Reflecting on the Universe: A Journey Within

In this episode of Spiritual Unraveling, hosts Ashley and Nate explore the reflective nature of the universe, discussing how our inner processes shape our experiences. They emphasize the importance of embracing fear, practicing presence, and taking extreme ownership of our lives. The conversation delves into the illusion of self-improvement, the necessity of surrendering to change, and the significance of resonance and coherence in our lives. Ultimately, they highlight the collective awakening happening in the world and the ripple effect of living in alignment with our true selves.

Transcript

Nate (00:01.63)
Welcome everyone to Spiritual Unraveling with Ashley and Nate. And on this week's episode, we are going to talk about the...

reflective nature of the universe. Ashley and I were talking about the various things showing up in our lives, the situations, the circumstances, how we are handling them, the situations and circumstances in the broader world, and how we are thinking about them or living with them or experiencing these things. And we were both

kind of in awe of the realization that so much of what we experience is a reflection of our own inner process and where we are in our life. that is a big idea and it's a deep thing to think about. So we were hoping in today's podcast we can just unpack that a little.

And I think one of the things that we were prompted to in doing this was feeling like the energy right now is really calling us to be unguarded in our experience of life and to

attempt to dismantle as much as we can our

Nate (01:43.559)
facade, our persona and really just be in presence and experience with what is showing up in our life. yeah, that's a big ask Ash. I'm going to toss it to you because now my brain is starting to fry a little. What do you think about this? I mean, this conversation around the reflective nature of the universe.

Ashley Henderson (02:07.808)
Yeah, it is a big topic. It sort of makes my mind go blank a little bit when you say it because I think I'm just, you know, this year has been the first year that I've really been available to really see that mirror. You know, it's a hard, that's like a, you have to do a lot of ego kind of resourcing to be able to start seeing that mirror in all the ways, in all the ways.

but you just said something about the unarmored or the unguarded, the unprotected and that really, you know, you know, part of what gets reflected back is our own protections. know if we are triggered by somebody in the world, usually that's a part that we have rejected in ourselves. We can use our own experience all the time to

reveal our true nature by seeing what's not true or just by looking at our own protections. And usually we can do that easily by seeing how our mind is working or

where we're getting triggered in our life. But there's also something really important about this conversation happening right now at a time in the world when change is happening so rapidly and where the majority of people are feeling like things are getting dismantled and it brings up a feeling of being out of control. And usually when we get into fear,

That's when our protections really show up. And so maybe a protection of judgment or a protection of trying to control something or distraction or whatever it is. and we're talking, I think what you were saying is, can we just be with the fear? If fear is arising right now, we're seeing it maybe in the, in the larger world. Maybe it's showing up in your, in your world.

Ashley Henderson (04:21.738)
that that's an opportunity to sit with fear in this sort of, yeah, unarmored is such a good way to say it, way and practice the

The.

sort of presence with being with our experience and then, you know, see what happens from there because the old patterns, I think they're not going to work anymore for us. I think we're coming to the end of some patterns that have been around for a very, very long time. And so we're sort of here as like brave souls saying, okay, I'll be with this fear or I'll be with grief or I'll be with rage.

and I'll be the container for that or I'll be the witness to that. It's powerful.

Nate (05:23.653)
Yeah, and I agree. It is sometimes a very frightening thing for the egoic mind to stop the mental gymnastics and just sit with the feelings that are arising. Because that's, sometimes we have uncomfortable feelings that arise, but the resistance to the feelings is actually what causes most of the pain in our life.

Flowing with the feeling, letting the feeling come up, giving it its moment and then letting it pass through you is actually being in flow with life. And that's a grace-filled life. That's ease. That's when life starts working with you and you stop trying to hold on to the rock in the middle of the river of life, right? mean, that's when you kind of get pummeled and...

It's funny because we think all of the mental gymnastics and the structures that we've created by the brain and the thinking, those are all things we think inoculate us from experiencing hardship or these difficult things in life, but really it creates resistance, which then creates a lot more kind of pressure. It's like life will turn up the volume on you to get you to be in the flow.

which is, you know, it's like, I like that expression. First, it's like a, it's a tickle or a touch, and then it's, and then sometimes it's a, it's a hit on the head. And then the next thing you know, you're in the hospital. It's like, let life, let the universe work on you in its subtle ways. Don't wait for the message to get super strong. Cause, cause that's when things can get really hard. The other thing that,

I was thinking about when you were talking about this, this reflective nature, and then we're as we're kind of unpacking this is this idea of extreme, extreme ownership of everything that's showing up. And we've talked about this in the past, but really part of being present and in the flow and co-creating with life is acknowledging that

Nate (07:49.846)
everything in your experience is there for you in that you actually put it there and even the quote unquote bad things or hard things or uncomfortable things those are it's it's every it's all there your soul put it there you you agreed to it on some level as well and so that can feel challenging but also

If you lean into it and you embrace it, there's an incredible freedom in that as well. I think that dance is a little bit about what we're talking about here is trying to get into presence, trying to understand that we are everything that is happening and that there is no separation and that the more we can live in that presence, the more life will flow.

I don't know, what do you think about that?

Ashley Henderson (08:51.286)
Yeah, it makes me...

Okay, I just got distracted by, you know, do you know that you're in a lag?

Nate (09:03.436)
No, but you were in a lag earlier too, so maybe... Hopefully it's just the rec... Yeah.

Ashley Henderson (09:06.088)
okay. So does that just work itself out? Okay. Okay. Let me just take a minute because I had a really good thought and then I got distracted by that. And then I get a little panicky that I'm not going to remember my thoughts. So let me just take a minute and remember my thought. What did you just say?

Nate (09:22.382)
Accountability, like the everything we are creating everything and taking ownership. Yeah. Okay.

Ashley Henderson (09:27.596)
Yeah, it was something about acceptance. Okay. Yeah. Now I'm going to say it. Yeah, that makes me, it makes me think about a recent experience I had, where I had an opportunity. was, it was something that happened that I was, feeling some regret about or some shame about. And I had a moment where the thought came to me that some part of me agreed with the thing that I had done.

some part of me fully accepted what had happened. And when I had that realization, it allowed me to actually let go of resistance enough to just say, I'm gonna see where this experience is gonna take me because some part of me already agreed to it. We could even say that about what's happening in the world right now, that we've all agreed on some level.

to what's happening in the world simply because it's happening and we're perceiving it. And so if you can come into some kind of acceptance of your own inner acceptance, it's like it's happening whether the little you wants it to be happening or not, but that's like a deep acceptance. That's like a deep agreement to life. And we can start orienting ourselves to the agreement.

part of ourselves instead of the resistance part of ourselves. The resistance part of ourselves is always looking for protection, for safety. And when you come into a deeper truth of our existence, a deeper truth of who we really are, you can start to see, wow, like, yeah, I have accepted that. Everything is actually allowed in the truth of who I am.

That is a game changer in my opinion. Like it really is a game changer. And I think inside of that is yeah, ownership, ownership of it all. Like it's, it's okay. It can be your own co-creation. love the way you say that in, in terms of this is all happening for me, by me through me, you know, and that release of resistance, which come in, can come in the form of

Ashley Henderson (11:56.803)
avoidance, can come in the form of control, can come in the form of distraction, rumination, there's all sorts of ways that resistance can show up. And when we relax and we come into presence, we just practice presence and we practice presence and we practice presence and we practice being with the fear, we practice being with the resistance, seeing the resistance, being with that, accepting resistance.

You know, it's like so powerful. It's so powerful. I guess I want to say empowering. It's actually empowering. You stop feeling victimized by your life.

Nate (12:41.505)
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that sentiment that even on a, when things are big on, at this kind of macro level, the world stage, we have wars, we have all sorts of things happening. And one of the ways in which I feel like I can find peace with that is to see that

It is a reflection of an aspect of myself, an aspect of humanity, that it is, and that that is okay. And to also not be in resistance with that. So I guess the other thing that's coming up, and this is another one of our favorite things to talk about, is neutrality. It's really just...

everything as a reflection, the inner is the outer, and then the next step is to also not have judgment about what is showing up. And to know that it is showing up as a way for us to process

the separation between us and source and that the more that we can be in these difficult experiences and to not be in judgment and to see them as a valuable part of us, as a part of all of us, then those things will dissolve. They will eventually work themselves out. There won't be a war with

people when we are when you are in alignment with yourself. So there's always an aspect of the self that is in separation when we're seeing separation reflected back to us. This is goes back to like ancient hermetic principles of what is you know, what is above is below what is inside is out. And those things as concepts

Nate (14:53.504)
they can be kind of helpful, but if you can turn them into lived realities and really embody them and witness things happening in the world and take ownership and also remove judgment from them, as you were saying, that is a game changer. You then orient to life in a much different way. You stop feeling like a victim. stop feeling like

you're out of control, you start seeing, I have a part of this, I have agency. And it goes back to one of those simple maxims, which is just like if you want peace in the world, you have to have peace in yourself, right? It all starts on the micro level to then become a macro level energetic wave that's rippling out.

and you can't control the the big, big parts. All you can control is your own personal experience. So I don't even really care how people get there, but making peace with the self, and I think there's lots of roads there. However you do that is actually the biggest service that we can be on a global level right now is to be in alignment with yourself, to make peace with yourself, to remove judgment.

and to be in the flow of life.

Ashley Henderson (16:25.069)
Wow, that was so good. It made me take a deep breath. It just made me like, because it's, I think this is so important. I think what you just said is so important. I think it's how we started our conversation, which is kind of like with the question of what can we do right now? There's so much we feel out of control with. That's like, you know, cuckoo bananas.

But there's a really, really big invitation to do exactly what you just said. And one of the things that we were saying, I think you said this before we got on today, is we can't change the world, we can't change ourselves, but we can become available for change. And we do that through presence, we do that through

coming into neutrality, to finding, making peace with ourselves, we start to allow change to happen. we can trust at that point that, or we start to see, I guess we can start, we start to notice that that change is always orienting for the highest good. It's not like we're just opening ourselves up to be.

you know, messed with or something. There's some way that cultivating presence, peace...

acceptance, allowing, starts to signal an agreement to life's infinite intelligence, how it wants to move and shake things up and stir things up. And we can just see this in the outer world. It's like speeding up.

Ashley Henderson (18:30.073)
There's so much going on, there's so much changing so quickly. So if we can start to find our own ground, then we're sort of not being batted around by this change, know, by this unraveling that's happening. We can get into an agreement with it.

What do you think about that?

Nate (18:53.352)
Yeah, that what we were discussing before we hopped on that idea around change was it's like the egoic mind wants to control change. The thinking mind wants to have a say in change and how change happens. And it kind of wants to micromanage and and, yeah, control, have an aspect of control or ownership over the change in terms of like how quickly

how much change, all of this. And what I was saying to you is we have a, we think about change as some kind of static energy that is like something we can manage. And what I was coming to the realization was is that change is like the breath. It's like, is ubiquitous. Change every single moment.

is change. We live with change all the time. The mind and the thinking wants to slow change down and have control over it, but actually you are constantly in a state of change. Your cells are reconfiguring all the time. The sun's angle is changing. The weather, everything in life is in a constant state of change. So it's a total illusion that we would have any control over that many variables.

What it really is, is this ability to completely surrender to that reality and let go of trying to manage the change. just, again, this is back to being in the flow with life. And part of the inspiration for that for me was I was watching a YouTube video from this woman that I really like and she had mentioned that

If we are of source, if we were created by God, if we are aspects of the divine, the reflective aspects of the divine so that the divine could know itself, then there is nothing wrong with us. That there is nothing about us that needs to be fixed. That we are just an experience. We are in our own experience and

Nate (21:21.203)
to not be in a place of I should do this, I need to do this, I wanna be better. It's it's instead of those things, those ideas, those thoughts, and those are thinking things, it's to understand that you are perfect as you are, and as you reflected back to me after I had said this to you, to be open to the reality that change is constantly happening anyways.

It's not that you need to change because you're somehow broken or not good enough or whatever you're thinking or socializing or the world is telling you. It's that you are perfect as you are in this experience. You are having it and change is a constant. It's happening and you are always evolving with it. And the more that we can be accepting of that,

and neutral with it the more we will i think enjoy life and be in the flow with life.

Ashley Henderson (22:29.589)
Yeah, I mean, I kind of started to see like a picture when you were talking of the ripple effect of just the recognition that you are perfect the way you are and you don't need to change. Like the ripple effect of stopping the condition or how do you say it? of seeing the illusion.

of the self-improvement project, you know, just think about how much you're bombarded with, you know, marketing for self-improvement. So, so like the actual belief, if you were to, if you were able to somehow digest this truth that you just named, that you are created by God and then there is no more self-improvement project, then you begin to see that

truth in everybody else. If just that one thing could change in every human, the world would change overnight. I mean, it's just, that would be such a drastic, dramatic shift in how we are creating our reality every day together. So I just love that as an orientation. And I think just sitting with that as an idea, like some people

are like, oh yeah, I believe that that's great. But other people listening might think, well, I don't know how to get there, you know? And I think just sitting with it as a potential, sitting with it as a possibility, you start to see how conditioned we've all been to disconnecting from our divinity. And it's mind blowing. It's really, really mind blowing. And the function of that.

Nate (24:31.023)
Yeah, absolutely. mean.

Nate (24:36.017)
There needs to, when we walk this path, you become aware of the loads and loads of judgment that we all carry. And this is gonna be ironic, but no judgment about judgment. It's part of life. It is part of being incarnated, I believe. I think that is actually part of what we are here.

to experience and what we have agreed to be a part of is to have false separations so that we can come back into wholeness. That that is actually kind of the dance of living on earth is that we create false separation, then we get the invitation to come back into wholeness and alignment with all that is. And when that happens, when we have glimpses of that,

We call those miracles, we call those enlightened souls, whatever, bliss. But I believe that that is the invitation. But I agree that it feels like a tall order to think that I don't need to improve myself. Basically to undo the years and years of socializing and

being put upon with these external kind of things that I don't think necessarily were even, I think they have their own momentum. They're like these thought forms that humans have projected, we've created them and so many of us take them on because we're not aware of them. And the key here to working with all of this stuff into taking the first step down this path is awareness.

As soon as you become aware of anything that tells you you're less than God source, then you just know, you're like, that's thought form. That's not real. That's a creation, that's fine. You don't have to get worked up about it, and you can stay neutral, but the awareness of it then gives you the power to start getting curious and saying, well.

Nate (27:01.2)
Geez, that doesn't really feel like mine. That doesn't feel resonant with this truth that if all that is created, all that is, there is nothing that is inherently better or worse than anything else. It is just a creation. This goes into my idea, when people talk about love and they say, the universe is love and it's just all.

you know, universal love and divine love. And I have nothing against any of that. But I, for me, I know that the idea of love is tainted with my humanness. And so it kind of moves into this idea of human love. Human love is a beautiful thing. And it's probably one of our best inventions as a species is human love. But I think divine love is actually

different than human love, I believe that divine love is complete and utter acceptance. It is the acknowledgement of everything with neutrality, of just like appreciation for all that is for this creation. And when you start to even get just a little bit down this road, life totally changes and it gets a lot more exciting. It gets a little bit scary because it's completely counter to what you have been conditioned.

but it also has locked within it a just huge amount of potential to really reorganize your life, to interact in a completely different way, to see that not only is that true for you as an individual, but that's true for every single person, every single thing. Everything that you're interacting with in this world is holding that truth that it is.

appreciated by all that is. I don't know. What do think of that?

Ashley Henderson (29:04.981)
I love that. I love where this is going. The word that was coming to me was coherence when you were talking. Like, as a substitute for love, because we do get confused about what love is supposed you know, whatever. But I think it's just coherence, right? Everything that you were talking about kind of folds in for me to that word. And that word sort of brings me into a space inside of myself that does feel very neutral, but peaceful and allowing. And then,

There's also so much aliveness in that because if we're always moving towards coherence, we're also working with what's not in coherence, right? And so we get to like kind of work with life as it unfolds to keep coming back into coherence. And that's the work. That's like the fun part. It doesn't have to be a self-improvement project. It can actually be this like delight in...

remembering and reclaiming coherence in your system, which is just, know, I was thinking about the word resonance earlier when you were talking like, and you then you used it. I was like, yeah, resonance, like using your resonance, like you don't even have to believe in God. You don't have to believe in any of the stuff if you if that's too hard, you can just start practicing acknowledging resonance inside of you because we're all we all have this

knowing inside of us. We're all in this process of remembering, you know, remembering who we are and we can use resonance as a way to just follow what's true. And the mind doesn't really have to even get involved. In fact, I think I want to say something right now. Like the time is now to start really kind of working with the mind.

in a more

Ashley Henderson (31:02.659)
I don't know if the right word is clear way, because you were saying it. You were like, if it's just a thought form, it's not true. But I think that's a real rub for a lot of people. know, I really remember the different layers. I mean, it's always like unfolding, but the different layers of like really like letting go of my mind, because I had so much of my identity was in my mind. You know, so.

So, but yeah, I think the time is now to really start understanding how much our mind may be keeping us from this acknowledgement of coherence, resonance, peace, sovereignty. I don't know. What do you think about that?

Nate (31:49.805)
Well, I love those words that you were using, resonance and coherence, because to me, they also bring us right back to the beginning of the episode when we were talking about the reflective nature of reality. And resonance and coherence are you coming into alignment with like a frequency or a wave, basically like attunement, right? Or entrainment, where you're matching a signal.

And this is kind of how law of attraction really works, right? Where you send out a signal and then a signal is reflected back to you on that same frequency and that coherence. And so that part I think is very exciting. think it does start to kind of like make your brain, your thinking brain overheat a little. And this goes back to something that you and I had also talked about just before we popped on.

which was almost like a, I hate using the word hack, but maybe a shortcut for understanding when you are moving into, when you're moving out of presence and into thinking, that again, awareness is the game. So when you can become aware of when that's happening, it is incredibly helpful.

for you to start working with the mind as you were talking about. And a very simple way to do that is to just acknowledge that when I am in thinking, I am in the mind. And when I am present, when I am in my breath, when I am in the moment, I am not in the mind. And so as soon as you're in thinking, give yourself grace, it's okay. We are not gonna be living

without the mind. The mind is part of the gig here. But what we want to do and what you were kind of the invitation you were offering is to really start to see the mind as

Nate (34:03.715)
as like a tool or an aspect of ourselves, not all of us, right? It's a part of us, it exists, it's useful for things, it's useful for lists, it's useful for math, it's good at things, but it's not all of us. And I think as you were saying, the invitation to really see it when it's trying to take hold of the steering wheel and to just with love and

presence and breath to just be like, whoa, this, you know, we don't need the mind to take over and to start running circles around itself. This is an invitation to see that the mind wants to exert control and then to come back into presence. Like how can I bring myself back into the moment? And these are all words that we're using. So we're in thinking right now and that's okay, but they're

reminders for us to move back into the flow of life, into as much as we can reduce the resistance and the separation between us and life, us in all that is, us in the now experience.

Ashley Henderson (35:18.221)
Yes, yes, yes. So, basically, I know. Well, it's like we're practicing and we're moving through these like, I feel like we're moving through like a mystery school. Like we're moving through like, here's all of the things you weren't taught about being human that actually really is important. And so, you know, we're

Nate (35:19.872)
It's that simple, Ashley. Just... Sorry.

Ashley Henderson (35:46.445)
We're doing it. We're practicing presence. That's one of the things that we are committed to practicing. We're practicing acceptance. We're practicing being available for change. We're practicing trust and faith. We're practicing and we're seeing, it's like an experiment. We're seeing what happens when you shift.

how you're, it's like shifting your frequency. It's like shifting your perspective is really powerful, you know? So I appreciate these conversations. It like juices it all up for me and yeah, brings it home in a new way every time. I feel like we talk about the same thing every time, but it brings it home in a new way and brings in a new dimension. So I really appreciate.

this conversation.

Nate (36:45.909)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a good reminder to everyone listening as well that if you're listening to this, are, you're a part of this. You are in process with this dialogue that we're having, which at times is kind of weird and cumbersome, but it really is just, I think the energies on the planet right now are

creating a ripe environment for us to have awakenings, for us to come back into alignment, for us to remove a lot of the old things that were in the way between us and ourselves, us and source, whatever. And it's just, it's a very exciting time to live. And I think that we can...

This awareness, this excitement, this conversation that we're having, it's just helping us as we are trying to re-remember who we are. And I love that the people who are listening to this podcast are a part of this as well. Like everyone is a part of it no matter what, but that you and I are sending out this frequency, this coherence, this signal, and that other people are picking it up and we're,

a part of a movement, I think, in the world of people waking up to a new reality. And the more we can live in presence and in our heart, the more that that will have this amazing ripple effect out there in the world. And that so much of what we see that's difficult will, like bringing light and love and awareness to it is, to me, that's kind of like my...

That's what I feel like, that's my mission. So I love that we get to do it together and we get to share it with people and that other people are sharing it with us.

Ashley Henderson (38:45.581)
I love it. Well said.

Nate (38:46.867)
Yeah, thank you. Alright, thanks everyone and we will see you all next week.