Enlighten & Elevate with Kelly
Thank you for being here dear soul! My name is Kelly and I am a Reiki Master, mother, wife, and lover of all things spiritual. Come with me on my quest to find tools and knowledge for continued spiritual growth. It can be tough to navigate the world as a human and parent. Dive in with me for enlightenment and ways to empower your life! We will explore many topics such as spirituality, holistic healing modalities, and metaphysics.
Enlighten & Elevate with Kelly
Shedding Religious Guilt: My Path to Spiritual Freedom
Hello beautiful souls! Stepping away from organized religion doesn't mean abandoning spiritual connection. This deeply personal episode explores the complex emotional journey from religious devotion to spiritual freedom - a path many travel but few openly discuss.
For those raised within strict religious frameworks, questioning foundational beliefs often triggers profound emotional responses: guilt, fear, anger, and isolation. Drawing from my experience transitioning from devout Catholicism to spiritual independence, I share how this transformation mirrors the classic stages of grief - mourning not just beliefs, but community connections and the comfort of certainty.
The irony of labeling ancient spiritual wisdom as "New Age" reveals how established religions have historically categorized competing spiritual frameworks as heretical simply for offering choice. When we examine these teachings with fresh eyes, separating what we've been told from what we've experienced firsthand, remarkable clarity emerges.
Four spiritual teachers proved instrumental in my journey: Shanna Vavra's approach to the Gnostic Gospels, Aaron Abkey's research into early Christianity, Amanda Ellis's work on Christ Consciousness, and Kyle Gray's practical spiritual guidance. Each demonstrated how to honor religious heritage while embracing expanded spiritual understanding - keeping what resonates while releasing what doesn't.
The Christ Consciousness card reading on "Gentleness" perfectly captures this episode's essence: responding softly to ourselves and others during transformation, creating space for healing without judgment, and recognizing that every spiritual journey unfolds in its own time. This gentleness becomes especially important when navigating relationships with family members who may not understand or accept your evolving beliefs.
Your spiritual path is uniquely yours. Whether you're questioning inherited beliefs, embracing new spiritual practices, or finding your way between worlds, remember: worthiness isn't something to earn - it's your birthright simply because you exist. The greatest spiritual question isn't about specific dogmas but how we choose to show up in the world with love, compassion and authenticity.
Hello, beautiful souls, welcome to Enlightened Elevate with Kelly. Thank you so much for being here. I am a Reiki master, teacher, mother, wife and lover of all things spiritual. This podcast is a place where we explore metaphysics, holistic healing and so much more. Join me on a quest to find tools and knowledge for continued spiritual growth. It is my passion to help people learn more about the energy body and how spiritual knowledge can help us better navigate a chaotic world. It is really hard to be human. Learning self-mastery, unconditional love of yourself and others is the best way to better our world. The outer world is a reflection of our inner world. Gandhi famously said be the change you wish to see. Real change begins and starts with each and every one of us, so let's do the work. If you love this podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This helps with the algorithms and spreads the show's messages and makes it more discoverable. Thank you so much for being here again and enjoy this episode. Hello, beautiful souls, welcome back to Enlighten and Elevate.
Speaker 1:Today I'm going to be talking about my spiritual journey and awakening and what it was like for me to move from a religious background to a spiritual one. I want to preface this with. I mean absolutely no disrespect to anybody who is religious. If that is where you find your connection to source, I think that's amazing and I honor that. What I am sharing isn't meant to hurt anyone or trigger anybody, but if it is triggering you, I encourage you to sit with your feelings and ask yourself why. Triggers, I believe, are meant to help us work on things that are unhealed or unmastered, or something you know within us that is unsettled. So I definitely no longer find comfort in religion. I just felt like I should talk about this. It came to me that this is something that should be discussed because I think many of us especially if you're brought up in a religious background you carry guilt, shame, you can be ostracized, you can have fear. There's all these things that you experience. I equate it almost to going through like stages of grief for anyone who's raised or, excuse me, for anyone who has experienced a loss of any kind. I feel like the stages of grief can be applied in so many different scenarios not just loss of a human, but like loss of a relationship. I mean and in this case it would be my relationship with religion, and I wanted to talk about that and I wanted to bring up how.
Speaker 1:Something came to me this week too, that I thought it was so funny that now anything outside of like religious views or religious construct is now called New Age. And it is so funny to me because nothing about these spiritual laws, practices, principles like the energy system that we have in our body, none of that is new information. This is all information that has been around for thousands of years, you know, and applied in many different ways. It was just deemed heretical by the church because it didn't align with what they were spreading and sharing. It didn't align with their belief system. Now, the original meaning of heresy is just to have choice, but it came to mean anything that did not agree with the church belief systems. And you know the church made choice like an abomination. If you veered outside those lines, you're going to hell.
Speaker 1:I was raised Catholic. I do have some reverence for that because that was the beginning of my spiritual journey. That is my introduction to what I knew of of any kind of like spiritually spirituality at all. I honor my heritage and my religion that I came from, because it did give me the basis for where I am today. I went through this dark night of the soul and I've been on this spiritual journey ever since and I know that I'll be on this journey for the rest of my life. I'm never going to stop learning. There's always going to be things being on this human journey. Things are always going to come up to be healed, to learn, to expand to opportunities. Today, in this world that we live in, we are presented with so many opportunities right to expand and practice all of the things that we've learned or are learning and are going to continue to learn.
Speaker 1:And you know, once I went through that dark night of the soul, I started reading different things, opening up to different things. I was like angry when. I was like all these lies. It was a really hard process for me because when you realize that something you were raised with, or you believe to be true, to not be anymore, kind of like it rattles you and I developed an aversion, toles you and I developed an aversion to anything religious and I still sometimes struggle with that. I'm going to be honest. Sometimes I have to like say OK, let's take a breath and step back and look at this in an objective way. Let me not put my bias of how I feel about organized religion or hierarchical religion. Let me not that bias me and the way I react or respond to this, and I try my best, but sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 1:I'm human, right, but I wanted to talk about not judging another person's journey and having compassion. I do honor a lot of people's belief systems. I don't want to be judged for what I believe, so I don't judge anybody for what they believe, you know, and I think that, just as anything in life, like, nothing is one size fits all Healthcare is not one size fits all, clothing isn't one size fits all, right, like you know, what resonates with people and what helps them grow and expand is going to be different. So all of us are going to resonate or really connect with different things, you know, or different faiths, or I mean there's like so many things out there, right, you know. So I mean I just want to talk about how we should be, you know, not judging and honoring, and you know I really do believe that my path is unique to me and you know love is the greatest power on earth in any dimension, space and time, time, that really anything that we're following, you know, should be rooted in love, and if it isn't, then we should question that.
Speaker 1:You know being raised religious. Anybody who is also raised in any sort of religious background can probably understand. You know you're told these are the rules. This is what was the truth. If you veer outside those rules, you'll be damned. You know you're going to go to hell if you don't do this.
Speaker 1:You know you have a lot of people who are fearful of hell, and I actually remember learning about hell as a child and I believe I've spoken about this before, so we'll just briefly touch on it. I remember when my dad explained to me the concept of hell and I was really traumatized. I was a young kid, probably six. I remember sobbing and sobbing and crying and sitting in his lap and I'm just crying. I'm like Daddy, daddy, I don't want to go to hell. And he's like, oh, you just have to live a good life and I don't have any. My father was just teaching me what he believes and what he was taught, and that's what I was learning in my Catholic school and all those things.
Speaker 1:If you're going through something like that, I just want to encourage you to be gentle with yourself, and I know that it can be hard, right, like it's hard when you are breaking away from something that your whole family believes and just as much as you don't understand them anymore, they don't understand you. So just you know, absolutely have compassion for yourself and others. We all carry these things like. Well, I disappoint my parents if I don't believe in this anymore, or you know what? At the end of the day, you have to do what is going to work for you on your own spiritual path and you shouldn't be concerned. Of course we want to be respectful to our parents and to our loved ones and our friends, but you have to live for yourself and I really do believe there's a way to follow your truth and your expansion and your journey without alienating everybody else. So I also want to say you don't need to be religious to have a deep connection with Source, to have a deep connection with Jesus or Yeshua, mother Mary or any deity for that matter. You know those rules are human made. You don't have to follow any of those rules. I'm kind of one of those people. It's like I'm just not going to do what you tell me to do. I don't have to do that. I don't believe in it. I don't really believe in the hierarchy of religion. I believe we're all here. We can all learn from each other.
Speaker 1:A lot of people who are going to tell you that you're damned or you're straying from the path. They're all coming from a place of fear. A lot of religion. It's fear-based, right? If you don't do this, you're going to end up in hell. And a lot of people are scared of hell, right, because they don't remember what it is to come from the other side. They don't remember what it's like and that we've done it before.
Speaker 1:I do understand that place of fear for people, and you know religions. That story's been a tale as old as time, right, and it's not just religious people who use fear as a tactic, you know so definitely, just send loving energy and or agree to disagree. There's no need to argue or prove your point. You're not changing their mind. They're not changing your mind. I just want to live my truth. You can lovingly, or just don't talk about it, right? If it's a point of contention in a relationship, you don't have to discuss it. You don't have to defend it. It's a spiritual, your spiritual beliefs, your religious beliefs deeply personal, and you need to follow your own path and follow your own heart and what resonates with you, and you know. I just want to say, you know, like most of my family is still religious. They practice, they adhere to sacraments.
Speaker 1:I definitely know what it feels like to kind of be the odd man out. I don't put my children in catechism and I don't go to church and any of those things and we talk about spirituality in my house is very, very differently than I was raised, you know that we talk about being spirit, body first, angels, and you know we have a very different way of talking about things here, and I know my siblings and everybody does it their own way, and that's totally cool. You know what works for their family works for their family. You know it's just honoring and respecting each other, and I have great relationships with my family, and you know so it's. It doesn't have to, you know, be a negative thing. I do, though, understand how it does feel.
Speaker 1:My older two were baptized. That happened prior to my spiritual awakening. My youngest has never been baptized and she won't be, because I just don't believe it necessary. But there was a period of time where my dad would ask me oh so when are we going to do this? But he has stopped asking, you know, I think he knows it's not going to happen and you know, I just don't believe that's necessary anymore, you know, and I choose, you know, to just live in love and follow my truth and path and I believe we can honor everyone as we do that. But I wanted to go back to where I talked about being angry and having this aversion to anything religious or the church. You know, I was at a point in my journey where, you know, I just wanted nothing to do with it. I didn't even want to hear it or be part of anything like that. And there are four people who really helped me to understand that you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, that you can take what resonates and helps you on your path and just discard what doesn't.
Speaker 1:And I will say, when it comes to specifically religious things, shanna Vavra, who is the podcast host of Sense of Soul. She's a Reiki master, she's an author, she's a mother. She's many, many things. She does a lot of different things. She is a beautiful person and I will say, meeting her, talking with her, I've been on her podcast. She is a beautiful person and I will say, meeting her, talking with her, I've been on her podcast, she's been on mine. She's writing a book about the Gnostic Gospels and I learned so much with her.
Speaker 1:So she also was raised Catholic similar background, you know had an awakening, but she dived. Instead of having an aversion to it, she dived deep into reading the Bible, reading Gnostic Gospels, finding out this information. But how she approached it was, she says, you know, I approached this with new eyes. I wanted to look at this, read it with fresh eyes and say to myself how much of this have I been told to believe and how much of this have I experienced for myself? And gosh, I think that is such a beautiful way to approach anything. Right? How much of it are we being told? This is the way that it is and this can be applied to anything. It does not necessarily have to be religion, it could be politics, it could be anything and how much have we experienced for ourselves what we experienced versus what we're told? After that, I started reading. I didn't go back and read the Bible, but I did explore the Gnostic Gospels and that sort of stuff, which was very eye-opening.
Speaker 1:There is so much out there. Elaine Pagels has written a lot of good stuff. She's a scholar and her work is so interesting. I've read a lot of the stuff that she has out there and there's a lot of people who write about and talk about. They have podcasts about it or books. You know all the things we are in a day and age where there is so much out there to absorb. It helped me turn back to being open to Jesus's messages when you go into the Gnostic Gospels. The Gnostic Gospels are very different from the New Testament Testament.
Speaker 1:That brings me to the second person who helped me get back and be open to the teachings from Scripture Aaron Abkey, who hosts the Jesus Way podcast. He's also the creator of 4D University and he and his co-hosts really dive deep into the history of early Christianity, how things were developed, I mean and these are people who do very deep research. Aaron himself was a third generation seminary. He was going to be a preacher of some kind. I don't remember the exact branch of what he was studying, but his story in and of itself is very interesting. But I like his podcast and I like the things he puts out there because he brings everything back to well what did Jesus actually say and what was his belief?
Speaker 1:One of the things he often talks about is that it's Matthew 22, verse 37 through 39, where Jesus said and really those are the two most important things that Jesus said, things that Jesus said, and it really not that you have to, you know, adhere to any of that, but it is like the very central messages of loving God, having this deep connection with our source and creator and treating others the way that we want to be treated, which is really so simple. If you wouldn't want to be treated or talked to in a certain manner, then don't do that to somebody else. You know, I mean, it really is that simple. Except it isn't that simple because we can see that it's really hard to live right, aaron's work and the stuff that he puts out there is really great. I highly recommend exploring his stuff. I just I happened to find him and I started listening to him. I just I happened to find him and I started listening to him and he really talks about, you know well, what is truly Jesus's message, and him and his co-host really, really dive deep into that. You know he'll discuss that. The New Testament you know two-thirds of it is written by Paul, and Paul is a person who was never a disciple of Jesus and he didn't even know Jesus and you know they call it Paulianity on the podcast, how Paul kind of, in his view of Christianity, sort of took over you know what Christianity and a lot of the belief systems as we see them today, and I don't want to do an injustice to what Aaron and his co-hosts talk about. So I definitely encourage you to go right to the source if you're curious, see what they have to say and where their research is. Again, they really dive deep into the research and talk about the roots of early Christianity and what happened there.
Speaker 1:Moving on to another person who has brought me back to, you know, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater is Amanda Ellis, and I have mentioned her before. She is a podcaster she does, but hers is all on YouTube and she does these beautiful videos. But I love her work for so many reasons. She is a channeler. Her main guide is Archangel Metatron. Many reasons she is a channeler. Her main guide is Archangel Metatron.
Speaker 1:But, amanda, no matter what she is channeling about or talking about, she brings everybody back to love always, no matter how difficult, because we know that things on, you know, in the last gosh, probably as long as the world's been turning right, but especially for those in recent times, there's some very difficult things that are happening on the world stage. But she's always kind and open hearted when, in how she approaches any sort of subject matter, she acknowledges the good and the bad, like she's not got her head dug in the sand. But her main thing is we all have a choice, and we can add to the chaos or we can add to the light, and it's a choice that we have. And this is something that we're going to always have to navigate in life too. Things are going to happen. We're going to be upset or outraged by things that we see, because there are injustices, there are tragedies, there are horrific things that happened, but, you know, just being able to come back to love, come back to yourself, and how you can work on yourself to move forward. She always talks about that too is you know, we're not meant to carry the world's problems, but we can. You know, work on ourselves and that's how we can contribute positively to the whole, contribute positively to the whole.
Speaker 1:But she's done so many videos where she will talk about Christ consciousness. She has a Christ consciousness deck that I absolutely love and I did pull a card from him. I'm going to share that shortly here, which it just absolutely resonates so beautifully. But she made a recent video called I left the church but never left Jesus, and that so deeply resonated with me because I never left Jesus, I never stopped believing in the goodness of Jesus and his beautiful messages. But I felt like sometimes, when you leave those religious constructs, you feel like you have to leave it all behind because you can't, you know, carry it with you if you're not following the rules or we're told, we can't have these deep connections or we can't learn from something unless we're following this set or the next thing. You can have a relationship without religion.
Speaker 1:And you know Jesus, or, as he was known in his time, yeshua, is a beautiful guide and teacher. His true messages of love, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, I mean those are all so beautiful and so needed, so needed at this time. And Jesus did not live in a time that was easy. I mean it was a very tumultuous time then, you know, with all the different sort of political things going on. Then you know, with all the different sort of political things going on, the Romans being there, he lived in a time that was also tumultuous, but he preached love and you know it's just really interesting. She also, during Holy Week, did a bunch of videos and one particularly on Judas. That really struck me because she channeled Judas and you know she made a point and this is true that there is no crucifixion or resurrection without Judas. And again, this is just my belief system and I've talked about this. You can read more on it in Robert Schwartz books. I mean, there's other people, other books Michael Newton, brian Weiss where they talk about planning your life before you come here and now.
Speaker 1:I don't believe everything's set in stone, but I do believe that we make agreements to play roles in each other's lives and Judas very bravely accepted his role to be the betrayer of Jesus and knowing what that was going to incur. And that's not an easy choice to make. Right, like everyone wants to be. Who would like an easy choice to make? Right, like everyone wants to be who would like, if you were presented with, ok, well, you can come into this incarnation and be a loving, beautiful member of Jesus's group or you can be his betrayer. Everyone's probably going to be like, yeah, I'll be the friend, I don't want to be the betrayer. Right, it's a pretty rough choice, but I will say Robert Schwartz's books and things of that nature kind of give you a little bit of an idea is that often the people that we see as villains play a pivotal and important role and that they're not villains on the other side. They love us more than anything and I know that that can be really hard to accept, that it really can.
Speaker 1:And I have so much compassion and I do believe and I've seen it in my own life that the things that happen things that happen are things that we encounter or that we go through the adversity we face. It's happening for us. It's happening for us so that we can overcome or expand or not, right, not everybody is going to evolve and grow and expand. Some people aren't meant to right. That's the role they play. You know, there is a part for all of us to play and it's all important. No one's better than the next person Just remaining in that place of non-judgment. You know, I really do believe and I will say, like the people who are super religious, that's their path, that's their journey and you're ready when you're ready. Right. Some people will never be ready for the truth in this life and that's okay, it doesn't make them bad. That's totally okay, and some people will be ready at a later point. We all come to this at different points.
Speaker 1:I didn't start to question things until I was in my late 30s. Everyone's journey is their journey. So I actually found the deck before I started watching her videos. I didn't actually realize that she had, you know, videos and podcasts where she would talk, but I was on my journey after reading the Gnostic Gospels. They talk about Christ consciousness and I became very interested in what is Christ consciousness? Who can talk about it? Where can I read about it? And there's a lot of good books out there. Is Christ consciousness who can talk about it? Where can I read about it? And there's a lot of good books out there on Christ consciousness.
Speaker 1:From what I learned and read about is that Jesus or Yeshua, brought Christ consciousness, which is a frequency, to earth in his incarnation. By doing that, by living his incarnation and bringing that energy here, he made it available to all people. So we can live from the heart, we can embrace love. You know, that doesn't mean that we're always going to agree with people right, but it does mean that we can live from the heart and we can peacefully coexist. We don't need to argue, we don't have to prove someone right or wrong, although we see that often Everybody wants to be. You know, ripping each other apart, you're wrong. I'm right Judging somebody because they have a different belief system than you do.
Speaker 1:On this path too, you know, when you start reading different things I mean, there's Christian apologetics, there's all these people who love to argue or debate, if you will Maybe that's a better term on what's the real message, what's true? Maybe that's a better term on what's the real message, what's true? What's historical? What's this, what's that? And I do think sometimes the truth or the message, or what's really important, the messages of love, forgiveness, compassion, get lost. And all that right, because we're arguing about what you know, this truth or that truth, or what's this or that? Isn't the main message of love, forgiveness, compassion, loving each other as the way we love ourselves, loving and having that deep connection with our source and creator. Isn't that what's important? All the specifics and all those other things, does it really matter? And it's okay, right, you can sit over here with yours, I can sit over here with mine, and we can still both have a deep connection. We can still both have profound things in our expansion and growth without having to argue. There is all this debate out there and it's easy to get caught up in it, which I think often happens, right Like we see this on a political stage where we can get wrapped up in those things, but maybe it's a distraction where we're missing the point of something else.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm just going to go back to. To me it's like how you choose to live your life, how you choose to show up in the world. Are you a loving person? Are you bringing that love through in your life? And listen, as humans it's going to be hard. We're going to make mistakes, we're going to maybe respond badly or have a bad day or make a mistake with our kids. We're not meant to be perfect, and that is all part of the journey of learning right and evolving and growing and just to have compassion and gentleness with yourself, and I'm going to tell you why that is so important too.
Speaker 1:So, before I got started, I wanted to pull a card from the Christ Consciousness Deck and the card that I pulled is card number 42, and it's called Gentleness. Respond softly and I it just. This is how spirit works. Everything is synchronistic. You know I've been talking to you about. You know how to come from the heart, how to be gentle with yourself, right, because we feel all these things. And you know there's like big feelings in all of this. And I'm going to read to you guys the message that Amanda has channeled with this card, and again it's called Gentleness. Respond Softly.
Speaker 1:The answer you seek right now is gentleness to yourself and to the world. To bring in the energy of a mother's gentle embrace as the answer to pain, suffering, hardship and the intolerable. You may feel overwhelmed, not knowing how to carry on or cope, yet the inner strength and fortitude sit within to weather any hardship and heal it with love, to be gentle, in touch, sensitive to your needs and those of others, to use gentle words, a soft gaze, a gentle response rather than one driven by trying to fight in the right. You may have used up considerable energy trying to find a way, seek an answer, struggle on against innumerable odds and battle the system, people, situations and more. But now you need rest, compose, gather your thoughts and allow the universe to bathe you in healing and light.
Speaker 1:The woman in the painting is clothed in violet, a color that brings balance and helps us attune to higher powers, including those within ourselves, creating a sanctuary of inner order and peace of mind. You may find it helpful to tune into the violet ray today, allowing it to comfort you, maybe via lavender flowers scent, or visualizing it in a meditation. It can soothe an overstimulated mind and reduce stress and tension too. You may feel alone and unheard, cast out, ignored or misunderstood. Yet the calling to go within and settle any mental turmoil is recommended.
Speaker 1:You may not have all the answers you seek, yet spend a moment soothing and calming yourself in what is often a chaotic world. It may also be that your own inner child is crying out to be heard and held Broken or rooted parts of yourself that are now coming up for healing. Broken or wounded parts of yourself that are now coming up for healing. Know that this is the perfect opportunity to answer anything that demands your attention from your past and respond to it with love, care, gentleness and time. Surrendering and asking for help, knowing that it will arrive after being humbly requested, is also a current theme. Knowing that it will arrive after being humbly requested is also a current theme.
Speaker 1:In addition, you may have a strong humanitarian heart, hearing deeply about the world's suffering and pain, and there may be a particular story or ongoing situation that has deeply affected you. The plight of refugees, war, natural disasters and many other aspects of our world have an impact on a caring, gentle heart such as yours. How to respond without becoming drained may be a hard balance to navigate, but knowing that every day, in some small way, we can make a difference, is true. You are not here to take on all the world's problems, since that would be too much for anyone. Just to respond with love when you can, and be there for others. Knowing there but for the grace of God, go I. Creating a world that Christ would be proud of, where we truly love each other, is an ongoing task, but not one you undertake alone. You may be called to help at this time, offering support, wisdom, prayer and resources to those who need it most, knowing these moments matter, when we don't turn away. Do this, but also make sure to treat yourself with the same care you extend outward, the inner and the outer, in harmony, wanting to be heard and healed.
Speaker 1:How resonant and synchronistic is that message from everything that we talked about? Not being driven to fight to be right? How about the gentleness of a mother? How many of us want our mother right? Mom can always calm, although mine is on the other side, but I still find comfort in her, even though she isn't physically with me. How about this feeling alone, unheard, cast out, ignored? I mean, just really. What better card could I have pulled from the deck than that? It talks about how we choose to show up, how living from the heart and continuing to show love, and learning and expanding and saying sorry when we need to, asking for forgiveness when we need to, or forgiving others and just being able to move forward on the best path. Wow, what a beautifully resonant card.
Speaker 1:Definitely check out Amanda and her. This is the Christ Consciousness deck. She also has one with Archangel Metatron, which is also a very beautiful deck, and she does have these aura sprays and I will tell you I have her. Master Jesus Christ Light. It is beautiful. I sprayed it before I started recording this podcast to kind of center myself. I took some deep breaths and this spray is just absolutely beautiful and the smell is amazing. I have brought it to some sound healings and shared it with the people who are attending. It's an aura spray, so you just spray it around, you can spray it around the room and it just kind of enhances your connection and your experience and I just wanted to give her a shout out for that. I've used that product of hers and it's absolutely beautiful. So I highly recommend that and I just go. Definitely, you can just put her name in Google, go to her website. She is out of the UK. She is just such a beautiful, bright light that spirit led me to her and spirit has led me to all of these people on my journey to help keep me on the path that I meant to be on and evolve in the way that I meant to evolve.
Speaker 1:Listen, it's okay to be in a part of your journey where you don't know what you believe. Been there Sometimes, I still go there because we're always learning and finding things out and expanding and sometimes I'll sit there and be like I don't know what I believe anymore. It's okay to feel anger when you find out truths that were hidden from you. You find out atrocities committed by a church or group of people or whatever. I just say that these are some uncomfortable truths that sometimes we have to sit with. We have to talk about them. The truth should be known and understood and it's not to necessarily talk bad about another organization, but the truth is the truth. I can't unlearn what I've learned. It's OK to go through those stages of grief, it's OK to not know. Just be gentle with yourself and really just no matter where you're at in your journey or path. Just work on your own connection with source and where you find that to be, you find what's true for you.
Speaker 1:Another spiritual teacher her name is Chantel and I've had her on as a guest as well. She has always said to take what resonates and discard the rest, and that's what one of her spiritual teachers taught her, and I think that that's something that we can all carry with us. You know, take what resonates and whatever doesn't, that's okay. You move on and you use what's good to help you to move forward and live your life in the best possible way. I want to talk about Kyle Gray, who is an absolute beautiful spiritual teacher, earth angel. I want to credit Kyle with my deep connection to angels and to my spirit team. His book, which I have talked about before, is called Raise your Vibration. I look at that book almost daily. It is on my nightstand. I looked at it this morning and he really helped me to understand how to develop a spiritual practice, the importance of it. And again, spiritual practice means something different to each and every individual and you need to do what works for you.
Speaker 1:Some people journal, some people say the rosary, some people just have their prayers that they say, some people just sit in meditation. What works for you is going to be unique to you in your own journey, and that is totally awesome. He recently developed this Crown of Mary page that is dedicated to Mother Mary, but he encourages people to just to look outside of what the traditional thoughts of all. This is right, I will say, because and he did address this you know, sometimes I have a problem with some of the Catholic prayers, like Lord, I am unworthy, I'm not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed. Because I don't believe that anyone is unworthy. I believe we are all filled with the light of source and that we are never unworthy. We are worthy because we are.
Speaker 1:So you know, I have a hard time sometimes with the prayers, and when he talked about saying the prayers of the rosary, he talked about not seeing it as you being unworthy, but just being held by your mother as you go through life and with your struggles. That just was a different spin on me and I was able to go back to it. I was able to go back to the rosary with a different viewpoint and say it without feeling like that, that aversion or angsty feel right that I kind of get because I don't like those words of I'm not worthy and we're born bad. I just don't believe that stuff. And you know Kyle, in his teachings, he really he just for me. It just made me look at it in a different way. And again, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, if that is something that you have resonated with before. It's a beautiful practice seeing the rosary and having that connection with Mother Mary, because Mother Mary is also a beautiful guide.
Speaker 1:Mother Mary's background I can do future episodes on this is not largely and widely known about her mother and you know, it's really a fascinating thing when you dive outside of what you were taught in your catechisms and that's going to be different depending on what sort of branch of Christianity you came from. There's a lot of information out there and Mary very much embodies the divine feminine, as does Mary Magdalene and other female figures who were not given the light and the information about them put out there. They kind of removed female disciples and those sort of things from existence. But again, coming back to when I look at these things, the Catholic Church did a lot of these things that they did coming from a place of fear. They didn't want to lose their followers. They didn't want to lose the people who were given the money, right. That's a fear-based place and that's where they were coming from. I can see that and understand that. I may not like it, right, but it is what it is and we can learn from it and we can grow from it and you can speak the truth about it.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to talk about those things and just kind of let you guys know that it's okay to you know struggle on your journey or your path, especially like coming from a religious construct. Like I got you, I see you Definitely. If you want to reach out to me, you ever want to talk or you have a question or you have a frustrating situation, I mean I'll help you to the best of my abilities. I am not a therapist, I'm not a doctor or any of those things. I definitely feel and see that this is something that I think a lot of people experience and you know, we don't want to be ostracized, we want to feel like we belong, we don't want people mad at us or we don't want to disappoint or feel shame or you know any of those things right, because we're veering outside the lines. But we also do need to live our own path and honor our own path and just live in love, and I think that's really really what is most important. How are we choosing to show up in the world? What energy are we bringing into each day? How can we improve ourselves, improve upon that?
Speaker 1:I'm not the person I was before this journey. So things that happened to me today, that would have happened to me, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago, I would have responded completely differently and I would have had different thoughts. And so that's why I can definitely come from a place of compassion in so many ways, because I there were times, there was a time in my life where I would have been like, oh my gosh, that's, that's a heresy, that's heresy and it's. You know, you can't say those things. So I really do understand all of it.
Speaker 1:I really, really do, and I have compassion and love, and I don't know that I'm right. I just am trying to live my truth and live in the best way possible for me and I want to be a good role model for my family and I encourage everybody to do the same and to just live in love, you know, and really take those messages that really resonate and help you on your path, and use those tools. Lean on people who are supportive and helpful and discard those that aren't. And it's okay to set a boundary. It's okay to agree to disagree and it's okay to not follow what everyone else is following. It's totally okay. Just know that you're loved, know that you are worthy and deserving of everything and you are loved all because you are Sending so much love and light out there to each and every one of you on your journey. Thank you.
