37 Notes to Myself on My Birthday

by | Sep 27, 2021 | Uncategorized

Notes to Self After My Birthday Portal

Birthdays can be emotionally tumultuous, but when approached with intentionality, they can be opportunities for growth.

As my birthday approaches, I like to spend the month or so leading up to that date doing a life inventory – I call this the birthday portal.

I turn inward and review what habits or patterns I need to get go of or call in. What I need to forgive others or myself. What wild dreams or desires I want to embrace for the coming year.

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In my birthday portal reflections this year, I came across a list I wrote to myself on my last birthday – 37 thoughts I’d like to share with you.  

Today’s episode has a lot to unpack and some of it may not resonate with you. 

As always, I hope you find some hidden gems that speak to you, that move you, that guide you on your journey of healing and self-liberation.

I’ve never viewed growing older as something to dread. Instead, I see it as an opportunity to grow further into our wisdom, power, and wholeness. 

Join me in today’s episode as I unpack what I’ve learned this past year and share a special opportunity that just might be what you’ve been waiting for.

Listen to episode 361 now!

In episode 361 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:

  • [2:19] What a birthday portal is and how Elizabeth likes to commemorate it
  • [8:23] Why we should be aware of the anger and grief we take forward with us and the need to process it
  • [13:08] How Elizabeth has been focusing on being an instrument of healing and not the force itself
  • [16:31] The importance of communicating what we have the energy for with others and with ourselves
  • [26:28] Why the yawns didn’t get edited out of this episode 🙂
  • [35:42] A perspective on emotional eating that honors your body and soul’s needs
  • [41:02] Why we are allowed self-love and how it is necessary and holy
  • [43:09] What it means to pay attention to reciprocity and energy flow in our relationships
  • [53:18] How Nature is our best teacher and giver of wisdom on how to allow things in our lives
  • [58:26] The details on the newly updated Professional Embodiment Specialist Certification Training

    Resources mentioned by Elizabeth in the episode:

     

    Quotes from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:

     

    • “This is how healing works right? Things travel through families and communities until someone is ready, willing, and able to deal with it.”
    • “It’s super important to be communicating our energy with people, so people know what we have in the tank. It’s super important to be honest with ourselves about what we have in the tank so we’re not overgiving or overextending ourselves.”
    • “It literally doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, where you live, where you come from, what’s been your history. We all have access to the Divine. We’re all made up of Divinity. We all have that within us.”

     How was this episode for you?

     

    Was this episode helpful for you today? I’d love to know what quote or lesson touched your soul. Let me know in the comments below OR share the episode on Instagram, tag me your stories @elizabethdialto, or send me a DM!

    About the Embodied Podcast with Elizabeth DiAlto

    Since 2013 I’ve been developing a body of work that helps women embody self-love, healing, and wholeness. We do this by focusing on the four levels of consciousness – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

    In practical terms, this looks like exploring tools and practices to help you tune into the deep wisdom of the body and the knowing of the heart, which I believe are gateways to our souls. Then we cultivate a new relationship with our minds that allows the mind to serve this wisdom and knowledge and soul connection, rather than override it, which is what many of us were taught.

    If you’ve been doing self-help or spiritual development work for a while, these are the types of foundational things that often people overlook in pursuit of fancier concepts that often aren’t practical or sustainable. Here, we will focus on building these strong foundations so you can honestly and thoroughly embody self-love. If you’re feeling it, subscribe to the show, and leave us a review wherever you listen from. You can also keep up with show updates and community discussion on Instagram here.

     

    Transcripts for Episode 361:

    What’s up, everybody. Welcome to episode number 361 of the Embodied Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth DiAlto. We have a solo episode here today. And I recently at the time I’m recording this, I recently passed through my birthday portal, which some of you have heard me talk about the birthday portal before, it’s typically like the month or so give or take a week or two leading up to your birthday. I like to treat this time really consciously and do like, excuse me, do like a life inventory, a life review, look at my life and see, you know, what’s going on? How has it been going? What do I wanna let go of? What I wanna call in? What do I need to forgive? You know, all these types of things. So, you know, what do I, what am I wild dreams? What am I desires for the new year that’s coming up in my life? What, you know what self-sabotage am I still engaging in? What patterns, what habits need to go? What needs to come? 

    And you know, this year, my birthday portal was painted by my recent move to Miami. So it was just transitions on transitions on transitions. So it was a deep one. And when I was thinking about, you know, what to share and today’s episode, something that came up for me was last year, I wrote this post on my birthday. It was 37 notes to myself from myself. And I was like, oh, what, let’s go back and look at these notes and let’s see where I’m at on these things like a year later after you know, another pandemic year, just so many fricking weird, interesting things going on. So this episode is meant to be one of those episodes where there will be like many jewels and many gems. Some will be for you, some might not be for you. We’ll see what wants to come through. I have no plan other than I’m going to go down this list and review or reflect on all the things. So let’s dive into this list. 

    Number one on the list last year was love is always worth it. Sex is not. Your body knows what is what. I still wholeheartedly agree with this. You know, something that is always so interesting to me and paying attention to my body’s desires and cravings for spiritual experiences, sensual experiences, and then, you know, sexual experiences for me tend to stem from the spiritual and the sensual. And I’ve been in a phase where I just have not, I have not been craving that physical connection with another human being as I’ve been so deeply connecting the connection with my soul, I’m craving the connection with my soul. And it has almost felt in the recent months, like a physical connection would interfere with that spiritual connection, which is the higher priority for me right now. And so it’s fascinating because there are certainly phases of my life where it feels like the physical connection or the romantic connection with someone is the pathway to the spiritual connection. And sometimes that’s true. That is not the phase. It’s not the phase that I’m in right now, but it actually feels like part of it is compelling me to be clearing out the energies from some of those past connections on a deeper, deeper, deeper or cellular level. So I still, you know, love is always worth it. And I certainly have encountered some new love this year and then just orienting around what kind of love am I needing and wanting to cultivate in my life? And it’s cool because I’m noticing there are more male friends showing up in my life, which is not something I have had a lot of in the last several years. So it feels like there’s this masculine energy showing up in my life, in this different way, in this different area. And I’m actually really enjoying, cultivating and curating that right now as opposed to anything deeper or romantic. 

    Number two is it’s okay to miss people long after it feels appropriate to. And I still wholeheartedly agree with this as well. I’m not currently missing anyone, but there is no appropriate, there’s no timeline you know, when we’ve shared portions of our life and experiences with people, you know, we hold them dear, part of them is always with us, part of us is always with them. Usually and I think sometimes we tell ourselves that we shouldn’t care when we do, or we try to dial down how much we care or we judge ourselves. And so I’m into this. I do miss, there’re friends like they’re just friends I haven’t seen in so long. So many of my friends live all over the place, we stay connected, but you know, to gather to be with people in real life would be amazing. But in this moment I’m not super missing anyone. I think again, I’m in such a phase of more deeply connecting with my soul, I think the thing I noticed that I’d been was a deeper, deeper, deeper connection with that recently. And so a longing for my own soul has been the overarching desire or craving for me relationship wise, relationship, deeper connection relationship with my own soul. The third one is anger and grief or wholly feeling gateways. Back in August, I taught the alchemizing anger workshop, which if you’re someone who doesn’t know how to deal with your anger, needs help processing your anger, would like to channel your anger into useful and productive actions, behaviors, choices, energy, creativity in your life. You can find that workshop at untameyourself.com/workshops. And what’s so interesting is I recently, one of my new friends here in Miami is an incredible acupuncturist and healer. She’s also just very intuitive, very amazing and I had my first session with her last week and you know, what always astounds me about anger and grief is just when I think I’ve really, really peeled back on so much of it, I’ll bump into another pocket of it and be like, damn, there’s just so much and let me not project that onto you, just cause I have so much anger and grief does not mean everyone has so much anger and grief. Although most of us do have just piles of it that we haven’t faced. Most of it that’s been handed us to our families, some of it that’s come through even further back in our ancestry because this is how healing works, right? Things stay in families, things travel through families and communities until someone is ready, willing, and able to deal with it and process it. And so many of you listening just like I am, are here in this life to process a lot of the stuff that has not been processed. So it just does not need to keep moving forward in our family lines. Even those of us that are not having our own children, you know, I have a niece like there’s still more energy moving forward through my family line. And as a reminder, the way healing works, all the healing that we do on ourselves affects seven generations ahead and seven generations that have come before us. So energetically that is it’s big, it’s heavy lifting, it’s amazing. So anything that we could feel and process and let go of, or alchemize in our life, it’s just, it’s going so much farther than just our own, the singular life, which is why I love that. 

    Number four, it is safe to be masterful. This is really something last year I started to embrace and embody and then throughout this last, this past year, I really also as well I’ve just accepted my mastery in certain things, things that I’ve been practicing for over a decade, ways that I’ve been helping people, pools, energetics, things that are medicines that are mine to steward and this lifetime, medicines from my soul from past lives and things like that, medicines from my ancestors and so accepting mastery, right? Not, not ever thing like I’m the best, like I’m the ultimate I’ve reached the pinnacle of my service and my abilities. Nothing like no ego crap like that, but actually quite humbly looking at just the skills and the results and the people who have come through my work over the years and all the things that we’ve been able to do and heal and change and affect and create ripple effects together. To me, that is one of the most absolute, incredible blessings of my life to be able to do healing work with people and also to just constantly be remembering that I’m not, you know, we might call ourselves healers because we do healing work. But what that means is that we are people who facilitate healing, right? Like we, I physically am not, or even mentally or emotionally creating the healing in somebody else. I’m just creating models and pathways for people to heal themselves, for them to receive what’s already available to them, be receptive to it and in some cases help and guide the energy to go to the places and spaces where it needs to go. So this, and that is something. There’s several aspects of that in my work and in my life that I am quite masterful at. And just accepting that part of mastery means remaining always as a student and humble and curiosity, learn and grow and receive more of the gifts and more of the medicine and more of the energy that we are here that we’re meant to steward. And just to remember always that we are the stewards of the thing, we are not the gift. We are not the giver of the gift. We are simply the instruments. So allowing myself, if I’m gonna master anything, is master the art of being an instrument, master the art of allowing myself to be used by the divine or whatever other benevolent forces are wanting to use me. And this was a big thing that came up for me in the last year, months and months after my birthday last year, actually this only came up a few months ago. For many years, I’ve been saying this prayer, use me, move me and make me a force for expansion, for love and for good. And then I would change the words in the prayer here and there. But a couple of months ago, I was like, you know what? I don’t want to be a force. I am not the force. You know, God, the beloved, all these divine beings of light who work through us, that’s the force. I want to be the instrument. I wanna be the channel. So I’ve been reorienting and switching and asking to be the instrument rather than to be a force. And it just feels, it feels so great. And I feel like that that was a step in my mastery, allowing myself and remembering that I don’t have to be the force. I am not actually even the force, even if I want it to be. People may ascribe that to me. I had a new friend recently tell me that I’m a force to be reckoned with. And it’s, that really, really turned me off actually, because I don’t wanna be a force, I just wanna be the instrument. And I want to be a masterful instrument, allowing the force to work through me, no star wars, puns intended there. 

    Number five on my list here was receiving is some shit. Keep opening and expanding to it and y’all, this is– In the last couple of weeks, especially since I’m getting into my own place here in Miami, which so, it’s almost a month now that I’ve been in my apartment, the receiving, I’ve been making some new friends, I had a birthday. People really showed up to celebrate me, like new people in my life, close old friends, you know, people sending me flowers and cards and gifts and all kinds of amazing things and receiving all kinds of generosity. I have been stretched in this realm lately. I think I’m always stretched and receiving, you know, like many of us it’s so much more comfortable in the giving role and I’ve been working on this for years. This is something that’s been a pillar of wild soul movement in the self liberation framework receiving is a big piece. And it’s just always incredible to me how there’s just more and more opening, more and more softening, more and more receptivity expand into and to relax into and God looking at how I judge. Judge receptivity sometimes or myself for needing or wanting to receive. So I continue to unpack that one. 

    Number six was a bandwidth various with cycles seasons and current focus of life. Trust that and communicate it honestly with those who will be impacted by your shifts still so relevant. That’s, you know, I’m realizing when the reasons why I wanted to go back and visit this list is because this actually kind of feels like a master list. Some of these things are really timeless, not even necessarily just current to last year, to the moment. You know, we’re all traveling through different seasons and phases of our lives. There’s so many different things always, excuse me, beginning and ending, completing, seeds being planted, seeds being germinated. And, you know, our energy could be really affected by so many things and all of our energies, right? Our physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual fortitude, all of these things. So checking in with ourselves and honoring where we are, what’s going on, how we’re feeling, letting people around us know in the different areas of our life, right? Our personal, professional relationships, our communities are areas where we’re obligated, it’s super important to be communicating our energy with people so people know what we have in the tank. It’s super important to be honest with ourselves about what we have in the tank. And so we’re not over-giving, overextending forcing ourselves and sometimes we need to show up and we don’t have as much energy as we would like. And so these are all things that we get to navigate as brilliantly and beautifully as possible. But I find one of the biggest keys is honesty here with our energy honesty, with ourselves and honesty with others. So we could be tracking our bandwidth and honoring our seasons of expansion and contraction and rests and push when we need them. 

    Number seven on my list here was some people can’t stand to be around folks who genuinely loved themselves and have access to joy. They need your kindness and prayers more than your judgment and you can offer both from a comfortable distance. I remember at this time last year I was transitioning in some of my relationships and I remember that’s why this was coming up for me, but I still continue to see this. It’s so interesting to me to straddle and navigate worlds both online and offline and see how people are showing up in different places in spaces and communities and real life. And then how people show up online and places like social media and just noticing just how people react and respond not just to me, but to other people you know, when they’re in their joy, how people can’t stand to see some people love themselves. It’s very triggering. It shines a light on places and spaces that people don’t wanna look sometimes though I still, I keep this in mind and I keep a lot of compassion in mind, right? Instead of judging people who can’t be around people’s love or joy or positivity or enthusiasm, or just contentment, I have a lot of compassion for those people. And I also know I gotta be careful and mindful and respectful and not let those people into close to my precious energy. And that goes for all of us, all of our energies are precious. 

    Number eight was a lot of people don’t have, and remember these are notes to myself from myself. So it’s written as a lot of people don’t have your sense of humor that’s no reason to shut it down. Your belly laughs and quickness to be amused are medicine. You know, this is something I’ve judged about myself throughout the course of my life. I’m just, I’m easily entertained. I’m delighted by life and people. And the absurdity is in the bizarreness and the brilliance of so many different frigging things. And sometimes I used to judge myself for like laughing at inappropriate times or making a joke, even in something like dark or dreary. And I know some people, that’s not their sense of humor, but it really is mine because I believe it’s so important to keep humor and finding humor and maintaining a humor in levity and things. But that’s real. 

    Number nine, a great deal of the most important things you ever do will be independent of anyone’s gaze, but your own and thoughts. I love this so much. This is just so nourishment for me in such an important reminder always because again, as the world is increasingly digital and as so many of us are engaging and interacting with people online, you know, I am into transparency, I share quite a bit of my life through my work and things like that. And one of the reasons for that is for me in my own healing and embodiment work, as I share, it keeps me, it keeps, what I wanna say is it keeps me lean and it keeps me honest, right? To not be pretending or not be hiding anything. Things, some things deserve privacy and sanctity, some things don’t need to be shared, but I personally like to let people know how I have walked through the fires that I help walk people through all the time and let people see that. A lot of my leadership is leading by example and I’m letting my life be an experiment and an example, you know, for anyone who resonates with pieces of it. It doesn’t have to be with all of it. And so, but still there’s just so much that happens that is not for the big wide open world or even some of my closest friends. There are some things that just get to be between me and God and that’s that. And that for me is the place where I cultivate the deeper soul connection. There’s such a, what’s the word I’m looking for. There’s such a, let me say a charge perhaps is the word I’m looking for, for people to share everything online, whether you know, you have a business or anything, you know, there’s just, with these social media platforms, I often think about, you know, what did we do? How did anyone know what we were up to? How did we know what other people were up to before these social platforms came and we could just log in somewhere and fricking see everything that’s going on with people. So I just love, it just feels so good to keep some things sacred and private and personal, and then only share what feels useful to share and sharing from a place of generosity and alignment rather than obligation. 

    Number 10 was lean into the divine mother. She knows how to heal everything. And that is so freaking true. I actually woke up this morning feeling just super heavy. And like there was a dark cloud like hovering. And I just, I crawled over to my mother Mary corner of my apartment and lit some candles, I pulled the mother Mary Oracle card. I said the prayer and I just felt her love and I felt her holding me and I cried and I released some of what was feeling heavy. And then literally within like five minutes, I felt better. So I mean that divine mother medicine is amazing. It really is everything. 

    Number 11 on my list here was the Jesus you were not privy to growing up is cool as– Keep getting to know him and I have to give a shout out. One of our listeners, one of our community members a couple of months ago said, excuse me, this book called the Wisdom Jesus. And I’ve already been getting down with, you know, non-biblical non distorted by Christianity Jesus, mystical Jesus for many years, but this book has been, I’ve been slowly working my way through it. Another great just layers and layers of connection and understanding and an excitement of, you know, other aspects and other ways to experience Jesus as a mystical figure and teacher, and not just this character in the Christian Bible. 

    Number 12 on my list, when a steady tingle of blankets the top of your head or forehead drop everything and listen, this is how your guides announced themselves. And I remember that. I remember last year where I was and what was going on and what was happening when I started to notice more consistently that that was some sensation, that was an invitation from my guides. And so as I’m reflecting on this, I am just realizing some different ways that I feel and notice and perceive that communication now. So that’s a fun thing to explore. You know, what’s, or how do your guides, how does your divine support squad or your ancestors, how do the beings that you interact with and relate to and connect to communicate with each guidance from, get protection from, how did they make their presence felt? How did they make their presence felt? There’s also this blue light, like a blue dot that I will see sometimes and sometimes it’s green. So I love this, I love working with the non-physical realm and sensing and perceiving and noticing how they consistently reach out to communicate and let their presence be known and felt. 

    Number 13 on my list when your heartbeat slows and your body backends for a deep exhale and a long sigh spend the next few minutes or hours moving, feeling, listening, and letting the life force direct you. I got to tell you in the last several months, I’ve not particularly done a great job at this because there’s been so much overwhelming. My yarns by the way, are one of the ways that energy shifts and moves in my body. Often when I do Akashic records readings, I always yawn when I’m opening people’s records. And so when energy is shifting, when things are moving, when truth are coming, I tend to really yawn a lot. So that’s why I don’t suppress my yawns. It’s a movement of energy. Some of you might be like, why didn’t these yarns get edited out? But honestly, y’all, it’s part of the process. So it’s happening. 

    So number 14, wisdom, guidance, insight, desire, love, and truth operate on their own timelines if or when they want to interrupt yours, let them, and let me tell you, these things have been so interruptive in my life for like the last six months. I’ve been very much surrendered to that. And you know, something I wanna acknowledge is I’ve devoted my life to being a mystic. And what are the bodies of work that I’m really into right now is Carolyn Mace’s Entering The Castle, which is about connecting with your soul. And it’s about what she calls being mystics without monasteries. So those of us in this lifetime who identify as mystics and, you know, mystic is really anyone who wants to have a direct connection with God and really wants to be an instrument for love and light and grace in the world. Again, you don’t have to be a healer. You don’t have to have a business. You don’t have to do anything like what I do, or you might like, you can literally do whatever you want. You could be a person who bags people’s groceries. You could be an Uber driver. You could be somebody who works in corporate. I mean, there’s, you could be a teacher. You could be all kinds of freaking things. Doctor, nurse, lawyer, you know, even some of these professions that people judge as less spiritual, like it literally doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, where you live, where you come from, what’s been your history. You know, we all have access to the divine. We’re all made up of divinity. We all have that within us. And so how we tap into it and how we shine our light and how we surrender to it and how we let it influence our lives is, was one of the most amazing things in the world to surrender to if you feel called to that. And so, you know, for me, I put that above everything, which creates wild inconveniences in my life sometimes because I’m constantly reminded that I can’t control shit, nor should I be trying to, but I want to, I wanna control things so badly. That’s just not how my life works. So that one is, it’s just such a good reminder and it’s, it’s a tough muscle to build. 

    Number 15 was treat time as if it is a malleable, because it is, I was just actually in that book, Entering The Castle with Carolyn Mace, she was talking about how mystic time is timelessness. And this is something I’m constantly playing with. I’m not gonna like try to explain it or talk to it or around it, even because it’s a thing that I feel, I understand it on like a felt sense that I literally can’t even put words to. But time is certainly malleable. 

    Number 16, you are here to remember your soul contains much more than your human minds can fathom. What seems new to you is often actually ancient to your soul, which has done many names and faces. Let what your soul knows come through. This is something I’m constantly practicing. It’s been a bit more challenging lately because the things that want to come through are just very counter to what seems logical in the times that we’re still living in. So this I’m being stretched in this right now. Let’s look at the bridge between logic, not just logic, but also narratives like intense narratives in that external world and what’s coming through my soul are not necessarily meeting and matching each other. And so really again, putting my devotion and my faith in what’s coming through my soul, even though it’s largely contrary and in opposition to a lot of what I’m seeing in the external world, it feels disorienting, but important. 

    Number 17 on the list was stop apologizing for being all that you are. And not just in words, but those subtle and tricky deeds and actions. I remember last year, a dear friend of mine had given me this reflection. Yeah, this is a big one. All the way is, you know, even though my work for the last eight years has been about helping people free their wild souls, reading and embodying my own wild soul, untaming ourselves, right? Deprogramming, deconditioning, all the stuff that’s been put on us without our consent. I still navigate as I’m sure many of you do as well, that, you know, what’s too much? What’s with too much and for who? And so letting go of that is so juicy. And that’s the, again, something just more and more every year, peeling back more and more and more layers and just showing up as more and more of myself, as my both centered self, that’s what I’ve been calling this lately, soul centered rather than self centered, because the self does not contain the whole soul, but the soul contains the self though, thinking of it more as being soul centered, rather than self centered that putting my soul at the center of my life, living a soulful life, a life full of the wisdom and the energy and the information coming through my soul and not apologizing for that, not dialing it down, not trying to hide, not worrying who thinks what instruction into that big time. 

    Number 18 was men are just as beautiful, delicious, and complex as a women. And I had a little note here. You know, this applies to any gender, of course, but for me personally, in my own context of my life as a heterosexual woman, the emphasis on men is important for me. And what’s interesting something that has come up for me in my own healing and I came up on my birthday portal was just some big, big anger, some big grief, some stuff around men, a big blind spot, actually a couple of weeks ago, which I’m not gonna share here right now because I’m really in the thick of working it, but it was so monumental, so great. And so what this is bringing up for me right now is just the reminder that, you know, I’m working through a lot of like anger, grief, resentment stuff towards men right now and I still have such a deep love and appreciation and connection and reference for men and we can hold many things at once. 

    Number 19, do not let anyone else’s rules or beliefs about ownership, dictate what you know to be true. It all belongs to the great beloved anyway. And you know, when it comes to ownership, we could look at ownership of all different types of things, right? We could look at ownership of land, ownership of people, all the things that people think they have a right to but they actually don’t, the things that people claim or gatekeep that they try to keep others out of. This is really where I come from when I look at other people’s rules. And again, things that come through my soul that are like backing in compelling and urging me to explore, embrace and embody or communicate or share, or be healed by certain things. If those things are coming through the access point of my soul, I do not need anyone else’s permission to work with those things and work with and explore, but what I don’t need to do, right? There’s a difference between something that’s coming through my soul for me, and then looking at, and just being really careful and cautious and mindful about the ways that we capitalize on things that are not ours to capitalize on. So keeping this energetically clean and aligned is about honoring the yearnings, the urgings, the cravings, the wisdom of the soul, but making sure that we are not inappropriately, then capitalizing on those things that come through. And only, it’s between you and your soul, what is appropriate and what’s inappropriate. But that’s a dance, that’s a divine dance. 

    Number 20 was emotional eating is a wonderful inappropriate option sometimes your body knows. And I was really in the thick of that was one of my pandemic soothing things that really helped me through with some emotional eating. And now I’m in a place where I have moved to feeling so much more nourished and held by the environment. And that was actually a big reason I moved to Miami. I’m like, I need the ocean, I need the sun, I need the heat, I need to be able to be outside in the lushness and the tropical environment. And so that can hold me so that can nourish me. So I don’t have to reach for other things that aren’t necessarily super healthy for me in the long run, as temporary self soothing or coping mechanisms and strategies. It’s great and super helpful. But in the, in the long-term memories of my health, not really the best options. 

    Number 21 was sensuality and eroticism are access points to the divine, use them wisely and consciously. And I love this point because, you know, for all these unseen things that those of us who live, you know, a spiritual or soulful life, however you wanna think about, describe it or talk about it. If we can’t see it, we have to sense it, right? And so how do we use our senses and then as well, especially those of you who are in the invited living center know one of the core classes practices that we have in the invitee living center is erotic body classes where we move centrally, it’s not even necessarily dance, so it could be dance, but we move sensually to themed playlists and we access and bring together and integrate parts of ourselves, all the different parts of ourselves. And that’s partly what eroticism is, is that deep affectionate love, or yourself and others, but all parts, right? Bringing it all together, honoring it all as sacred. That’s one of my favorite expressions and explorations there it’s so nourishing. 

    Number 22, this one remains a practice, a deep daily practice. You will need to divest from patriarchy, white supremacy, racism, ableism, and capitalism every day. I mean, I don’t really have anything to even say about that, it’s just the thing that we do day in and day out. 

    Number 23, or deepest learning and understanding comes from listening to other people’s stories and lived experiences. And this is one of the blessings, one of my favorite things about doing Akashic readings is just getting to be witnessed to so many different people’s paths and journeys and challenges and struggles and triumphs and celebrations and successes, and just amazing life stories and life paths. It’s just such an incredible reminder constantly about how different we all are and how important it is to honor and acknowledge and keep our eyes open for those differences and not needing people to be the same as us, or believe in the same things or practice and do, or make the same choices. 

    Number 24, seep yourself and fields of epic and beautiful love whenever possible. And at the time this was coming from having God just spend some really amazing time with friends of mine who are married now, they weren’t married at the time, but their relationship, their love with their cultivating their life is so amazing. So as a person who has not met my beloved yet, one of the things that I always love is to bask in other people’s love, you know, what’s possible, see the seeds, see the inspiration. I know some people when they’re not experiencing the love that they want to experience in their life at the moment, it’s hard to be around love, they don’t wanna see, or seeing other people’s love or joy or happiness makes them feel badly about what they don’t have or what they’re not experiencing. And so for me personally, that’s not how I’m wired, that’s not where I am. I love, I love to see it. I’m like, yes, show me this, show me more, give me the divine proof. Let me know what’s possible. So I love that. 

    Number 25 beauty is medicine again. I mean, I can’t overemphasize this enough, like as I’m recording this, I’m sitting here looking at one of my alters, which has, you know, two beautiful pieces of art, these four paintings of different goddesses. There’s these pink roses, there’s flameless candles, there’s actually another rose, there’s crystals, there’s candle holders, there’s this beautiful incense box I have like, and just looking at that and taking in the colors and the beauty and the art, the sensuousness of it all is just, that shit is really is medicine. You know, looking out my window now at the bay at Biscayne bay, where I live in Miami, seeing the sun reflect on the building across the bay, like there’s just, there’s immense beauty everywhere in some of the simplest, most incredible ways and things. And it is medicine. It heals, shifts the energy shifts the mood, shifts the perspective. 

    Number 26, it’s okay to love yourself this much and more. I don’t know about you all, but as I deepen into self love more and more and more every year of my life, there’s still always this programming that’s like, is this arrogant? Is this selfish? Are you being a narcissist? Like, but no, like we really just get to love ourselves the way God loves us. You know, I always think about that. If I was to see myself through the eyes of my divine parents, right? Mother, father, God, what kind of love would I be able to feel? And that’s what I try to feel. This is just immense, immense love. It’s allowed. It is allowed. 

    Number 27. This is a virtue, forgiveness is the balm, B, A, L, M, N, and the bomb B, O, M, B always. It just is y’all. I don’t know what to tell you. If you’re not down with forgiveness work. I mean, you don’t have to be, but it’s just the fucking best. It is just releasing ourselves, releasing ourselves from how we hold on to things or the way the energy of things that have happened, or people in our lives that affect us. If we could just shift the energy around that, we can have completely different experiences. And ultimately that’s what forgiveness is about. So I just, I love, love, love, love, love that practice. And I, in my birthday portal in the last few weeks, I bumped into some deep, deep stuff that’s gonna take some, some committed forgiveness work. So I’m working through that. And it just it’s forgiveness for me is like an old familiar friend at this point, I’ve been doing forgiveness work for like a decade, and it’s just, anytime something comes up that is hurting or getting in the way or blocking it, I’m always looking out what could be forgiven? Where can I forgive myself? Where can I forgive other people? Where can I take my power, my energy back, where am I giving it away and appropriately? And where can I forgive myself for doing that? And just take it back, take it back, take it back. 

    Number 28, pay attention to energy flow and reciprocity and close relationships and shift accordingly with the tides. You are inclined to overfunctioning, over-giving, overcompensating for others, overextending and making positive projections. This doesn’t require you to be cautious, just aware and willing to pivot. So one of the ways healing works is that there are just some things that will require, you know, more work and more practice and more diligence for us than others throughout the course of our journeys. And for me, you know, over-giving, over-functioning, overcompensating for other people’s stuff that is something that I continue to work on and I get better and better, and better and better and better and better at it over time. But you know, the given the right circumstances or given the right level of depletion, which in the pandemic, I was super depleted, I can really still fall back into that sometimes. And so just paying attention to reciprocity in relationships as a form of energetic flow and noticing does the giving and receiving feel reciprocal here. And that doesn’t always mean even, right? Like sometimes there are seasons where we are showing up more for people than they’re showing up for us because they need it, right? Or where we need people to show up more for us than we can show up for them because we need it. And it’s the reciprocity, it’s the energetic flow over time, right? It’s similar to, you know, you ever go out to eat with people or, and you go to split the check and maybe there’s was a little bit more, but you just split it evenly anyway you’re like, whatever, it’ll all come out in the wash eventually, right? Like we’re not going to nitpick over a couple of dollars. Energetically, it’s kind of like that too, right? In the phases and stages in your relationships where sometimes some people need more attention than others, but you’ll always be the one that needs more attention at some point or another, but the paying attention to that flow and just making sure that it’s not out of whack, it’s not out of balance all the time. ‘Cause there certainly are some people in our lives that we notice that it’s never reciprocal. And when we noticed that our relationships are not reciprocal, we get to choose and decide whether through boundaries or whether through pivoting or shifting or reorienting the relationship, what we wanna do with that. That’s always just an important thing to keep an eye on, pay attention to be feeling poor. 

    Number 29, people’s loveliness is not a justification for over-investing anything in them. And this lesson, I’ve learned this lesson in all the different contexts of relationships, personal professional, romantic family. Some people are just lovely and they’re great and they’re not good for us, right? And continuing to like over-give or overinvest our energy time, attention, whatever is not in service, it’s not in service to us. It’s not in service to them. And it’s hard that’s a tough pill to swallow sometimes. 

    Number 30 on my list here was for you. It’s not child less it’s child free. You are meant to be free in this lifetime in a way, birth mothering would not allow you to, this has to do with anyone else’s choices or opinions, enjoy your path and use it for good. And you know, throughout the course of the pandemic, I thought of that so much. And especially with this recent move, I thought of it just how important it has been for me in my life to be able to just like get up and make a big change, make a big move or do what I wanna do without having a factor in the way it will affect other people’s lives any or have any dependence in my lives. So I’m just uprooting myself, I’m not uprooting other people. And that feels literally just truer than ever for me right now. 

    The 31, other people’s uncommunicated expectations needs and desires are not yours to decipher, manage or extract, let them walk their paths maybe they’ll figure it out, maybe it won’t. So something that has really opened up for me much more in the last year, since I made this list is my psychic gifts and abilities. And so this is something that is challenging for me because I’m constantly seeing sensing and feeling things that people aren’t communicating and just remembering having to have boundaries with myself to not respond to what has not been shared and what has not been communicated and having the discernment around that as well. And just letting people walk their paths, not trying to manage or control anyone else’s experienced or impose my ideas about what might be best or better on them. And just letting people be, letting people be, letting people be, it’s a divine dance. It’s a divine dance. And the context matters too, right of the relationships. I mean, it’s different when people, for example, our clients are students and part of the relationship is sharing what you’re seeing and sensing and feeling that’s why they hired you and then it’s just different with friends and lovers and family members and other people. 

    Number 32, this is a forever important reminder for me. You are allowed to just not like some people. There’s just, I don’t like a lot of people. It’s funny because like and love are different. I can have love, I can hold love and I can hold compassion for just about anyone or anything. But I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to force myself to engage with it. I can certainly hold it with love and compassion, I don’t have to like it. And that’s something I’ve just really learned to trust. I don’t have to analyze it. I don’t have to be like, what does this mean about me. When I don’t like people, I could just let myself not like people. I certainly don’t wish anyone harm. But I used to really judge myself, especially when I didn’t like people that other people I liked, I was like, well, they like them, why don’t? It’s like it literally doesn’t matter. Just trust it, if there’s information, if that needs to shift great, but just let yourself not like people were things, you know, you all can laugh at me if you want. But something that I’ve really come to admit to myself in the last few months is I don’t really like dogs. I do not like dogs, I am not a dog person. Sometimes I will, I don’t like lying, but sometimes I’ll even tell someone that I’m allergic to a dog. So the dog doesn’t have to come near me because some people just can’t fathom that not everyone loves dogs, that not everyone is comfortable with dogs, not everyone wants to be jumped on or licked, or some of us have really sensitive senses of smell and cannot deal with the smell of dogs. And it’s funny because there are some cool chill dogs that I do like, but the most part, I’m not a dog person. And I know it’s just unfathomable for some people, but I’m not. And so it’s funny, like I’ve allowed myself to just accept that I don’t like some people and I don’t like 98% of dogs. And if anyone, you know, if anyone has ever been on dating apps, this is why this comes up for me because so many people have dogs. And so many people, their pictures on their profiles, just like dog, dog, dog, like dog laying in bed with them, dog licking their face. And I’m like, “Oh no, no, no.” I just don’t want any of that. I was seeing someone a couple of years ago who had a dog and without even asking me, he just like, let the dog in the bed. And I was like, no, we’re not doing this. It’s just funny to me. I’m really cracking up ’cause I had an experience with this yesterday. Just like the lack of consent of dog owners of like this guy that is dog off of the leash, like in a coffee shop. And the dog was just like walking up to people at their tables and stuff. And I’m like, this is a, like, this is a place like people who’ve come here to like drink coffee and eat breakfast, not like interact with your dog without like volunteering. Like I think it’s different if you have your dog with you and someone sees it and they’re like, “Oh, can I pet it?” Like, yes, because they have volunteered themselves. And I was thinking about it, like I’m not allergic to dogs, but what if I was, and this dog is just coming up, getting all up in my business, around my food like, it’s just not for me. It’s not, for me. It just makes no logical sense to me how anyone could just assume everyone’s gonna love their dog anyway. I’ve probably spent more time than necessary on that. But as you can tell, it’s a real thing for me. All right, we’re coming up on the home stretch on this list y’all. 

     33, always look to nature for the lesson. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, you’ve heard me, you know, geek out on how nature is just one of the best teachers, right? Nature reminds us that she doesn’t do anything fast except destruction or disaster, right? She’s the queen of using what she has not taking more than she needs. There’s just always these lessons in nature even if we just, if we watch animals, if we watch, you know, plants, if we watch flowers, if we look at literally like the cycles and the seasons of life, there’s always just such good reminders. Our human selves who have the faculty of logic and reason and who are inclined to wanna control things or mold things to the way we think they should be. And then nature is just allowing, nature is the ultimate teacher and reminder for how to like allow and let things run their course and let things be and let things die and let things be born and let things grow and age and heal, all types of stuff. 

    Number 34. It’s funny, after I just went off about dogs, here’s number 34, the animals you are drawn to are your kin. So obviously not really a dog person, but I love whales and I love dolphins big time. There’s some birds that I’m really into. Since I got here to Miami, I’m really into these little lizards, these little salamanders that are everywhere. I love them so much. I still haven’t figured out how to like play with them and I don’t want to bother them that’s the other thing with me and animals. I’m like, I just don’t wanna bother them. But yeah, the animals I am drawn to are my kin. 

    Number 35 is a great one mind your business. I’m still I’m always working on this, especially, you know, as a person who sees and senses and feels things that are not always being shared or said, it’s sometimes hard to suss out sometimes other people’s businesses up in my business and I don’t wanna mind it, but it’s mine to me. Like I’m always working on that, but you know, something in the last year that I’ve been really focusing on is just noticing where I allow myself to be distracted constantly. What are my distractions? And really just minding my business, mind my business, mind my business keeps me out of the distractions on. 

    Number 36, you will never be able to repay the people in your life who have supported you the most, stop trying, it’s not about that. And I think this is a universal reminder, right? We don’t have to, reciprocity is important, but there’s just some things that there’s, you know, our appreciation people wanna give to us, people want to help and support us. And in some cases, the reciprocity is simply allowing them to do it. 

    Number 37 was, I love you. This is true, I really love myself y’all. I love self love, I love genuinely feeling that, I love feeling kindness, care, compassion, tenderness, and softness towards myself, and always, always deepening into that finding more. And the last couple months, as things were so challenging with the move and the transition here, it’s been such a huge invitation to just deepen into that and not judge myself and not, you know, make up any stories, why things aren’t going the way I wanted them to, or just love, just loved myself gently through that stuff and let myself be soft and tender and just surrendered rather than making myself wrong or bad. I just don’t really believe in beating myself up about– So I don’t do it. It’s just much more enjoyable to love. 

    And then even though this was 37, there was one more, which was, this was related to social media, specifically post whatever the you feel inspired to, whatever the you feel inspired to. God is the best air quote algorithm. And I still stand by that. Social media is super weird, but, and staying committed to being a mystic and honoring mystical art and the medicine and all the things that I’m here to do and be in share and steward and surrender to, and have faith and trust in and heal around. You know, I just can’t be super attached to these strange social platforms that really also try to control our lives. So anyway, in conclusion, that list that I made last year really was I’m noticing kind of like a great universal list to check back in with over time and see how these things are evolving and unfolding in my life are shifting and changing or relevant, or maybe not so relevant in the moment, but still relevant in general. 

    So I hope you’ve enjoyed the reflections, the shares, the laughs, the yarns, the real talk. This is episode number 361. I think there were a couple of things, I mentioned a couple of books and stuff like that. So if there was anything that they will be in the show notes at untameyourself.com/361 and as well, I believe this episode goes up on the 27th of September, which that the updated and upgraded and expanded professional embodiment specialist certification training that essentially I’ve been working on for the last five years is officially open for applications. It doesn’t actually start until early 2022, but I wanted to give us all a lot of time to make sure it’s a good fit to feel out who it’s for, who it’s not for. And so you could find the details and you can apply by going to untameyourself.com/specialist. And I’m really excited, a couple of months ago, you know, I’ve been teaching Wild Soul Movement teacher training for a number of years. And a couple of months ago, I was like, I need to expand the this training because there’s so many more embodiment tools and energy tools and things like that I use in my own practice, I use with clients and students and teaching and I want it to be able to offer an expanded, a more robust training. 

    So if you want to be a wild soul movement teacher trainer teacher, if you wanna be able to use that work with clients privately or in groups or in your programs or teach classes or be on our team and teach in the embodied living center, which is cool. We’re starting to have teachers that I’ve trained come and teach in the embodied living center so we can have more live classes. That’s something that’s available for that training. We’re also giving people training in erotic movement, deeper, more sensual movement that is not the specific Wild Soul Movement modality, you know, creating playlists, using music, using breath and self touch and affection and things like this for embodiment practice. And then I’m sharing my frameworks, my self-love framework, myself liberation framework, and I’ve just put together this comprehensive training that will be 14 months. And it’s 14 months because one of the things that I’ve noticed as I’ve run many of these tradings over the years is the onboarding and the offboarding, the like opening up and the closing of the training takes people a little bit of time sometimes. And so I also made that adjustment because, you know, we still don’t know what’s going on in the world. I know a lot of people are starting to travel and gather, but you know, people still feel quite differently about that. So I wanted to give myself space to run live events for people who want to come and be live and do retreats and also do online openings and closings for people who can’t or won’t, or don’t want to travel or whatever. And then, so there’s the opening and the closing, the bookend months, and then the intensive, the curriculum, the practice, the work that we’re gonna be doing together in the training to get people certified, to get people prepared to be embodiment specialists. And I chose the word specialist because that’s really what it is. If you want to be able to specialize in embodiment and bring embodiment tools and practices into your work, if you want to deepen your own personal, if you want to just be an embodiment specialist in your own life, with your own self, you know, a lot of people do these trainings, not to use them in their own businesses or practices just to deepen their own practice in their own life. So that is perfect if that’s what you wanna do, or if you want to be able to bring embodiment tools and practices into your work. No matter what your work is. 

    So again, you can go to untameyourself.com/specialist, and you could see the details of the trainer, you could apply. And I’m not taking, this is not gonna be like a huge training cohort, I think at the most we will take 20 people, maybe 25. So that’d be a nice intimate group. I like, I prefer working with intimate groups, especially for trainings. So people can get more individual time and attention and practice and stuff like that. So check that out if you’re interested. Thank you so much for listening today. And we will be back next week with another interview. See you later.