Ep.15 - Connecting With a Deeper Meaning at Easter to Access Personal and Spiritual Growth.

In this episode, I discuss the energy of this time (Easter) and how we can access the deeper meaning of symbolic endings, beginnings, renewal, and regeneration. 

What You'll Learn:

• The symbolic significance of 'Easter' in collective consciousness
• The energy of this time as a transition
• How the energy of this period can help us transform challenges into soul-alignment
• How ritual, silence, journalling, and contemplation can help us observe this energy to access personal and spiritual growth and transformation.

With love,

Melisa

Coach with Melisa:

Email - 7genproject@gmail.com

Follow the show:

Instagram - @live.differently.podcast

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Music attribution: 

"Wallpaper" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
 Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey and welcome to Live Differently. My name is Melissa. Thank you so much for being here with me today. It is an honour and a joy to be here with you. This weekend is Easter, and in acknowledgement of this period, I'm not publishing an interview this week. This period is a time of collective reflection and meaning, and so I'd like to respect that for all of us. This period of time carries the collective energy of transition. It's a very symbolic period in collective human consciousness, reinforced in our collective memory over thousands of years. Whether we observe this time in a religious sense, it is a time of collective significance as a time of renewal, of endings and beginnings, insight and awareness, lights of knowledge that can show us the truth of what's happening around us. So this is a period that recognizes on some level the cycles of transition in life. As I mentioned, the energy of this time has been symbolically reinforced in our collective memory over thousands of years of human history. It is observed in the Jewish tradition of Passover by the Christian tradition as the death and resurrection of Jesus during the period of Easter, which is itself about new life and harvest, and in the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, maybe as the goddess Ishta, and in Celtic mythology, perhaps as the goddess Owen, the goddess of spring and birth, which is renewal, light and longer days. So this is an incredibly symbolic period for humanity, across cultures, geography, and thousands of years. It's a time for many people when they reflect or they take time to contemplate. And that's certainly what I do. At this time of year, I take time for contemplation in silence and I observe ritual and balance, the balance between activity and silence and contemplation. And that's possible because the energy of this time of year can really support self-examination. Examination of yourself as a sovereign person or a sovereign spirit, if you use those terms, and reflection on the part of you that is you, distinct from the personality that has been developed by society, by the society that you live in, the things that you've been taught, or the experiences that you've had up until now, which has come together to help to form the person that you identify with as your personality. So it's connecting to the part of you that is who you know yourself to be, who you are beyond the things that you identify with, such as your job or the various hats that you wear in the different roles that you carry through life, or the different roles that you embody or you inhabit in your life. And it's reflecting on who you're becoming. So it's a time that gives opportunity to reflect on who you're becoming, the life that you're creating for yourself, as you step into a more soul-aligned life and transition into something new, a new way of being or a new way of doing, a new way of experiencing yourself in your life. And so the energy of this time invites us to acknowledge, to see, and to recognize the old versions of ourselves so that we can shed what we've outgrown in order to make way for the new to enter our lives. As we reflect or contemplate, we're invited to understand the challenges that we are experiencing in our lives and to see how these challenges can inform and transform us. How these challenges can inform who we are and what we're going through, what we're experiencing, and transform that experience, that sense of knowing, our sense of self into who we are becoming, into the person that we're becoming that is connected deeply to who we are on a very deep and authentic level of ourselves beyond the roles that we're playing in life. And so we're invited to see how our challenges can help us to grow in different ways and how those challenges can develop us in new ways, ways that we would not have been able to recognize and grow from if those challenges were not presented to us or if those challenges were not present in our lives. The period that we're in really helps us to see ourselves in a new way and to see our life in a new way. And in reflecting on those experiences, reflecting on the experiences of our lives or our challenges, we develop our consciousness in a way that begins to reflect these new insights or these new ways of knowing. And so reflection can shed light on the situation in a way that helps us to recognize a new truth so that we can move from what's inauthentic, what's been conditioned or what we've kind of gone along with, to what's more authentic for us as a sovereign being. The energy of this period gives you an opportunity to reflect on how you are at this moment in your life and how you can work with the challenges in your life to help you learn about yourself, to know who you are, and to shed light on the new way forward, on how you can move forward in a new way. And so opening to the energy of this period opens you to a sense of renewal, it recognizes endings and beginnings, and it gives us the opportunity to reflect on the challenges that are showing up in our life, maybe the things that are ending, and it gives us a chance to find ourselves in this moment so that we can know ourselves better, so that we can learn more about who we are and learn from the things that are presenting to us as challenges in our lives. And so, in looking at that sense of renewal, beginnings and endings, we recognize that life itself is always in transition. We are part of life, and so that means that we also are always in transition. And if you just look at us as a physical being, at the cellular level of our being, even ourselves are constantly renewing. So we ourselves are constantly in this regenerative cycle. We just don't notice it because it's beyond our awareness. It's happening in our body at a subconscious level. But this period in time that we're in invites you to develop awareness, to see things in a new way, to recognize what has ended and what is beginning, to see the transitions in life. And as we look at life, we can actually see those natural transitions in life between the day-to-day, between day to night, season to season, in those natural cycles of life that we're also a natural part of. And so right now some of us are experiencing very big transitions. When something old is ending, but we find ourselves sitting in the in-between space of a new part of our life that hasn't yet happened. And so when something has ended but something new has not yet begun, the space in the middle, that in-between space, can feel very dark, it can feel very lonely, it can feel like we can't see our way out. If that's where you are, if you're in that in-between space where something has ended, but something new has not yet begun, you're actually in this really incredible and beautiful space of regeneration. Something new is coming up for you and growing and transforming in your life. And if that's where you are, then I invite you to check in with that. But at this time of year, I do that check-in through ritual, silence, journaling, and contemplation. So let's walk through those four things together. Rituals are important indicators. Quite often, when things come around in life that we recognize as cyclical or certain events or dates come up that we associate with certain patterns or things that have significance to us, our minds and our bodies signal that recognition to us. And so rituals communicate to our mind and our body, our emotions and our spirit, that we recognize and respect the energy that's coming up for us individually, or that is part of what's going on for us all collectively. Rituals are a way that we can honor the moment that we find ourselves in, and that we can ground ourselves in these experiences of life that are cyclical, repetitive, so that we can find ourselves in the moments that we're in. Connects us to something that is continuing but is greater than who we are, anchors us in life, if you will. Silence can be practiced through meditation, prayer, walking in nature, being present in the moment, so mindfulness, and connecting with an energy that's greater than ourselves, whatever that is for each of us. And if you're working through a particular challenge in your life, you can meet yourself on the page in silence and connect with how you're doing physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. So connect with all of those aspects of ourselves, the different way that we experience life and we express ourselves in our life and see where we're at with those different aspects of ourselves. So if you want to do this as a practice, put me on pause and go and grab yourself a journal or a notebook and meet me back here, or just listen through and you can go back and repeat this part if you want to go and do this in a more practical way. What you're going to do now is you're going to ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, how am I physically? On a scale of 1 to 10, how am I emotionally? On a scale of 1 to 10, how am I mentally? And on a scale of 1 to 10, how am I spiritually? This is where the contemplation comes in. So you can begin to see that there's a process here in our process of self-awareness, of self-discovery, of endings, of new beginnings, of renewal and regeneration. And so, in the context of the period that we find ourselves in, this time in our life, in the year, in the cycles of life that we find ourselves in, for some people, contemplation can be about what this period represents in certain traditions. It's also about connecting to a higher meaning or a deeper meaning and forming or informing, transforming new insights beyond what's happening around us, beyond what's external to us, and what's happening inside us, beyond how we have been conditioned to be. So who we are at the core of our being, as our whole, complete, eternal, internal soul, spirit, being. So through contemplation, we're able to bring in a greater awareness about a situation or about our life, an awareness that is beyond the conditioned reactions or habits, and really take a look at our lives or into the challenges in our lives for the greater truth of the situation, for a greater knowledge and awareness of what's going on around us and what's going on inside us. If we go back to the exercise that we just did, where we checked in with our physical, our emotional, our mental, and our spiritual state to develop this understanding, this self-awareness, this new truth, I want you to look at the different areas that you scored. Notice the areas of yourself where you rated the highest scores and acknowledge that. This is where the contemplation comes in. And ask yourself what challenges you are experiencing in that part of your life where you didn't rate yourself as high as the other areas in your life. So what's going on? Write that down if you're doing the writing exercise, or just notice it in your thoughts and your mind as we're talking right now. Then ask yourself what's really going on. And after you've done that, ask yourself why this is happening. Why are you experiencing this challenge or this situation? And then, as we just did, you're going to ask yourself why this is really happening. What is this challenge trying to communicate to you? What is it trying to tell you or teach you about yourself or your life or the experience that you're having, the challenge that you're having, whatever that might be for you at this moment. So, in doing the exercise of what's what's happening or what's really happening, why is this happening? Why is this really happening? This process helps to connect us with the thinking part of our mind and the part of us that's a little deeper. It connects both of those parts of ourselves and it gives us a way to tap into those parts of ourselves as different ways that we express ourselves and know ourselves. As you do this contemplation, see if you experience any insights, if you can begin to see something about yourself or about your life, about your challenge, in a new light. You might see your experience in a new way or come to a new understanding about yourself or your challenge or your experience. That insight invites you into something new. It offers a renewed understanding of ourselves or of our situation. And that new understanding or that new awareness can be reflected in a new way, in terms of the way, new ways that we see our lives, or new ways of doing things, or as a way that we can bring something new into our life or live in a different way. It might bring an awareness of how we can experience life in a different, more aligned, authentic way. And these insights can really light the path for something new to arise, something new to emerge, a new beginning, a renewal. I want to acknowledge you and the insights that you're developing during this period. From me and my home to you and yours. I wish you much love, peace, and understanding as you move through your week and as you grow through this period of time. I look forward to meeting you back here next Friday. Until then, bye for now. Live Differently is made on unceded Warundry Land in Melbourne, Australia. It's an independent production of the Seven Generations Project, founded and led by its host. Live Differently is possible because of our listening community. My thanks to all who listen and give by sharing and supporting the show. Alright, one more thing. The information shared in this podcast is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed are based on personal experience, research and perspectives in the area of health, spirituality, and alternative living. This podcast does not provide medical, mental health or professional advice, and nothing discussed should be used as a substitute for consultation with a qualified healthcare or licensed professional. If you have a medical question, health concerns, or are considering making changes in your life or wellness routine, please seek guidance from a licensed healthcare professional or local provider or local professional who can address your individual needs. By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are responsible for your own health decisions and well being. Awesome. I'll see you next time.