Trusting our own goodness

Today I share with you some tarot card process live from my magic room, as I ask the question "What makes us doubt our desires?". Could it be that we still operate under the assumption that we are deeply bad? And if so, is that true? 

Join me in that exploration and, for more self-exploration opportunities, stay tuned for the membership I am starting next year! Find the link below to participate in creating that magical space :)  

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This podcast is hosted by Laure Porché: http://laureporche.com. You can follow me on Instagram @laureporche
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Laure: I'm in a different room today. It's what I call my meditation room, but it's really my magic room. It feels a little bit like a cocoon. And this is where my altar is, which I consider to be the center of my home. And it's a two layer altar with a top layer and a bottom layer which were meant to represent the underworld and the upper world, but that's kind of evolved through the years. And now the bottom layer is more about ancestors, anything connected to the earth to nature, also anything connected to Nordic Shamanism. Kind of very earthy human layer. And then the upper layer is more about the moon. It's a more etherical layer. And amongst other things, that's where I hold the energy for the Moonlit Path.

[00:01:01] It's been a while since I've been with this altar, really. I go through long periods where I don't really connect to it, and then I come back, like today, and I light the candles and I light the incense, and it feels like I'm gathering my energy back into that space. And because it's been used so much before, as a room or space to connect to spirit and to connect to myself, it's always available regardless of how long I go without going in there. When I go back, I immediately feel in my body that things start settling and I start connecting deeper. And that's partly why I wanted to record the episode from that room right now, and also because it's the best sound that I can get in my house. 

[00:02:02] So right now the candles are lit, and the light of the flames is dancing on the golden statues of Freya and Odin and Frigg, and the light is shining through the Norns, drawn on a pane of glass that one my teachers gave me, and all my little trinkets and placeholders for all the spirits and metaphors that resource me in my life are being lit by this warm glow and casting shadows around them.

[00:02:40] And I have a tarot spread in front of me, which is a multiple deck tarot spread, like the ones that my friend Tracee Kafer does, and that's she's inspired me to do. So it's basically I pull one card from each deck and I make a landscape of the moment. And it's so interesting because this spread really tells a story of goodness, of deep goodness. Almost all the cards are about heart and playfulness and something really warm. And there's just one card that's the shadow, the Shadow card from Kim Krans' archetype deck. And that really tells me the story of what I'm working with right now, what I'm struggling with right now, which is connecting fully into my own desires and wants and impulses, which means connecting into my own body very deeply. I'm not just talking about sexuality, I'm talking about in general that it's in your body, that your desire lives, right? It doesn't live in your head. And so far in my life, I've really, really led with my head and with what I thought I wanted a lot of the time.

[00:04:08] And because of the work that I've done the past few months it's become clear to me that this is not cutting it anymore , and it's not working for me and I'm building things that don't fit me and I'm doing things, or I'm filling my days in a way that is not conducive to excitement or joy. And so I've been really intentionally wanting and trying to reconnect my natural impulses to my action. And that might sound really obvious and really easy, but I can really feel all the resistance there is to that in my body and I can feel the opposite force. The force that is pulling me to disconnect all the time, not getting stronger cuz it's always been very strong , I can feel it better now that I'm focused on it and now that I'm trying to change the way that I live and the patterns that I'm in. I can feel it very strongly. 

[00:05:14] And as I was looking at this tarot spread, that is in answer to a request from me for clarity and for help with this issue of resistance and with this issue of disconnection, I was really struck by the goodness of these cards. And this one shadow card, which is really about not trying to illuminate shadow, but really accepting how it is and accepting it and going deeper into it. Which is a big part of my work and something that I've been doing for a few years. But I know that part of the intention behind that is to illuminate it, right? Anyone who does shadow work. Regardless of what they say, it's really hard to not have that intention of illuminating your shadow instead of really looking at what you find unacceptable about yourself or about the world actually. It's the same. 

[00:06:19] As I was looking at that spread and I was really surprised by all the goodness. And three cards were really striking. One is from The Weaver's Deck by Carolyn Hillyer. She is the most beautiful, deep, magical deck and the card is called Moon, the Udegan of the human heart. And I've pulled this card many times before and every time has the same effect on me of really helping me drop into myself. The person on the card is this beautiful woman with this absolutely loving and compassionate gaze, and she gathers the lights of the world into the water of the world. By shining, by letting her soul shines, she helps everybody else's soul to shine. Which is interesting cuz I had a human design consult session with my friend Barbara Howlin three days ago. And in other words, that's basically what she told me. Just shine and then everybody else will shine with you, which I thought was really a beautiful way to put it.

[00:07:34] And then the other cards are one from the Inner-active card deck, which is gorgeous. It's a deck about inner parts and as I was asking, which part of me was feeling that resistance and that anxiety at the idea of dropping into myself fully, then this cart came out, which is. A huge bear under the stars and she has two small cubs hiding behind her. It's a beautiful card and it's so also full of goodness when you look at it. And I understand the protective nature of it, and I also understand the instinctual nature of it. And then third card. It's from the Osho Zen tarot, which is one of my favorite tarot ever, so accurate all the time. And it's Playfulness and it's a woman dancing and shooting sparkles out of her hands and wearing a clown outfit. And it's about taking life less seriously, which is definitely something that I need to do.

[00:08:42] The reason that I'm sharing all this with you is first to give you an idea of some of my process, like how I use images and stories and metaphors to work through things for myself. But also because what this spread is telling me, or what is coming to me as I look at it is that part of the reason why I really struggle to drop down into my own wants and desires and impulses is because I have a story that's alive in me, that up I am inherently bad, and that if I do listen to what I want, naturally, like what I want instinctually without the validation of the mind or the validation of logic or rationality, then it will be bad and it will show the world how bad I am in a way.

[00:09:41] And this makes no sense, obviously it's not a rational belief. But I can tell that the anxiety, or part of why it's hard for me to be present or it's hard for me to really kind of drop down into myself is because I expect to find badness there. That's a story obviously. And the reason why I share it is I think that's a story that most people have. Like a lot of people have that story going on underneath. And the way that they deal with it might be completely different than the way that I deal with it, right? Which is making choices that are always validated by what makes sense and what is objectively good for other people most of the time. But I think that's a very common story that we carry because we were made to feel bad, when we were children for wanting things, for wanting something at an inopportune time or in a very dramatic way or for expressing a lot of emotion around something seemingly unimportant, and many other reasons. Obviously, you know, even more if we've been abused or... But I think most people have that story of "I am bad" running in the background and it expresses itself in lots of ways. And I know a lot of people that are aware of it, but they're, I don't know if they're aware of it in such a simple way. We are aware of our negative self-talk and we are aware of feeling not enough or feeling this or feeling that, but underneath that it's just, "I am bad". " At my core, I am bad", and that's untrue, right? We know that's untrue. It's something that was put on us, but we know that's not true because you can look at children and you know It's untrue, right? When you look at small children, you know they're not bad at their core. You can see it. They're good at their core, right? They're open, they're curious. Very often they're generous and they're full of goodness for the world. And we were like that. We are like that.

[00:12:01] And I suspect that by trying so hard to not let that badness be revealed to ourselves, I think even more than to the world. I don't think the problem is the world, you know? I don't think the resistance I have to dropping into what I want is not about what will people think or people will think I'm bad.

[00:12:24] It's about I will find for myself, that's what I will find for myself. And can I face that? But I think from spending so much time and energy and avoidant tactics, trying to prove to ourselves that we are good, we are actually preventing any real goodness to come out into the world, any fullness, any real abundance. Who we are from our nature, and obviously culture doesn't help. I'm French and I was raised in a country where only things that make sense are justified. So if you have an emotion or a desire, you better hope it makes sense and it's rational and logical. Because otherwise it'll be hard to get validation for who you are. And in general, our culture is constantly dictating what we should want and selling us a story of what we should want. And on top of that, our family is telling us a story of what we should want and that if we don't want that, we are bad

[00:13:34] So how can we find the courage to go down into our own shadow and face ourselves, and face our core and our nature and see its goodness? And of course we all have behaviors and thoughts that are less than good, but that's normal. That's not bad. That's just humanity.

[00:13:59] But our deepest nature, how would it be if you could drop into your deepest nature and live there? What is the story of that part of yourself? And as I'm talking to you, I'm doing it, or I'm trying to do it at the same time. I'm trying to talk from a place of depth and an embodied place in myself, and I can feel the pull of the part of me that's saying, no, no, no. , no, no. You don't know why you're gonna find there and maybe they're not gonna like it. And it's not good. It's not good. And the part of me, also another part that's saying, no, no, no, that's too much. You're gonna feel too much if you go there. It's gonna be unbearable. Because I suspect that if we go into our goodness fully, if we fully inhabit our nature, then our heart is gonna break for the world and for each other much more often than it does if we don't live there.

[00:15:05] And it might be uncomfortable to feel all our love and all our compassion and all our tenderness, and all our curiosity and openness for the world and for each other because we're not used to feeling all that and we are not used to feeling so much intensity and to being so present in our bodies with those feelings.

[00:15:32] So I invite you to feel yourself come down into your body and into the core of your Self. And if you could connect to your essential nature, what story would it tell? And I'm not gonna lie, it's scary. I can feel it right now. I can feel the fear of it, but I can also start to feel the story that exists underneath the fear. It's a story of expansion. It's a story of kindness and curiosity and it's a story of strength and truth, and it's a story of bravery and resilience. And if I sit with it, I can feel that at some point it will become easier to say I am good, and what I want is good, and I know that it's the same for all of us that if we truly drop in the depth of who we are, we will find goodness.

[00:16:40] And just for now, I want to honor this. I want to honor this in myself and in you. And if we were in a circle, I would ask everybody to stand up to honor the goodness of our own hearts.

[00:16:57] And that's what I wanted to share with you today. And as I am grappling with these questions and attempting to change patterns that have been in place for at least 35 years, if not more, I'm also really questioning what kind of space I want to create for people to come in. It's getting clearer as I'm working on next year's membership that will replace the Moonlit Path course, it's getting clearer that I really want a space of depth and exploration, where we are not looking for solutions, but we are looking to become more comfortable and more literate with who we are truly. 

[00:17:51] And I also would love to have your input about the kind of things that you would like to find in a space that's dedicated to self exploration and creativity. For that purpose I have created a Google form that you can fill out to let me know what you would like this membership to feel like for you. You can find the link to this form in the show notes below this episode. And you can also sign up to my newsletter if you want to be notified when the membership goes live next year. I know that no matter what I decide to do, in the end, I will make sure that I am lit up by it so that everybody else can be lit up with me. I will trust in my own goodness.

[00:18:50] And with this I leave you until our next episode. In the meantime, may your path be smooth. If you like the podcast, please share it with your friends or leave a review on Apple Podcast.