18: How Do We Remember Who We Are?

Transcript

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You didn't come here to simply survive. You came here to thrive. To reconnect and to remember who you truly are. Welcome to the Return to Her podcast, where we uncover the knowledge that empowers us and discover the wisdom that's always been inside! Here, we blend spiritual insights modern psychology, and embodied wellness practices to help us realign all aspects of our being, body, mind, and soul. This is where science meets spirituality and true wellness becomes our way of life. I'm Cassie Dalton, yoga teacher, energy worker, holistic coach, and intuitive guide. While I'm still walking my own wellness and spiritual path, my mission now is to walk beside you as you return home to your most authentic and empowered self. Now is the time to return to her. The content shared in this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a qualified professional for any personal health or wellness concerns. Now let's dive in to today's episode. Hello and welcome back into the podcast. I wanted to follow up just for a moment on last week's episode before we jump into the topic that I feel called to talk about today. So I just wanted to take this quick moment to clarify something that I said. I shared the idea that we don't really have, quote unquote problems spiritually speaking, that we are not broken and we don't need to fix ourselves. And after I recorded that, I. My husband, who is my number one fan, he brought up a really good point. He said, but what about addiction or really serious issues? Those are problems that need to be fixed and a way not wrong, it's just a matter of. The wording that we choose to speak about these things. So on a human level, yes, there are things that come up in life that can be really hard, that can be really devastating, that can create a lot of suffering for ourselves, for other people, we do face real challenges in our physical and mental health and our relationships and our habits. But what I meant about not having any problems. Is that on a soul level, from a spiritual perspective, these challenges aren't proof that we are somehow broken or damaged. They are not validation of our unworthiness. They are. Invitations. They are teachers. They show us where we need more awareness, where we need more care, more compassion, more connection with ourselves, our souls, our God. So instead of thinking about it like striving to fix something within ourself, what if we thought of it like surrendering to what is presenting itself to what life is asking of us in this moment? What if we saw the challenges not as problems, but as part of our path? The path that leads ultimately to deeper awareness of our own wholeness, greater alignment with our own soul, and ultimately a closer relationship with our source, with spirit, with God, which is what this human life is all about. So this idea that we don't have problems to fix, but rather experiences to learn from on our path, it is actually a profound reframe that can help open us up to deeper healing, to more self-compassion and greater growth and expansion. And it really does align with the teachings of my teacher, Sri Kali from India, that so much of our suffering, suffering comes from. Illusion and attachment, as well as the disconnection from divine energy. When we release our attachment. And our need to control outcomes and events and relationships, we start to reconnect more with our intuition. We start to reconnect more with our soul, and we come back to God. And when we do those things, the heaviness of our quote unquote problems dissolves. And they can start to transform, we can transmute them. Um, there are a lot of non-dual philosophies such as EDTA ante, which is what I study. And the idea in these philosophies is that everything that happens to us, everything that we experience and go through is ultimately part of a divine unfolding. It's not something that's gone wrong or proof that we are bad or unworthy. Uh, there are a lot of more modern trauma informed wellness approaches also that see symptoms of, of things that we're going through physically, mentally, as intelligent responses of our body, our mind, our nervous system, not an indication of brokenness. And then also. Uh, there's a trend in modern psychology now, which is increasingly leaning into post-traumatic growth and inner re-parenting rather than the idea of fixing So. This reframe of thinking of our challenges or obstacles that come in front of us, not as problems that need to be fixed, but as opportunities that allow us to grow and ultimately connect back with ourselves, our source. That is really, really powerful and that's what I was trying to, trying to express, trying to share, and if it came out in a way that felt hurtful or dismissive. I apologize. That was not my intention. I'm not trying to deny anybody's pain, yours or mine. Like I said, we're all going through it as human beings. I'm not trying to bypass real human suffering because it is very real to us in this creation. I'm simply offering a more empowering lens, I hope, and allowing us to remember that our, our happiness, our joy. And our suffering ultimately we have that internal locus of control to decide if we are going to allow something to affect us or if we are going to continue to hold true to what we know on a soul level. I don't believe that we're broken. I don't believe that we need to fix ourselves. Life isn't about solving ourselves our problems. It's about meeting ourselves and learning from our challenges, because every challenge is an invitation to come into that deeper alignment with the soul, to learn, to grow, to expand, to care for ourselves more fully, and enable us to care for others more authentically. And the moment that we stop trying to fix all of our problems and fix ourselves, that is when the deepest healing actually begins, because we come into greater alignment with God and with soul. So that's what I was trying to express, and again, if that didn't come through, thank you for returning this week so that I could clarify. And now today, I just had a few more thoughts that I wanted to. I put out there, um, just because I felt, again, I, I have to just say this. This was one that started coming through when I was thinking about all of the, uh, all of the different ideas and outlines that I have for episodes. None of them felt like they were resonating. And then this started to pour through as I was journaling. So I just wanted to start today's episode officially by reading from a card deck that I got. I know you guys that do reiki with me, you often will see these Oracle decks that I use. I've got so many and I love them all. Um, but I just got a new one. Hold on. Let me see what the name of it is. Okay. The new card deck that I got recently, it's called the Angel Numbers Deck. And I just wanna say this, um, first of all, I didn't draw a card randomly. I have a set of numbers that comes through often. I'm not gonna say what that is. I think the only person who knows other than me is my husband. But I decided to search through this deck and find that particular set of numbers that comes through. Um, well, it's just one, it's three digits. Um, but anyway, I pulled that card and read it and I just wanted to share it with you guys because you might also resonate with this. I know this definitely made sense to me, but I wanted to read it for you guys as well. So these are my numbers, and again, I'm not gonna say them because they're private, but the message that's coming through is. That these numbers respond to being a lightworker. You are being called upon. Your angels call upon you to use your spiritual development to inspire others. You possess the gifts of spirit to remind people that their higher power rests inside them. The time is now to make changes in your life work so as to carry out this divine calling. Reflect on how you can contribute to the healing of the world around you. And considering what you guys know of me, I think that we could agree that that's pretty darn spot on. Uh, what I wanted to do, just to be special for you guys, is I wanted to draw a random card now from this same deck. So I'm just gonna ask that, um, we received the card that whoever is listening to today's episode might need to hear. And I'll read that to you in just a moment. Okay, so the, uh, the card that came through, I'm gonna say the numbers. The numbers might not mean anything to you at all, but really it's the message that's important. But just in case you ever decide to get this particular card deck, you can look this up on your own if you want. So the numbers are 1, 5, 1. And the message is, make magic. Your desires are in your hands. Your angels say The time is now to create your future. The things that you want are not just going to happen on their own. You'll need to create them. The steps you take today. Have a direct link to what happens to you in the future. Sit in a quiet spot and take five deep centering breaths. As you inhale, envision supportive energy flowing into you. As you exhale, know that what you want, wants you. So let's do that. Let's take five deep breaths just to help us to feel this energy that's trying to come in. Remembering, as you inhale, you're allowing that supportive energy to flow into you. And as you exhale, you know that whatever it is that you want also wants you in return. And we'll just take one more breath in and out to receive whatever healing happened for you. And that time and space that you just gave yourself. That's, I have no idea if that was five breaths for you. I'll be honest. Um, I've gone to a yoga class before as a student, and the instructor would always say while we're in a pose, all right, hold this for five breaths. And I haven't finished my first inhale before we get out of the pose. So I'm not sure what other people mean as. Five breaths. Um, but I hope that gave you a, a moment anyway, to pause and to feel that supportive energy that was coming through. All right, so what I was writing in my journal that I wanted to share with you all today, I. Is just a pretty short and sweet message actually, and it's probably things that I've already said before in this podcast, but I feel like it doesn't really matter. You don't have to say something new if you say something true. That's what I'm going with. So my message for you all and for myself, because this is for all of us. We are here to remember who we are, not who we've been conditioned to believe that we are. Uh, and we've been conditioned all of our lives since the moment we were born through our parents. Even though they had well intentions, most of them did. we've been conditioned through our teachers, through our religious institutions, through societal messages. Our experiences, basically from the moment we've been born up until this point, conditions have been placed upon us that have shaped how we see the world and who we believe it is that we are, so every single experience that you've had that you reflect back on that has shaped who you are, that has been an interpretation based on your perspective, based on your lens, based on the beliefs that you've been taught, the values you have been programmed into you. And I'm not saying that those things are necessarily bad, but what I'm saying is. That's not exactly who we are. and that might not be who we came here to be. It's, it's just the persona or the character that we have. Built based on all of those conditioned beliefs and messages and interpretations of our experiences. So who you are right now might very well be simply a persona that you created, not necessarily the essence of who you truly are and who your soul is calling for you to be. And if you're listening to this podcast, I think that that's a pretty good indication that you like me, like all of us. Ultimately, we're here to wake up to who we really are and wake back up to our relationship with the divine, with source, spirit, God, whatever you call that, we are here to shed all of those layers of not me. And get back to the essence of who we truly are and when we are aware of this, when we are aware that this is possible, that first of all, we are probably walking around as a character of sorts playing in this play, but we're not actually being who we truly are. When we become aware of this, then. We can start to use the experiences that we're going through, the challenges, the relationships that we are engaging in. Everything becomes our teacher. Everything points back to the truth of who we are, or we can stay asleep. That's the other option. We can start to wake up to who we really are and use the experiences around us as teachers, or we can stay asleep and use those same experiences, those same challenges, those same relationships, to validate and to reinforce our conditioned beliefs that have shaped who we believe ourselves to be. Through that egoic self-limiting lens. So that's our choice every day to take the things that come in front of us and observe them, and then allow them to either teach us who we are not, or to reinforce who we falsely believe that we are. I don't know. Did you guys just hear me flip the page in my journal? I hope so. So how do we become more aware and more awake to God? How do we become more aligned with our soul and our higher self? If that is our journey, if that's what we are here to do, for those of us that choose to do it in this lifetime. And I wrote down a list of the things that I think are really the most important things to help you do this. Um, the first one I wrote down is meditation, because that has changed my life, my concept of self and my concept of who God is and my relationship with God more than anything else. But I, I might have to readjust that in a moment. So gimme just a moment. Bear with me. So the first thing I wrote down was meditation. And it can be any type of meditation. I don't know if you guys have looked into meditation, but there are just about as many ways to meditate as there are styles of yoga as there are individuals on this earth, basically, because we all find our way that works for us. For me, what I've found is a certain style of meditation. That works to help us understand who we are and to understand source. Um, so for me it has been Japa meditation. And if you're not familiar with that term, Japa simply means that you are reciting a mantra. And typically with Joppa you might see people that are into spirituality. They have, maass their necklaces that have different styles of beads on them. Those of you that come to my yoga classes, you've probably seen. I have different maass that sometimes I'll wear with me to yoga, because they're full of really great energy because of all the choppa that I've done with them. But, um, typically it's 108 repetitions. That's how many beads you have on your mala, and you just simply go through, repeat your mantra. And then you move to the next bead to repeat the mantra again, and that's how you keep count. So that's what I mean by japa meditation and with Japa meditation. This mantra repetition. Basically, you are feeding your soul these vibrations that are very intentionally designed to purify, to connect with different aspects of. Divine Source Energy, Shakti, we also call it. and that's what's worked for me. I've studied with a teacher who has very specific mantras that come from palm leaves. And I'm not gonna share those with you guys as a general audience, but please feel free to reach out if you want to learn more about that. I'm happy to work with you one-on-one, on choppa meditation. But really what you can do, because this is very unique and individual for each person, the way that we connect with God is going to be a little bit different because we're all different. We're all different fingerprints of the divine. So it makes sense that we connect differently. So just look into meditation if you're curious or if you wanted to schedule a call with me and we can go through different types of meditation that might work for you. Because I've tried a lot. I've learned a lot, and I teach a lot of different styles. So meditation has been by far the most important thing in my life that has helped me learn how to connect with myself, how to clear. The monkey mind, how to quiet that noise down and kind of. Uh, not push it off to the side in like a resisting way, but just let it settle out away from my awareness so that I can connect more deeply with source energy. the other thing, the next thing that I wrote down is conversation with God. And I don't even like to use the word prayer anymore because I feel like there has been some sort of a, a convolution or, or. A twisting of the word prayer. There's maybe a negative connotation with it, with, with some people. Um, but for me, it's not prayer, it's conversation. I am in constant conversation with the divine, constant conversation with my higher self. I believe that those two things are linked very closely. So to have conversation with God, however you see God, however you connect with that idea. be in conversation. And it doesn't have to be at the end of the day. It doesn't have to be only when you need help or only when you want something. It is like you're speaking with your best friend and you know that your best friend wants the absolute best for you. So you're speaking from a place of truth and honesty and sincerity. Just speaking from that place of love and connection and open-heartedness with God that is another way of course to start to get out of the programming, the conditioning that we have. Found ourselves in, in return again, to who we truly are and who we came here to be. Uh, the next thing I wrote down is similar to conversation and prayer, but gratitude to have gratitude for everything that's going on in your life. And like I talked about last week and a little bit at the beginning of today's episode. No matter what is going on in your life, good or bad, you don't have to label it first of all, but just receive the things that are unfolding for you as a gift from the divine to help you get to your next level, to help you expand in your awareness and your consciousness to help you grow your soul, and and deepen your relationship with the divine. So having gratitude for what's happening in your life. Every day that can be part of your conversation with God is simply, thank you for this. Thank you for that. Uh, let that be part of your everyday vocabulary. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And see how that might shift things for you. next leaning into your intuition. This is one that for me, I rejected for quite a long time because I felt like maybe it was not real. I couldn't prove it. my mind was telling me that logic and analysis. And trying to control outcomes was the way to go, because that's how I was programmed. That's how we are programmed in Western society. so leaning into your intuition, your gut feeling, your inner knowing without having to justify it or explain. Why or how? You know something, but simply, you know, because you know, and that's enough for you, and also not just your gut feeling and that inner knowing of you just know because you know, but following your joy and your excitement, that is also part of leaning into your intuition and connecting with your soul. Because when something lights you up, when something sets you on fire, that's a pretty darn good indication that. Your soul is calling you to that thing, and that's why you have all that energy and that excitement around it. So following things that bring you joy and excitement is a way of aligning with your soul, trusting yourself once you have made a decision, or once you have leaned into your intuition. Don't let the doubt creep in. That's the ego. That's the thinking mind. That is the chatter that we are trying to let quiet down. So don't feed the monkey. Just trust yourself and continue on knowing that God will support whatever it was that you decided. If it's in alignment, if it is for your higher good, you don't have to doubt it. Um, the thing where I said meditation was the first thing I wrote down, but I might have to, to change something. The next thing I wrote on my list is movement and breath work. And if you think of the eight limbs of yoga, well we have basically like guidelines for how to live your life. And then we have yoga Asana, which is. The, the movement part of yoga, it's where we go and do our poses and practice the breath work. That's only the second of eight limbs of yoga. And then it further develops into, withdrawal of the senses and concentration and meditation and ultimately melting back into that God consciousness. but movement and breath work really do help. You learn how to become a better meditator. because when you are moving, especially in intentional ways like we do through yoga, and when you're focusing on your breath and the ways that we do in yoga when you're doing these things, it's helping to regulate your nervous system, and it's allowing you to become more and more grounded in the present moment. Which leads to the ability to stay longer in your meditation without getting disturbed, without getting distracted, without getting uncomfortable in your body, without your mind running away, like a little chattering monkey. So using movement and breath work practices intentionally will help you become a better meditator, which helps you to. Connect with source energy and have greater conversations and prayers, have more gratitude, have more ability to trust in your intuition. So, movement and breath work are really, really, they're like cornerstones. They're keytones for everything else. That's why I am so passionate about yoga, practicing it, teaching it, helping other people learn how to. Feel good in their own bodies because it leads to these other aspects of connecting with soul and source. and that also leads to the idea of taking care of the human body, thinking of yourself, maybe not in a negating way, but just recognizing that. While we're in these human bodies, these meat suits, as some people will call them, we are actually animals. the body Just like any other animal in nature needs proper nutrition. It needs proper hydration. It needs proper exercise. It's gotta move in order for it to be healthy. Uh, it needs a certain amount of sleep and we can't neglect these things. These things are really important in our spiritual journey because when we take care of the body, that allows the soul to do what is here to do. When we deny and neglect the body, the soul doesn't have as much power to do what it came here for. So taking care of your body. Like you would take care of your favorite pet, or if you have children, knowing that children have certain needs, they need good food in order for their brains and their bodies to develop. They need sleep They need hydration, they need to exercise. You know these things when you're looking at someone you love or an animal even. You know what they need and you provide it for them. So provide it for yourself for that reason of connecting more and more with your soul, so your soul can come out and do what it's here to do now that it's got a stronger and healthier vessel. and the final thing that I wanted to mention today. Not just taking care of your body, but taking care of your mind. What are you feeding your mind? What are you watching on tv? What are you looking at when you're scrolling on social media? What are you feeding that monkey that lives there? Are you feeding it? Things that it's gonna throw around and throw at you and bring up to create more anxiety or more grief, or more jealousy? Or are you feeding your mind with things that matter, something that will help you to become more aware, more conscious, more expanded, do what makes you happy, but recognize the impact those things have on your mind when you make your decisions, and then choose accordingly. I wanted to that that was all that I had written down for the things that I feel are most important right now, or at least the things that are coming through that I just wanted to take a moment to express. So at the end of our episode today, what I invite you to do, if you are at a safe place where you can do this, is to. Sit down. If you're standing, if you have a moment that you can sit down, or if you're driving, obviously you might pause this and wait until you are parked safely in your driveway. but allow yourself to sit down and just get still for a moment. Allow the surface beneath you to really support the weight of your body. Allow the sensation that is holding you. That you were being held, that you don't have to try. You don't have to do anything. Just allow yourself to be held for a moment. Here I, and while you are being held, while you're feeling your body get a little heavier. Let's take a deep breath in through the nose. And out through the mouth and through the nose, out through the mouth. One more time, and through the nose and out through the mouth. Continue to feel yourself being held by the support beneath you. And send your awareness up into your forehead, around your eyebrows, in between your eyes. Allow that area to get soft, almost like melting wax. And then send your awareness up into the crown of your head. Almost like that part of your skull is just gently opening up, allowing source energy to flow into you. And as we are feeling open here across our forehead and through our crown, simply ask. Who am I? Show me the truth of who I am. Who I came here to be. What am I believing in that is not true? What am I carrying that is not mine? Allow me now to release what no longer serves my true self and the calling of my soul. I am ready to step into greater alignment with my higher self and with God, and so it is. You can continue to sit here asking these questions to yourself. Opening up to divine inspiration for as long as you like, and this is where I will gently sign off for today. Thank you so much for joining me. Remember, you are already whole. You already have everything you need within you. We simply need to return and I'll see you next week when we return to her. Namaste.

Cassie Dalton 36:18

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