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. Bethane Kapansky Wright, author, psychologist, and spiritual educator.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 0:32

Aloha, everybody. Welcome to Your Heart Magic. This is Dr. Bethane Kapansky Wright. And we have a little bit of a potpourri episode today. We are doing a mini energy update and tying it into some perspectives on some things that I actually wrote down post-full moon for myself on things that I'm releasing and working on changing and transforming at this time. And so I took my personal list and three things that I thought might be applicable to others, and I'm sharing some of that today. But first, let me start with a mini energy update because it ties into the topic. And I often will open the Akashic Records and get an image for the month ahead. Sometimes it might be for the week ahead. I love the Akashic Records, and I've been a longtime recipient of their wisdom. And I really enjoy tapping into them to ask about collective energies and just get a little blurb that can help us orient ourselves to what is the overall energy right now. And I asked about the week of the full moon that just happened, the full harvest moon going into this first half of October. And what I saw was an image of somebody who was walking on a trail and they had gum on their feet, like sticky black, gummy substance, like they'd stepped in something and they were trying to take these steps, but they were really impeded by this gummy stuff. And then the image shifted. And what I saw was this individual somehow managed to shed the gummy, sticky stuff from their shoes and was then walking forward with more freedom and ease, and was able to have a greater sense of freedom in their stride. And that was the energy that I was given for this week. That it's as if all of us right now have been going through this de-gumming, if you will. I think I just made that word up, of our sticky shoes. And we have been cleaning off the stuff, the gunk, the goo, the gum, the sticky things, the attachments, the stuff that's holding us back, and taking those and kind of cleaning our energy off, cleaning our pathways up so that we can move forward with more freedom and more peace and feeling less hindered by some of the things that hold us back. So that's a very encouraging message right now. I am here for it. And it ties in really beautifully with the message of the full moon because full moons always have a certain energy to them. No matter what astrological sign they might fall in, that gives more nuance to what that particular full moon might be about or what themes might come up for that moon that might be influenced by being in that sign. We always know that full moons are a time of completion. They are a time of abundance. Sometimes they can feel very intense, but also very celebratory. And they're also a time of release. They are a time of being able to unlayer and shed anything that we don't wish to carry with us into the next 28-day moon cycle. I personally think that no matter where the moon is at, we can always declare any moment in time, a time that we're ready to release or to let go or to transform. But I do think there's certain times where the energy is extra amplified and really supports that work and maybe even helps us increase our intention or supports us in letting go with a little bit more ease. And so full moon can be a time of completion, a time of seeing something come full circle or come to an ending. And with that, might be released work that we do. So I wanted to share a few notes that I made in my journal from things that I am working on releasing right now because they seem really universal to me. And I've often found that a gift of my work as a psychologist is being able to talk to people now for over 20 years and hear about their stories and hear so many things about fears and concerns and the universality of so many things that are themes for all of us. It might show up in a different way. But I think many of us have some of the same kinds of things that we're working on and the same things holding ourselves back. And so I thought it might be fun to kind of share my own journal notes and it might inspire others to see where that might be coming through in their life. So one of the first themes for me for this full moon cycle is I actually wrote down the words just show up. And it's the idea that I want to keep releasing fear and second-guessing myself, overthinking something, and continue to feel encouraged to just show up in the spaces in my life. I think so often it's really easy to want something to be perfect or to feel like we have to have a certain point of preparation in order to do something or to make a decision. And there's something to be said for taking some time to prepare. If we've signed up to go on a big trip, then there's probably some things we need to do to prepare for that trip. If you show up at the airport without a ticket or a passport and nothing packed, and say, hey, I want to go overseas right now, you'll probably get there, but you're gonna have a bit of a bumpy ride and they're probably gonna send you back home to get your passport. And there's a few things that you might want to put in order in order to create the best experience possible. So there's something to be said for preparation. It can make things go more easily. It can help us feel more secure, that we have checked the boxes of what we need to do in order to move on to the next stage of something or truly be ready. Sometimes it creates a better experience for us if we've taken the time and given a little bit of forethought. But at the end of the day, there's a certain point where we just have to do the thing. And where we might be overthinking or questioning or doubting or thinking that maybe I'm not ready, maybe it's not for me to do. And I've often found that if something's really in our heart or we have committed to doing something, then we have to trust that if we show up, we will have what we need in order to have a successful experience with whatever level that we're at. And something that has been on my radar lately is just trying to say yes to opportunities and say yes to things that present themselves in my path, particularly if it's something that intrigues me. I think many of us can feel into what a hard no is for us. So if we are asked, do you want to do this? and we can feel, no, absolutely not. I have no interest there. I'm not exactly talking about that. I'm talking about the kinds of things that we are intrigued by. And they make us think, could I do that? What might I experience if I let myself do this thing? Maybe it's something that we dreamed of or something that we've always said, I really want to do this. And then we're given the opportunity and figuring out that at some point we do just have to show up. We put the preparation in, but you're never going to feel fully ready if you're waiting for a sign that it's time to do the things that are in your heart, or time to take the dreams that you have in your mind and put them down on paper and take that next step where you really commit to them. We're never going to feel fully ready. I can honestly say that so many things I've done in my life, from speaking to a group of people, teaching something, when I do choreography, even if I'm really well prepared, anything that I've done that puts me in a place, usually a performance, I never feel fully 100% I've got this. There's always that question mark in my mind. And that's the growth edge. There's always that piece of I don't know how it's going to happen. I don't know how people might receive this or what will be the response. I might not know for myself if I say I'm going to do something. Will I enjoy it? Will I not? Is it going to be a good experience? Will it not be a good experience? And so I found that those things that really intrigue me, that I get called into and that require me to step out onto the ledge and have a little bit of trust and take some sort of a leap of faith, whether that is a huge grand leap or just a mini leap where I have to let go of my fears and instead step into self-belief and just doing it. I think that idea of just showing up, it's something that I'm continuing to work on for myself. And the other side of that is really continuing to release that mental chatter that says you're not ready or that overthink something or that second guesses. I think for many of us, we feel like somebody else is better equipped to do something. But if whoever's better equipped isn't there stepping up and you are being asked to do it, or it keeps coming in your path, then it probably means it's for you to do, not somebody else. And I often think that spirit sprinkles this creative genius and these ideas on many of us, but the amount of people that will follow through and actually take that action step and ground it and say, I want to follow this through to completion kind of narrows the further down the path you go. It's always easier to stay in the comfort zone and always harder to push ourselves. But I can say for myself, this last year, some of the best experiences I've had have been absolutely outside of the comfort zone. And when I put myself out there and just have seen what happens. So the second thing that I wrote down that dovetails into this is the idea of not wasting too much space when it comes to insecurity and self-doubt. I think most people have these unless you are gifted or you've worked really hard for a very stellar self-esteem. I think most of us have our doubts about self. We have our insecurities. For many of us, that's the stuff we're healing. Those are the wounds. Those are some of the places where we bring the light in and we bring what is in our unconscious into our consciousness so we can work with it in a constructive way and transmute it and transform it. I shared on the podcast maybe about a month ago, where I had a moment coming back from choreography, and I kind of got lost in the weeds for a little bit, second guessing something that I'd done, something that I'd said, thinking about how was something received. And I had this moment of clarity of like what a waste of time it was to even give mental energy to that, that there was nothing good that was going to come from it. There's nothing that I could do to go back and have a do-over. And that I have to trust that if I'm showing up in the most authentic way, that I know how, that that's the best I can do. And most of us are doing the best that we can do. We are engaging with life, with the best we have to give on any given day. And some days our best is not our best best. It's just the best we have on that day. And so I think when we waste time going down these rabbit holes of what we should have said or what we could have done, or did we do a little bit too much of this? Was it not enough of this? There might be a tiny droplet in there where there's some healthy self-reflection that allows us to have a growth moment if we need it. But more often than not, I think we're just wasting brain space. And we are rehearsing these insecurities in ourselves and seeding the energy and those neural networks. And I think we're better served by finding ways to let that go and finding ways to keep redirecting our attention when we notice that we're doing that. I think a really good way to redirect is to think about three things that you can feel good about with maybe what you brought to a situation, or three things that you're looking forward to, or focusing on something that allows you to tap into what you want to create as opposed to focusing on what you're afraid of about yourself or about how others might perceive you, things that we really don't have any control over. And for me, a continual work in progress is just continuing to let go of things that I can't control. I have no control over the outcome or how I might be perceived in something, and really winnowing those down and identifying that sticky gummy stuff, right? This is the stuff that keeps us stuck or that gets a little bit sticky. Recognizing when I'm going into that cobwebby space of overfocusing on something that's already happened, I can't do a thing about it, and I would be so much better served by bringing my attention to the present, noticing something beautiful happening in the present, and then thinking about what I want to keep creating moving forward. That leads me to the last note that I wrote down to share is something that was a theme for this full moon that came up for me and I wanted to impart to everybody. And that's the idea that when we find ourselves having stress or worry or self-doubt, to use that as an opportunity to build trust and vision. I was talking about just now the idea of redirecting our thoughts when they start to go into that cobweby sticky space. And something that I get a lot of mileage out of is when I find myself ruminating on something or dwelling on something, I start to think about not only what is the outcome I'd like to see, but I try and imagine myself in that space. So I might imagine myself feeling peaceful and free and clear. Maybe I imagine myself calling a friend and saying, hey, guess what? This amazing thing happened, and telling them about something that I might want to create instead of the scenario of the what's the worst thing that could happen? Well, what's the best thing that could happen? And picturing myself telling somebody that story or saying to somebody, I was so worried about X. And then it worked out in this really amazing way that I couldn't see, and I felt really supported by spirit. And so I think the idea of using those opportunities where we realize that we're in the sticky place when we're in the weeds, the kobabby place, and using that as a time to actively transform that old sticky energy and instead focus on what it is that we want to create, having trust in the process, having vision for our lives, thinking about who we're reinventing ourselves into and who we want to be in this world. There's so many different tools for how we can refocus and redirect our mind and our heart and our energy in that moment. But it is an opportunity when we find ourselves in that place to do the redirection and to build trust, to build vision, to build faith, to keep building the path of love and keep building the path of self-belief in ourselves and the path of trusting that we're here for a reason and that we are allowed to make mistakes on the journey. We're allowed to work through and transmute trauma. We're allowed to wander off the path and figure out that we wandered off the path and course correct and come back. All of those things are part of our journey. So we don't have to overthink, am I doing it right? We can surrender a little bit more into trust. We can surrender into the latitude of the way of the heart and know that grace is available no matter where we are, and that we can always come back into ourselves anytime we need to and check in with our heart compass. And that the grace of spirit is always big enough to help create a new pathway. If we feel like we've taken a detour or feel like we might have wanted to do something differently and we didn't, there is always space for spirit to meet us where we're at and help us create something beautiful. So, with that, I wanted to share a passage today from Small Pearls Big Wisdom that I feel like speaks to some of these ideas. And it's really about trusting the path and letting go. And I think that is the takeaway from today's topic. It is the exhortation to keep finding what's sticky in your life, even if it's subtle. A lot of times the sticky stuff is really subtle. If it's something bigger, it usually feels like a big obstacle or a big block. Sticky stuff is just that. It's just sticky. It's the ways that we attach to ideas, to old beliefs, to insecurities, to fear, those tiny little attachments that we're being encouraged to keep working on and scraping off of our shoe right now and doing the release work whenever we run into it and finding a way to keep moving forward with more freedom on the path. This is called the ongoing unknowing. And as I said, it's from Small Pearls, Big Wisdom, and it's passage 305. It happens in layers and waves over many moon cycles, sea tides, and the turn of the season's trees. We peel back old pieces, release mistruths, and shed pale imitations as we move closer to our authentic selves. It's not a one-time process, but an ongoing, unknowing of self so we can know ourselves in more soulful ways. We unbecome to become. We unknit old threads to knit the new. We wander outside old lines to discover new terrain. We heal in small intentional increments, big, messy squiggles, and little grace notes that help us patch together a bigger, wiser, mosaic self. We lose ourselves to find ourselves and then find ourselves again, all of it working together in a gorgeous alchemical process of soul as we keep moving closer to love, our purpose and our truth. If we can find joy in the unknown, embrace our void, trust things to unfold, and remember that love knows us and we know love, then love becomes the thread that keeps leading us through the labyrinth of change and bringing us to a new beginning. This is one of life's greatest mysteries and endless treasures, the ongoing unknowing. I will never be able to put language to the infinite mysteries of the heart's ability to be perennial. Something dies and something new is reborn. We grieve, and our grief waters the grounds for a new life, and somehow grace wraps around it all. But I will gratefully put my trust in this bigger process, stay my course, and put my faith in the path of love. Have an amazing week, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode of Your Heart Magic. I will be back next week with an all-new topic. And as always, be well, be love, be you, and be magic.

Intro/Outro Music: 20:37

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