From Independence to Wholeness

When I was a singer/ songwriter, I loved driving around the country on my own. I used to compose songs into my tape recorder as I drove (the same one I use now to record readings 🙂 and often had spiritual revelations driving through mile after mile of open space, mountains and wilderness.

That was a great creative period in my life. What I didn’t really see at the time was how much protection I had around me, and how much my identity was build around my distorted concepts of being “independent” and strong.

Sometimes we can get a great healing by revisiting the past. Whether it’s visiting family, an old home or an ex-lover, returning can help us see how we’ve grown as well as helping us call back parts of ourselves we may have forgotten.

Increasingly over the past few months, I have been going through a creative rebirth. I’m thrilled to say that even though I have devoted my life to my creative pursuits in the past, I think my creative energy is higher now than ever before in my life! And it feels like I’m just getting started…

So what has changed in these last few years? Of course, years bring wisdom and for me one of the key shifts has been around updating my concepts of protection and letting go of walls around my heart.

Now, I am discovering a simple alignment with my innate strength, my passion for sharing and the worth of my path, and then opening my heart to co-creation. Truly, there is so much more creative energy available to us individually when we let the Universe dance with us rather than trying to maintain our separateness.

This opening I’m experiencing is even more profound because of all my years of meditation, intuitive training and really “landing” in my body. Before learning how to honor and manage my sensitivity, I wasn’t present enough in my body to have a healthy sense of self, so I think the walls had a purpose. Now, Hallelujah, they don’t! And the party begins.

Because I’m clear on what I’m here for and what I agree to, protection is effortless because I can simply say yes to what aligns with that and “no, thank you” to what doesn’t—whether that means relationships, opportunities, psychic agreements, or daily habits.

Growing up, and certainly before this lifetime, I received a lot of messages that said it wasn’t safe to be feminine, creative, or to shine my light too brightly. I had lifetimes of being controlled, tortured, or burnt at the stake.

This time around, my mother was teased by her brother and controlled by her father, and learned from her mother to say “Yes, dear” and have dinner on the table at 5 o’clock. That may have worked in the ‘40s and ‘50s, but decades later, when she was raising me, women were wanting more yet there were no role models of how to have it.

At that point women went to work and started demanding all the same rights as men. Many women, like my mother, “matched” the male energy of that time to varying degrees, because that seemed like where the power or safety was.

My father grew up poor and had to work hard for what he had, so while he is very creative he felt unable to spend his time that way, nor did he know how to handle his intuitive abilities. Little did he know what he was getting into in having me!

As a bright and shiny little girl I came to him with my paintings and stories and got the message, “Not now, dear, I have work to do.” While he was trying to support us, what I heard was, “Turn down the volume if you want love,” and so I did.

And, we had frequent fire drills and lessons about where to kick a man if he attached me. Again, the intention was to protect but what I got was to be on guard and expect danger… not quite the way I now experience or prefer to be protected, but times are changing!

The night before I left for Colorado I was looking for my maps, and ended up finding old photos from my 9 years of living there. Looking at the photos, I could see so clearly the protection around my body and my energy field, and how it lightened as the years went on.

I had no idea at the time! I kept begging God (or cursing, depending on the day), pleading for love and success but had little idea how I was pushing it away.

Through those nine years I healed myself a lot through singing, dancing and performing. Just to do it and not get burnt at the stake was huge!

That night before I left I also found a home recording of songs I’d written. It was so much fun to listen to that as I drove on this recent trip! I “called back” that creative juice as well as let go of old emotions and attitudes that I heard in the music, or that I remembered as I repeated an old action (taking a road trip). Much of this “calling back” and “letting go” I had already done in spirit, but reviewing the songs, the images, the experience of driving and the geographic terrain really made it REAL for me and has readied me for my next steps.

Since that time in my life I have gotten brighter and shinier and more feminine, so it was almost startling to be out there alone again and see that while according to the old paradigm I might seem like more of a “target,” in fact I had a whole new experience where I felt most free and most powerful—actually SAFER– when I remained shiny and radiant and heart-connected to everyone I met.

Even at the gas station with the bullet holes in the glass in Gallup, NM. Even at the Super-Walmart where families were just getting off work and stocking up on gallons of milk at 11 pm. Even climbing mountains in wilderness with no one in sight.

I recently read an interview with Alberto Villoldo about 2012 in an issue of Awareness Magazine, and was fascinated with these words: “One of the interesting things the Inka say is that there’s “no place in the world” where we’ll be safe. Absolutely no place. But there will be safe people. You can become a safe person.”

I so love and resonate with this, and I am thrilled at having the experience of it. To me it is a feeling of inner wholeness which, on the surface is just a shade away from “independence,” but truly is a world apart.

I know that as more of us find our inner wholeness, and that inherent safety that comes with shining our brightest lights and respecting our worth, the more the world is becoming BEYOND safe… It’s becoming a creative playground and Divine love-fest!

Sometimes it helps to have someone cheer you on. And energy tools such as meditation are indispensable at this time!

If you aren’t sure why you’re here, if your thoughts and feelings merge with other people’s so you’re not sure whose is whose, or if you feel surrounded by negativity and are having trouble keeping your energy up, I have been there and I can support you. It can be scary or the mind can come up with all sorts of excuses why we don’t need help, but what I’ve learned is that the longer you wait the worse it gets and the more it costs- financially, spiritually, emotionally and physically.

Give yourself the support you deserve today!

To your radiance!

Ann

copyright 2009 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.