That Mystic Podcast

Why Real Enlightenment Starts with Seeing Your Own Wounds - The Next Awakening is Spiritual Embodiment

• That Mystic, Rev. Dr. Joya • Episode 139

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What if enlightenment isn’t a peak state but the simple, radical act of seeing yourself clearly with mercy? We trace a path from “manic bliss” to embodied joy, where clarity flows through the body and peace becomes a felt experience rather than a spiritual badge. Along the way, we unpack a bold claim—there’s no such thing as enlightened cruelty—because all harm springs from confusion, not clarity, and light distorts when it passes through unhealed wounds.

I share a grounded reframe of awakening and a compassionate map of core fractures—belonging, safety, worth, shame, trust, abandonment, powerlessness—that shape repeating patterns. Instead of chasing origins, we learn to track the pattern, forgive the self, and let grief move without a story. There’s a guided practice you can use right now: hand to heart, breath into the belly, name the self-judgments, and ask the soul to illuminate what you can’t yet see—with ease and grace. As the nervous system settles, grace becomes physiological, othering dissolves, and true power feels like peace.

We also open a 14-week cohort for women to co-create a living framework that moves from forgiveness to radiance. Built on four pillars—people, process, practices, and purpose—the arc blends Inquiry, Meditation, Sound, Art, Voice, Embodiment, and Dance so insight lands in the body. Whether you’re navigating grief or just tired of insights that won’t stick, this journey offers soul CPR: concepts that orient, practices that regulate, and realizations that arise from your own truth.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and email joya@vibologie.com with “embodied truth” in the subject line to learn more. Your clarity changes more than your life; it ends the war inside and brightens the world you touch.

Join The Held Circle - https://www.theheldcircle.com

You can book a 1:1 session with Joya at https://www.thatmystic.com

SPEAKER_00:

You are listening to That Mystic Podcast, and I am your host, Reverend Joya. This is a show where we talk about all things spiritual remembering, embodying the true nature of who we really are, and talking about the very wild, messy process of rebirthing yourself through grief, loss, or that holy longing that's calling you home. Enjoy the show. Hello, beloved lights and souls, beautiful humans. I've been waking up every morning with these really beautiful, profound insights. And I realize I need to start recording them so that they don't get lost. You know, lost in the ethers of I think I'll remember that, but you never do. But this morning's was something I shared on Instagram, which I usually do share my morning inspirations on Instagram. And this one was really beautiful. And I'm gonna read you what I wrote, and then we're gonna dive deep into this. The insight that dropped in was there is no such thing as enlightened cruelty. And of course, that starts with ourselves, that starts within. To realize that you yourself once projected through your wounds. And you know, sometimes we still do. We're humans. That's why forgiveness is a constant process. It's seeing yourself clearly is the first enlightenment. And to be enlightened is to see that all chaos, confusion, war, separation, division, judgment, and fear come through light projected through the wounds. Every act of harm is a byproduct of confusion, not clarity. And I wrote this the other day in my journal in meditation. Beneath all the hurt and all the carnage is the wound of unexpressed grief. The wound of unexpressed grief. This is why the greatest act of rebellion is to enlighten yourself, because every act of harm is a byproduct of confusion, not clarity. And to see yourself clearly, not through the eyes of your ego, not through the eyes that are judging you, but through the eyes of God, which are witnessing through the soul of you. I've experienced this inner seeing, and it's incredibly humbling and very painful in the realization that it contains. This invites forgiveness of the self, mercy toward the self, so that grace can fill all of the cracks and the broken places within you, so that the living light can flow through you unimpeded by your wounds. All harm comes from confusion and suffering, and you cannot offer others what you have not given yourself. Seeing clearly is the alchemy that turns our suffering into wisdom. It's cultivating a coherent nervous system and heart field. When one stops fighting oneself, light can flow unimpeded, and enlightenment ends othering. That was my post on Instagram this morning, and I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into it because it's really beautiful. And as I'm working on my book, I'm gonna have a call to action about that at the end of this podcast, so stay tuned. And I wanted to dive in a little bit deeper into this topic of enlightenment because now spiritual awakening, talking about spiritual awakening, all the people out there talking about spiritual awakening, is that it's almost starting to sound cliche. Redefining enlightenment from the taking the term enlightenment back from spiritual awakening. Awakening is one thing. Awakening is fun when you first awaken and you're like, wow, oh my gosh, I didn't see what I can see now. Colors are brighter, you move a little bit slower through the world, you become more self-aware, and you start to feel really good. You might tap into more joy inside of you. And I went through this phase a few years ago, and I remember speaking with one of my spiritual mentors, and I was like, I'm doing great. And she's like, say more. And I was, I'm just so happy. Everything is so great. I'm so awake now, and I can see, I can see myself and what I'm doing, and I can choose not to do these things, and and I'm just I'm doing this and I'm doing that, and I just feel so good. Life is so beautiful and amazing. And she just very calmly says, You're experiencing manic bliss. I'll never forget it. I got really mad at her. It's like, who are you to tell me that my joy is not real? And it's not to say that the joy isn't real, it is real. But there's a different level of joy that arises through embodiment. And it is a calm joy. It's not manic bliss, it's it's the joy of sitting outside with a cup of tea and delighting in the colors of the flowers and the hummingbirds and the butterflies that are visiting them, and reacting with excitement when a dragonfly bounces across your path. Just these little things, these little moments of witnessing and noticing, for me, that's what they are. Deeper calm, deeper noticing, deeper joy. And so if we redefine enlightenment as radical self-seeing, then we turn the root of enlightenment back to what it means, to be filled with light. But rather than external illumination or cosmic bliss, it becomes inner visibility first, which is the capacity to see your own humanity without the distortions. And it's lucid self-awareness with mercy. And mercy means you're giving yourself a break for what you witness, because as Lily Tomlin said, one of my favorite quotes is self-realization is not necessarily good news. So when you really come into the truth of your of your wounding, your own wounds, and how you've projected those wounds externally, it's a very painful thing to go through. But when you can go through it with mercy and through the eyes of enlightenment, which aren't your own eyes, that inner illumined nature does not come from the self. It's coming from your soul, that part of you that is eternal, that never dies, that sits somewhere else in the field of all it is. You can call it heaven, you can call it wherever, you can call it right next to God. Whatever your belief is, that's fine. But just tune into the frequency of it, because that's what's shining the light inside of you. That it's that this soul is, I'm just seeing a vision right now. The soul is plugged in directly to the source of light, which gives the soul its light. And then from the soul connected to the source, that light is flowing into you as the living animated intelligence of your body. And you're only as lit up inside by the soul as you yourself will it to be. Because this biological meat suit that we have here on planet Earth, as Tara Brock calls it, our spacesuit, I love that, our spacesuit for getting around on spaceship earth. That as we our conditioned, our conditioned self, our wounded self, disconnects from our soul. And so we create a separation inside of us. And this is where our this deepest wound comes from. This is the self everyone is seeking. This is the reason there's a multi-billion dollar industry built on people seeking. They're all seeking the same thing, and it's the return to this connection to the soul that connects us to our source, that gives us our true power. And every other power that we think we have that comes from our ego and building external altars to our ego in this 3D playground we live in that we all get to build and construct in this 3D printer called Earth that we create in with our frequency. That all of those things, everything built in time, ends in time, but the soul is eternal. And that is what is constantly knocking at the door of your heart. That's what seeks the driving for awakening in the first place. That's what seeks anybody to want to change anything in the first place. And at first we can think that we're so satisfied in our life because we're accomplishing all the things, we're doing all the things, we look the way we want, we're making the money we want, we're traveling where we want, we think we have the friends we want, we're having a good time. It's all about the want. I'm fulfilling all my want, want, wants. Except as you get everything that you think you want, you'll find yourself still empty. How do I know? A, I've been there, and B, I have so many clients that that is their story. And they don't understand why they're not at peace. And what is this thing they're seeking? They're like, I just am seeking something else and I don't know what it is. I know exactly what it is. It's the restoration of your divine nature, your soul self seeking expression through you, not your ego's expression, your soul's expression, your soul's purpose, your soul's meaning for being in a body in the first place. And so that's what this lucid self-awareness is, that you're aware of yourself, to be aware that you're aware, you're aware that you're dreaming, you're aware that you're awake in your life. And that's the gift of plant medicines, but it's also the gift of grief and loss. You don't have to go on a plant medicine journey to have this kind of awakening. You just have to have the courage to turn toward and go into where it hurts. It's not easy. So the light as the consciousness meeting our woundedness, I've talked about this before on another video. But there is a perception that we have that, or that I have, I should say, that everything that is chaos, everything that is destruction, everything that is hurt, hurtful, or what did I write here? Beneath all the hurt and all the carnage is a wound of unexpressed grief. And that underneath all of those wounds, it's because consciousness is being distorted by pain, because you're alive and you're living. And I just heard in my mind pause after that sentence. So let me say that again. Consciousness gets distorted by pain. Because you are light, and light is being projected through you as living, living light. Living light is flowing through you at every single moment that you are alive in this body. There's no exception to that rule, or you wouldn't be alive. There is a living force of source, which is the animating intelligence of all living things. And it's flowing through you in every moment. But if it's flowing through you and it's projecting out through the lens of the wounds, then it's creating wounded distortions onto the field of reality, or this 3D field, rather, that you're playing and creating in. Every act of harm is a byproduct of confusion, not clarity. And I hope that this reframes morality from judgment to understanding, because we don't want to condone this behavior and be like, oh, well, that's why. No. We want to see through to the root cause. And if we can look at our patterns in our life and see the things that hurt us, and these are all very individual and um to each and every one of us, right? What hurts us. You can look within your own family dynamic if you have siblings and how you were raised, and how each of you interpret through the lens of your own perception of reality your own family experience. We're all so perfectly individuated and individual and all part of one unified whole. So when we can see that our wound, our patterns that hurt us, that harm us, are coming through a wounded projection, we can then separate ourselves, like take a step away from the wound instead of being in the pain, we can say, What's the pattern of this pain? And what is it teaching me about my wound? Really profound question to sit and journal and be honest with yourself about. I see this pattern repeating in my life. What is the wound projecting? There's a wound projecting this pattern, and the pattern is not the wound, the pattern is the manifestation of the wound. So it goes into the into whatever that core wound is and asks, and it's asking for healing. What's interesting about these core wounds is that the projections and the manifestations are infinite in form because we are such creative beings, and we're acting out in our own theater and stage of our life and projecting our wounds into our own theater and stage of our life. But every human wound can be traced to a handful of core fractures of belonging, safety, love, and our worth. The wound of separation says I'm alone in the world. The wound of unworthiness says I'm not enough or I'm too much. The wound of shame says if you see me, you'll reject me. Rejection comes from shame. And the wound of betrayal and trust says, I mean, those that love me will hurt me. The wound of powerlessness teaches us I am helpless. The wound of abandonment teaches I am unlovable when I'm not being useful. And the wound of rejection of the self, our own self-rejection, our own exile, says parts of me are unacceptable. But all of these wounds originate from the deep forgetting of mistaking yourself as separate from the love that you are, as the soul plugged into the source, which is pure light and pure love. So when we use enlightenment now turned inward and ask, or not ask, rather, well, we ask for forgiveness, but we also utilize the process of forgiveness on ourselves and mercy toward ourselves through self-kindness, then we reconnect to our inner sight of restoration rather than judgment. Judgment will only create more of that pattern. It's wounding the wounding. Seeing clearly is an alchemy that turns our suffering into our wisdom. And this is how we create a coherent nervous system and heart field and mind field, because when we stop fighting with ourself, light can then flow unimpeded. Grace becomes physiological. It's not a theological experience, it's a physiological experience in which you feel this energy of pure love flow through you. And I describe it as seeing with the eyes of God that see everything about you that you can hide nothing about yourself, and it loves you anyway. It's so powerful to feel it. And that's why I think the greatest act of rebellion I always have is to enlighten yourself. Because awakening is a subversive act against the collective shadow. It's revolutionary in a world that's addicted to projection, blame, othering, division, hate, me against you, you against them, tribalism. And it just gets down smaller and smaller, this division. It gets notched down smaller and smaller on the biggest scales. It's country against country. Or we could even say it's at a bigger scale than that on planet Earth. Continent against continent. And then country against country, state against state, religion against religion, color against, or race against race, sex against sex. Do you see how this like keeps notching down smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller? These but they're all such big divisions that are that create fear. Women afraid of men, men afraid of women. But underneath all of that is I'm afraid of myself. Beneath all of it is a wounded projection of being separated from the light that you are, because this enlightenment that shines on you ends othering. Because it reveals there is no other. The woundedness that I project onto the world, as I forgive myself for this, I forgive others for their woundedness they project onto the world because I can see it so clearly. In the way of mastery, which is what I love to study, it says everything is either a cry for help and healing or an extension of love. And so that's what we're talking about here when we're talking about enlightenment. It's no light subject. Enlightenment is clear seeing, first yourself and then the world. And when we realize that, we take responsibility for ourselves and our projections and our wounds that we're creating within ourselves first. We know when we're creating an experience of shame or blame, regret, hurtfulness, having power over someone else by being mean or whatever it is that you have power over somebody with. True power, true power, comes from love. Peace is true power. It dismantles everything on this planet that says otherwise, but it's the truth. So that's my message for this day, asking you and inviting you to turn inward and just take one thing, one pattern that you notice repeating in your life. Is it relationship patterns? Is it financial patterns? Is it patterns with addiction? Is it patterns with uh neglect? Is it patterns with procrastination? There's all kinds of things. Just look at what patterns are repeating that are causing you pain and then see if you could trace it back and back to where it first started. And you don't even have to do that if you don't want to, because honestly, it doesn't matter. The fact is it's there. So if you don't need, if you don't want to go do an archaeological dig on yourself, you don't have to. Because right now, in this very moment, transformation can occur, or the beginnings of transformation. Transformation is not instantaneous. Your nervous system, your mind, your heart would not be able to handle it. That's why transformation is a slow, gradual process. It happens in the day that you're in. And so if you can look at those patterns and say, I forgive myself for judging myself, I forgive myself for harming myself, I forgive myself for separating myself from my soul. And maybe that's the ultimate forgiveness. And as you say that and put your hand on your heart, I invite you to put your hand on your heart. Close your eyes if you're not driving. And take a deep breath in with you through your belly. Let's take a belly breath in and just take a breath in. Hold it at the top. Feel your breath in your body. Let your shoulders drop. Let your back come straighter. Exhale. And feel yourself in your body for just a moment. Notice what's going on in there. In your tummy, in your heart, in your mind, and just take some deep conscious breaths, not holding them, not excessively deep, but just a nice rhythm of breathing that's deeper than you normally do. And just say, with your left hand on your heart and your right hand over your left, the masculine supporting the feminine to do the work. I forgive myself for judging myself. I forgive myself for being so hard on myself. I forgive myself for demands of perfection. I forgive myself for thinking that my life is anywhere other than where it is right now, in this moment. I forgive myself for separating myself from my soul. And with the tiniest bit, the tiniest bit of knowing that your soul is real, that your soul exists in your body physically as a source of light. And notice as I say those words, where it ignites in your body. I just felt mine ignite when I said that. So with the tiniest bit of knowing that the soul is plugged into you as your true nature. Follow its light up and up, all around you, surrounding you. And you can even take your hands off of your heart and just move your hands around you and envision that your soul light energy is flowing through your connection to your soul, through your heart, down your arms and out of your hands. So you have healing light of source flowing out of your hands. And just move it around you like you're filling in your aura, plugging up those leaks. And ask for the end of the separation. Ask to be guided. Ask to be shown. What in me is asking for my own forgiveness. What in me is asking for attention and love. Trust and invite your soul to bring more light into you, to enlighten you, so that you can be aware of what you are not aware of. Ask for these things to be brought up to the level of your consciousness, your lucid awareness, so that you can see what you cannot see right now. Just ask your soul. And then add the words with ease and grace. Very important. With ease and grace, as much ease and grace as possible, so that the light within me lights everything. So I can see what is asking to be grieved. You can take a deep breath in. Thank your soul in whatever way feels good to you. What a beautiful practice that just completely dropped in and was channeled. And it is grief at the bottom of everything. Grief never goes away. The wound is what covered it up. The wound is unexpressed grief. I want to say that if you feel like you need support, please get support. A coach, a therapist. And tell them what you're doing in this. I don't want your advice. I don't need your help. I just need you to hold space for my grief. So that I feel safe being witnessed and held. Nothing needs healing. The wounds need expression. It's not easy work. I'm not even going to begin to pretend that it is. And that's why a true spiritual awakening is not all manic bliss. Because to be truly enlightened, we have to realize our own core wounds and how they've projected into our own life, forgive ourselves for it, and then express the emotion that is stuck and stored inside the energy of that wound in the body. And that's the work I'm so blessed that I've been doing my whole life, so that when my son passed, that's what I Went to, I knew to do that. And it was everything. It's medicine. Dance it out, voice it out, drum it out, sing it out, art it out, walk it out, nature it out, cry it out, scream it out, throw something against a wall and smash it out. Let that pent-up rage out, not on other people, as a mode of expressing the energy. And the most important thing is that you do this without telling yourself a story about the feelings. Follow the energy of the feeling and let it arise and let it pass away, and you'll feel it. It's like breathing. Everything in nature has a rhythm. Our emotions are included in that rhythm. And this brings me to the original mention at the beginning, this invitation. I'm writing a book about this work, about embodying the truth of who we really are. And I don't even want to call it spiritual awakening anymore because your soul was never asleep. It's just buried. And so this work is about remembering, restoring, and resurrecting your true nature by stripping away the wounds that keep you separated from your true self. And I'm looking for a small cohort of women to walk this journey with me over 14 weeks, and not as students, but as sacred witnesses and co-creators. Because you'll be beta testing this framework, and your experiences and transformations will become part of the book itself. Your stories will help light the way for others who read the book. It's built on four pillars: people, sacred witnesses to hold you through the process where you witness each other. Process, walking through these seven gates of light, a forgiveness to radiance protocol that my son gave me from the other side. And this is so much more than theory. It is literally a living technology. And it's been tested in the laboratory of my own transformation and validated in all of the research I've been doing about it. The third P is practices, embodiment technologies under the acronym I'm Saved, which stands for Inquiry, Meditation, Sound, Art, Voice, Embodiment Practices, and Dance. And the last P is Purpose, which is your own self-authored meaning that emerges from doing this work. We're going to meet four times every two weeks, so twice a week, for teaching the concept, for doing a practice together, and then two sacred witnessing circles with each other. This is deep, messy, beautiful, gut-wrenching, transformational work. And it's not just for those who are in grief, it's for anyone ready to really, really, really do the work to strip away what's false and step into what's real. Grief is only an easier portal, not easier, but you know what I mean, to get into this deep places, these deep recesses within you, because when you're in grief, you are already demolishing your default mode network. And so when this identity structure has been dismantled, it's like all of these old parts of yourself come up to the consciousness to be examined and looked at along with the grief you're already grieving. But if you're not grieving anything consciously, but you are just tired, you've done all the work, you know all the things in your mind, but it's not sticking. And you want to go through this literal soul CPR process, which that downloaded to me this morning. CPR stands for the concept, the practices, and the realizations that you yourself will have. This is deep work. So if you're feeling the call, email me at joya at vibology. It's V-I-B-O-L-O-G-I-E.com with embodied truth in the subject line. And this is a sacred exchange. There's an investment required because your transformation deserves your commitment. And my holding this space definitely deserves sacred reciprocity. I'm starting it in December. And we're going to walk over this over 14 weeks, beginning in December. And I cannot wait to walk this fire with you. Very excited about this offering and having others participate in this work to contribute also to this book will be so invaluable for yourself. And it's also part of one of the things in this process that we're going to walk through: the sacred giving as light, reaching that pinnacle point of your purpose, where you're now giving back and contributing to the transformations of others. And we're all so unique that our individual perspectives and experiences are invaluable. So I can't wait to hear from you. I don't want to have any more than 12 to 14 women walking through this at a time so that we can really come into a tight group together and really document the transformations that you'll all be walking through and hold each other in really sacred space of our becoming. Again, email me Joya, J-O-Y-A at Vibology. It's V as in Victor, I B as in Boy, O-L-O-G-I-E.com. And I look forward to communicating with you about this. I wish you a blessed and beautiful day. Practice forgiveness, mostly for yourself, over and over and over again, and be the change. So much love, everybody. Thank you for listening to that mystic podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and your comments are always so appreciated. As well as if you share the show with someone you think would benefit from the conversation. I invite you to join my email list so you can be the first to know when what I have launching launches, and you can join a community of mystical sisters just like you. Visit that mystic dot com. See you next week. Bye.