Harnessing the Power of Spring for Personal Growth

Hello Spring! In this episode Ashley and Nate explore how spring energy influences our mental, emotional, and spiritual states. They discuss practical and metaphysical strategies for decluttering, setting intentions, and harnessing the powerful energies of spring for personal growth and collective transformation.

Transcript

Nate (00:02.54)
Welcome everyone to Spiritual Unraveling with Ashley and Nate. And on today's podcast, we are going to be discussing spring energy and what we can do with this abundance of energy and how we can harness it. And also discussing examples from our own life where maybe we've had some

pitfalls or just noticing that with the intense energy that's around right now that if we're not careful with where we are focusing our energy and setting clear intentions and using our practices, that manifestation and things calming into our realities are just, it feels like that stuff is happening very,

quickly right now and that there is just a lot of energy on the planet since the spring equinox. And as we're moving into April, there's going to be just a lot of shifting going on. And then there's also a lot of stuff happening in the outside world. So on today's podcast, we're going to be talking all things spring. What do think, Ash?

Ashley Henderson (01:24.398)
Well, yeah, we kind of got quiet before we got on to really kind of go in and listen for what was something we could talk about that would be useful for us and maybe anybody who's listening. And what I got was spring cleaning. And we had been talking earlier about the way that

The chaotic energy in the culture, in the world, in the atmosphere is kind of creating a...

Ashley Henderson (02:07.278)
An energy of like being scattered a little bit in me. I'll just talk about myself. I feel a little scattered I feel a little pulled into the chaos a bit and I you know, I it's It's made me feel like a little less grounded a little less I'm doing less of my practice or finding it more difficult to practice more difficult to find that

quiet and then when I do, when I do take the time to really focus, bring my attention from that scattered place into focus, go into earth energy, go into a grounded, quiet place, I'm actually feeling like that space is sort of more potent than ever. So I'm getting synchronicities and messages and feeling very

guided and Supported there and then I'll sort of come up out of that feeling refreshed rejuvenated and then I scattered again so I'm finding myself in this pattern of That process and so when I got the message spring cleaning it sort of was this energy of when we think about spring cleaning decluttering and And I have been doing that some in my

in my life, my physical material life, but it's also psychic energy. feels like spring cleaning, like clearing out the cluttered psychic energy, coming back, remembering our grounding practices, remembering our meditation practices. And also what's been coming through is really finding and carving out space for creative practice.

seems to be really shifting out. It really shifts me out of that scattered energy pretty quickly. So that's also been kind of something that's coming through.

Nate (04:22.865)
Yeah, the scattered energy I definitely identify with. And I think that there is just a lot of energy flowing in right now. And so when you get to that scattered place and then you kind of forget your practices, it does feel like you can get yourself kind of far down a certain path.

or of energy, of focus, you're like, you know, I've, got into like weird conspiracy theory, YouTube's things, and I was like, wait, what am I doing? reminding yourself to do, like the importance of starting your day with just really simple, easy practices, like get your feet on the earth if you can, or.

sit quietly and you don't even need to do, we're advocates of deep meditation, but honestly, before you pick up your phone, you're lying in bed, take 10 deep breaths, get connected to your body, feel your body. When you stand up and you get out of bed, feel your feet on the ground and just remembering that some of these really easy things will help you to be less scattered and kind of come back to your center.

And I have been fighting a cold for like the last two weeks and I feel resonant with the the spring cleaning idea because it really is felt to me like I am have been decluttering my body. I'm in this like crazy detox period and also just being very low energy. I was mentioning to you how much that brought me into presence and

surrender because I literally didn't have enough energy for multiple days other than to just kind of do one or two household things that I needed to do. And then the rest was kind of sitting in being with myself, being in my body, my sick body, which was detoxing and then being present and also just like understanding that this is a part of the process.

Nate (06:49.891)
that every once in a while you need to do a detox, a purge, a cleanse, and that's both for our physical bodies and for our physical space. And I agree that whether it's mental, physical, psychological, spiritual, the way that we manage those areas of our lives and how kind of cluttered or disorganized our thinking or our spaces are,

It definitely translates into how things show up in your world. You know, when you're disorganized and you're thinking, your life is disorganized. It's really hard to get things done. mean, when you are having trouble focusing, getting just simple things is really difficult. yeah, I definitely feel the call to... I think it's just really being intentional about

your energy and your focus right now. And I loved that you brought in creativity. My kids, like intuitively, I didn't even put it on, push it on them. But in the last two weeks, they've just been pulling out all the art supplies and taking time in creating. And I notice it immediately that their energy changes. And then I get to jump in or my wife gets to jump in. And it's such a good way to just bring you back into the present moment.

and a tap into the creative energy that's very much present in spring. So yeah, thank you for bringing that up.

Ashley Henderson (08:25.998)
Yeah, yeah, I'm just going to say a little bit more about it, which is, yeah, the idea of presence, you know, being connected to your creative energy, your joy, your passion, giving yourself, because, you know, I can feel myself as the world feels a little...

Like it just feels like there's a little bit of energy of like there's an impending doom. Like something's just around the corner. Something's just about to happen. And there's a lot of content out there that feeds that. So it leaves you in almost a place of survival mode. And presence is almost the opposite of that, right? We're like, you know, there's just only the now.

The easiest way for me to get into that is to get into a creative space or get into my body. we're, and I think there's something really important about using your conscious awareness to shift your focus. If you're feeling this way, if you're finding yourself feeling scattered or you're feeling the...

You're feeling yourself being pulled by that impending doom energy. That might not be the right way to say it, but I can't think of a better way to say it. But so you're sort of in a holding pattern or you're feeling survival modey or scattered, then really using your conscious awareness to focus your energy into something that is more in presence.

you know, bringing yourself more into presence. That doesn't have to be meditation. So I'm just repeating what you're saying, but I'm just saying it again. I'm almost saying it for myself to really remember that we have, we're not at the mercy of what's happening in the world. Actually, we really have this capacity to focus our attention. And when we declutter, when we maybe stop consuming content,

Ashley Henderson (10:41.024)
or limit the content we're consuming or we declutter our spaces, actually, it's easier to take those 10 deep breaths like you were saying, really simplify that focus and remember, okay, yeah, this is what helps me feel grounded. These are the practices that help me stay present. That just seems more important than ever right now to make those choices.

Nate (11:04.649)
Yeah, totally. When I, you and I both, we took a minute to just kind of tap in and spring energy and decluttering came up for you. And what was coming up for me is very similar to this. It's a little more, you know, it's a little more on the woo woo or metaphysical side. the, what came through strongly for me is that the energy right now,

for manifesting and pulling things into your life is really profound. And intention and attention is just so key. So I just wanna double down on this and kind of maybe lean a little more in on the metaphysical side and just say that there is a very strong call right now to come into your own energy and

to be very strategic and deliberate with where you are putting your focus and where you are choosing to put your attention. And then I would say even more important, and this could go back to a very simple practice that starts at the beginning of the day, which is set an intention.

I would like to experience peace and calm and clarity in my world today. That is huge because it's really easy to even do some of the practices, but if you don't necessarily set the intention, what you're doing is you're saying, okay, I'm up for the salad bar or the buffet of life.

which is okay, sometimes we are and that's fine. If you're feeling really resilient, do that. But I think what we're talking about is with really intense energies and as you were describing in the outside world, you know, in politics, I think this energy of chaos or perceived chaos is very up right now for many people. This is a time where I think our resilience is really challenged. So falling back,

Nate (13:27.174)
on and relying on core kind of fundamentals of how we balance our energetics is huge. And I think intention is one of the, it's really easy to kind of forget that. Setting intention at early parts of the day and then checking back in. Sometimes that's why it's nice to write it down. If you have a journal, checking back in like at the midday or the dinner time and say,

How am I doing with this? Like, where's my energy? These are just good ways, good solid practices that will put you back into the captain of your own energetic ship as opposed to being a passenger, right? Are you steering the ship or are you in the back for a ride? With the world the way it is right now, I wanna be steering the ship. Yeah.

Ashley Henderson (14:25.144)
Totally, I like that. I think sometimes, you mentioned this idea of you can do your practices, but are they really grounded? And so when you're doing that intention setting, it's almost like you want to really bring in the emotions or the feeling of it and really ground it. And the word that keeps coming up is almost

disrupt the status quo through this focused energy. So with your intention setting, with your focus, you're disrupting your automatic pilot. that actually is a very power. Our attention is so powerful, right? Where we're focusing our attention is what's creating our reality. so, know, really almost doing it as like an experiment.

You know, maybe even doing it as like a joy experiment or like a more lighthearted experiment, taking it out of like, I have to do this intention setting as part of my mysterious practice, but like really bringing a lighthearted sense to it. And I feel like that has actually been something that's been really working for me is one of my practices lately has been like really noticing

where the magic is happening, noticing synchronicities, noticing where I feel like nature is talking to me or birds are speaking to me or where my attention is being pulled into nature. it's like that, just having that as a focus creates such a more lighthearted way of walking through the day as opposed to where...

else my focus could be, you know, at any given moment.

Nate (16:28.394)
Yeah, I agree. mean, it's it's one of those things that it's worth repeating and reminding ourselves that magic happens in the present moment. It does not happen in the future or the past. Right. You have to be present and in the moment. And as you're saying, kind of in this almost ex-joyous expectation of

serendipity for it to show up. And it's just a very, it's a very beautiful choice to make amongst lots of other options in terms of how you're choosing to focus your energy or how you're choosing to feel. I did want to go back to what you were talking about, the kind of creating a sense of

playfulness or ease around how you're choosing to intend or how you're choosing to use your attention. And I'm gonna just also go right at the people who are feeling really angry and violated and pissed off at everything that's happening right now because I'm there. I move into that space pretty easily too with all the crazy stuff that's happening in the world.

And I'm going to say a radical act of disobedience is controlling your attention, is choosing to not give it where they want it. Because you have to look at the way the world operates. The power systems right now are vying for your attention. That tells you something that intention is inherently very powerful. Otherwise, they wouldn't give two craps about it.

because they don't really give two craps about anything that we do, the plebes, you know? So that right there lets you know this is important. It's valuable. It's highly valuable. So an act of defiance, an act of protest can be to limit where you put your attention, especially in anything mainstream or fear mongering in say,

Nate (18:55.226)
I can tap into my feeds of information here and there, but I'm not gonna dwell. And then I am going to intentionally, as again, like an act of protest, I'm gonna look at beautiful things. I'm gonna go against mainstream culture right now and what it's telling me to do. I'm gonna hope, I'm gonna have beauty, I'm gonna walk in nature, whatever it is for you.

Yeah, I just kind of want to acknowledge that that could be a way in which we can maybe not so playfully take back our power, but do it in a way where we can harness some of that frustration with how things are currently unfolding and say, you know, this is the way I'm going to choose to deal with this. I'm going to create more beauty in the world. I'm going to create more connection in the world. I'm going to connect to my own community.

and foster beauty and connection and harmony here in that that is an actual act of protest and defiance against the kind of stuff that we're coming up against right now.

Ashley Henderson (20:09.42)
Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up community. I actually want to just totally clarify, because I know this is not where you're coming from, but I just want to say it, which is we're not talking about bypassing and just going into love and light. We're not talking about that. And I actually feel like the more you're present with the energies that are on the planet right now through your awareness, that digestion and

you know, the digestion of what's happening right now, the processing can happen in presence in a way that doesn't scatter you, disconnect you or overwhelm you. And I think because there is so much in transition, there's so much that's unraveling, that's dismantling, that where I'm feeling a lot of grounding is actually in community.

and it's sharing vulnerably in community. It's actually in this like we're togetherness feeling. And that feels like a little spark of the silver lining or the new newness that can come from the dismantling is this kind of coming together in community and in reality, sort of in our truth, not in a

You know, sort of when everything's fine, when you have the status quo, you can sort of skim the surface in life. You can sort of walk through life with your little grudges or your little victimhood. And it's not that big of a deal. And I think right now it's like, okay, we're really working with some big energies around victimhood, working some big energies around powerlessness or whatever. it's like, okay.

What is coming up in me? And just finding people to share that with, really connecting around whatever's coming up so we can move through it together. That feels huge for me right now.

Nate (22:17.124)
Totally, I totally agree. Yeah, I mean, and I didn't think you were talking about spiritual bypassing and you're just giving me my opening to talk my piece around that. I hate that term so much. I just think it's such a weird spiritual metaphysical shame spiral that gurus or social influencers throw around. There is no spiritual bypassing people.

You can't get away from any of it. You're going to die and you're going to have a life review. If you didn't figure your shit out, guess what? You'll get it thrown right in your face. Not in a mean way. And you are going to be the one who shares it with you gently patting you on the back and being like, yeah, you didn't get that one. So I don't worry about that. I don't necessarily worry about that. But I do agree that what we're we're not talking about burying our head in the sand here. This is this is an actual

It's a response to what is happening right now. And it's a way that we are taking back agency. And we're really choosing for ourselves how we are going to be in the world. And when you were talking about everything that's happening, the word that just kept coming up for me is like, this is a time of reconciliation.

even if you wanted to bypass it, put your head in the sand, it ain't gonna happen. Like everything is coming up to be reconciled. It is all coming up to be looked at, to be acknowledged, and I believe ultimately to be transformed, broken down, digested, transformed, and we're gonna rebuild. That's a process. I don't think it's gonna happen overnight at all. And as someone who is like literally in the midst of healing right now and purging,

It is not fun, right? And socially, this is not a fun process, this reconciliation, this reckoning, if you will. But again, taking back our power in terms of how we navigate ourselves through this process and really, really managing your energetics. And when we're talking about this, it's talking about being gentle with yourself, nervous system management.

Nate (24:46.038)
And it could be spiritual because that's our lens and that's the stuff we love, but it could be not spiritual. It could just be, you know, hiking. It could be driving in the car and listening to music that uplifts you and singing, singing in the shower. It could be dancing. It could be watching your kids play and laughing. But it's just like, I think the call right now is to not let yourself be. Don't let.

yourself get pulled so easily into all of the negativity because there is just so much of it.

Take the things that you know work, your tried and true, and we can also acknowledge, you and I talked about this, that these might be moving targets. You might have to experiment a little bit because some of the tried and true things aren't working as well as they used to. But trying to find things that are bringing you peace or harmony or community, as you said, and just a little bit more joy in your life. I think it's such a powerful tool right now.

Ashley Henderson (25:58.094)
You know what your, that was really cool. I love how you articulate things and what it made me realize that may be happening on a collective level. It's certainly happening with me and it's scary and I think it's happening with you and I also think it's scary for you. But it may be happening on a collective level which is this realization that

maybe we're not, we can't just trust the structures, the system that's in place in the way that we used to be able to, that we all just kind of trusted, the government's doing what the government's doing. you know, all these structures are here to support us to be human. And as that all breaks down, what's coming up, at least for me personally, is a

a new feeling of empowerment, of just individual empowerment. And that, it sounds really great, but it actually comes with a lot of fear. It comes with a lot of kind of baby step, not baby step, you know, being, yeah, like being on new legs, you know, just being in like a new way of being and...

And it comes with some anger that we were disconnected from that empowerment to begin with, that we were taught to trust powers outside of ourselves that actually weren't really, didn't have our best interest at heart. And so there's just this whole like the reckoning, the reclamation, it's all about like coming back into reclaiming something that.

was always ours to begin with, that's always been there. And really learning how to embody that and learning how to live from that place, learning how to relate to each other from that place. It's all very new right now in my experience. I'm feeling the newness of that. And I just wonder how many people are aware of it because it's happening. It is just...

Ashley Henderson (28:20.92)
happening. You can be aware of it. You cannot be aware of it. It is happening. Like we are reclaiming our sovereignty, our personal empowerment. And we can talk about what that looks like, but I'm just wondering what you think about that.

Nate (28:36.58)
Yeah, I love that. I totally agree. And you just said it there. If you didn't say it, I was going to say it. was like, where is it? She's got to say sovereignty. This is, you know, it's one of our favorite words, but it really is. It's this idea that everyone is being handed their sovereignty and some of us are accepting it with excitement, intention.

and grace and some of us, and I do think that there is a large percentage of people who just don't know what to do with it. And it's very frightening because nobody has given us like the sovereignty instruction manual. You know, I think it lives in us when we're quiet and we do some of our practices and we really tap in. You get it. The manual's in there. It's you. It's in your body. But it's like we have been so

indoctrinated to give our power away, that it can feel really frightening and disorienting right now. And you spoke really beautifully about this whole breakdown process. And the other aspect of it that I wanted to bring up that has been coming up for me a lot lately is just grief, a ton of grief and sadness about how violated

We have been, our rights, our power, how violated the rights, the power, the actual physical safety of vulnerable people in our world. on some level, we always knew it was happening in pockets, but we're just seeing that it was happening, it's happening on such a big level. And there is a lot of sadness and grief that I think.

is still coming up to be processed right now.

Nate (30:41.737)
It also shows up as anger and other things as well, it's bringing some awareness to it can really help you navigate those feelings because when they come up, they kind of feel untethered because you're just like, why am I feeling this way? I don't get it. But it's like, it's because it's this collective reckoning, as you were saying, that's happening and allowing it to be processed, I think is really

powerful right now and to not turn away from it. And to even if you're not able to fully step into it, would say watch a sad movie, read a sad book, give yourself a good cry, because it's going to all come out. It's just all stuck emotion that is ready to be processed. So yeah, it is such a strange and powerful time. mean, there is just a lot of energy of transformation right now on the planet.

Ashley Henderson (31:43.618)
Yeah, I feel like that grief and that rage and that fear, I think those are the three major ones that I've tapped into and then also see in my community, in my world, my friends, my clients. I can feel this kind of almost in myself, I feel resistance sometimes to get quiet because I think there's a part of me that knows if I get

Quiet if I really let go if I come in if I am gonna touch in to those feelings Those you can't we can't move to the next phase without Without processing and going through those feelings and I can also see it in my in some friends and and I you know my friends that are actively in their practice are actually like literally manifesting

their dream life right now. Like things are happening at a really rapid pace. And then I also see, and it's not, one is not better than the other. It's just the is-ness of it all, but I can also see, and I can feel this in myself a little bit, the resistance to it is actually, it's like almost like getting those touch, making those feelings kind of activate. So like there's frustration that can be.

Maybe accessing that rage or there can be a hopelessness that can help you access that grief And I know that as soon as you just kind of land back in an alignment in a ground in your body You feel that support you feel that resin It's like then the energies can start just moving through and whatever however, they need to move through

And so I'm just seeing this like in real life. It's not just words, it's not concepts, like the actual lived experience of how you can work with the energy. But I don't know if any of us are not in this process right now. I think it's a collective transition.

Nate (33:57.745)
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think you can escape it. It's it's happening. Yeah. Well, and as we're getting close to the end here, I think what you just said very easily maps on to what we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, which is. Think about decluttering the emotions that are that are waiting there to be processed. And I think.

is frightening as that proposition is to some of us. It is where all the power is. There is a huge amount of untapped potential and power sitting right there. If you're willing to look at the hard things, process them and then start letting the energy move through you. This is an insane time. I agree. I have seen

other people right now manifesting. When the world is kind of in a chaotic place and there's so much energy around, if you can harness yourself and get clean and get clear, get your intention and attention and focus onto something that you're actually trying to pull into the world, you're gonna be really surprised at how fast it comes in, because there is a lot of potential right now. And I think a good starting place is to just acknowledge

some of the stuck emotions, there's not a lot of work to be done there. It's just turning and looking at it and letting them kind of come up and move through you and start that process of emotional decluttering so that you can harness some of this energy.

Ashley Henderson (35:44.174)
Spring cleaning.

Nate (35:45.222)
Spring cleaning. Cool.