those kinds of dynamics, dynamics are subject to change, and so if I'm waiting for things to stay stable so I can be stable, that's not going to happen. We have to keep learning to find our peace in the flow, and that's something that I really crave that, no matter what's happening, that I can come into that space of stillness and peace inside of myself and pause. And so, even this morning, taking time to write a poem and to follow that intuitive inclination, I could hear the beginning of it in my mind and felt like, oh, I think if I put pen to paper right now, something might come out. And trusting that and following that and taking time on a busy morning to have a little peace of following my joy and following something that brings me bliss and finding peace in that, finding harmony in that.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 14:20

I often practice affirmations that might go something like I choose to be at peace with everything in my life that might not feel peaceful. I am at peace in the ebbs and flows. I am at peace with the ups and downs. I choose to find peace and all that feels in harmony inside of myself and all that feels in disarray, and I find peace in the path of bringing harmony into all of that. I will play with words like that to offer myself a different story and I share all these thoughts with you today, hoping that maybe this helps inspire and spark something with you and your story and how you might be going about navigating your week right now.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 15:06

We can always work with our thoughts, our mindset, our hearts. We can keep working with gratitude and developing that wonderful poet's gaze to see the world through a lens of color and magic and taking time to appreciate the miracles happening in nature that might be happening in a moment of life. We can work with gratitude and make a little list that it is those tiny things. I think. I use the phrase coffee in a faithful mug. My coffee today was in a mug that we've had around forever. I think my husband brought it with him from Oregon years ago when he first moved to Alaska, when we were first getting together and living together, and I thought, wow, this mug has been through so many moves and so many incarnations of who we are and just taking time to appreciate that and to appreciate that story and to appreciate the rainfall, there's always gratitude to be found. So there's many entry points that we can use to drop in and we can just focus on one small thing and say this week it's going to be gratitude, or this week it's going to be the poet's eye, or this week it is going to be writing out the qualities that I want to manifest and seed into the week ahead of me. I want to lay the energetic gridwork for and hope to cultivate in my life.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 16:30

There's always something we can do. You can do all of the above, but something that shifts our focus and shifts our hearts and moves us out of that space of falling into the stream of busyness or stress. Falling into the stream of busyness or stress. I sometimes think of that as the default mode, like the factory setting, where we might have this composition inside of ourselves of messages or old ways of seeing things, or things that we've been taught negative ways of thinking about something and it doesn't really work for us anymore. Right, I think just the world on a daily basis doesn't always give a message of being encouraged and finding the positive and adhering to spiritual, heart-based principles.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 17:14

It's just so easy to fall into a space where we focus more on mental chatter and stressful mental chatter, chatter and stressful mental chatter, and so we have to keep building ways to come back into whatever it is that we want to create instead and train ourselves to do it and practice it, and that can be joyful work and wonderful work, and sometimes you might find that as you're doing that work, that you are gifted with a poem or a moment that really stops and makes you appreciate and find the sacred magic in the everyday.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright : 17:50

Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I am so grateful for your presence and for the listeners. And, while I'm thinking about it, if you feel called to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform, a positive one, and to say a few words or anything that this podcast stirs in you. That's always so helpful for help keeping it relevant and helping others find this space as well, and I hope everybody has an amazing week. I will be back next week with an all new episode and, as always, be well, be love, be you and be magic.

Intro/Outro Music: 18:33

You've been listening to your Heart Magic with Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright. Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your light.