Oh hi!
This is my Friday 💌 to you.
In the spirit of all the much-needed whistleblowing happening right now, I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring…
As far as I’m concerned, the biggest scam going around right now is that you are flawed and need to be made perfect.
Another way to say this is that you are not enough and need to prove yourself.
That you are broken and need fixing.
That you are half and need to be made whole.
Is this true?
It certainly *feels* like it’s true for most of us (especially those on some sort of healing or self-growth journey).
But is it really…
To get to the bottom of this scam we need to get our magnifying glass out and put on our investigator hat. 🔎
First, let’s check in with the sentence:
“You are broken and need to be healed.”
Who is this “you” that we are talking about?
To get to the bottom of this question it’s been very helpful for me to separate my “self” into two parts:
The first is the Capital S Self.
This is the eternal, unchangeable, and whole self that some people call the true self or higher self or real self. We could also call this the soul or Divine self.
And then we have the lower case s self.
This is the temporary, evolving, fractured self, the base self, the self that’s constructed by you thinking about yourself. We could also call this the Ego self or the human self.
Why is this important to differentiate these selves?
It’s important because when we don’t we can confuse the two and that leads us to feel, well, confused.
And I’m not talking “where did I put my keys” confused. I’m taking “what’s the point of my existence” confused. And there’s a lot of that going around right now.
(Hey, I know I’m not talking about anything new here. What I want to do in my writings is to talk about esoteric/spiritual topics in a way that makes everyone – I’m talking about all those fragmented parts or “alters” that make up your small s self – inside that beautiful head of yours relax.)
By now you have already guessed that when we casually speak about parts of us needing “healing” we’re talking about that second self - the ego-self.
So in a way, we can say, yes it’s true - your ego-self IS broken and does need healing.
At the same time, we can say, no it’s NOT true - your Divine Self is NOT broken and does not need healing.
Surprise! It’s BOTH/AND.
You feeling me?
So, what are the challenges we’re facing if we’re on a spiritual/healing journey?
These challenges are kicking our small s self’s butt at the moment because on a planetary level the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, Climate crisis, and Pandemic (to name a few) have put us in a mega WAKEUP mode. (And to be clear, by this I mean, we are collectively, in our own ways, realizing the old “power-over” systems are NOT working.)
These are just a few ways we’re being challenged:
We live in a culture that has us incessantly identifying with our ego-self. (Labels, titles, weight loss, social followers etc, etc)
We live in a culture that primarily promotes binary structures. (This means Spiritual self OR Ego self. Higher or Lower. Perpetrator or Victim.)
We are told to Ascend into a higher spiritual realm (New Age) or Sacrifice ourselves (Christianity) and that can lead to a lot of spiritual bypassing and refusal to integrate our shadow selves and do the real work.
There are a lot of “false prophets” out there, both in the more traditional religious institutions and in the New Age movement that are making money and gaining power right now in dangerous, trauma-perpetrating, and unethical ways.
We are fed conflicting information by social media algorithms.
We are waking up to the insane amounts of ancestral, collective, planetary, and individual trauma that live inside us.
The self help industry is a $10B a year operation that benefits from you feeling less than.
Uh oh! Realizing this can feel scary and overwhelming, but right now we need to take heart and look at this place with clear eyes and face it all if we’re going to be whole and thriving!
Now what?
So then we need to be like, OK, to totally simplify the sh!t out of the human experience we can say:
There’s an invisible operating system (colonialism, pop culture, hetero-patriarchal religion, unconscious capitalism, ancestral wounds) that tells me to identify with my self (Ego self) that also tells me I’m broken and need healing.
And the solutions offered are often on a small s self level.
But the people that find me have already figured that out by now.
If you’re anything like me you want THE REAL ANSWERS!
That’s what I want to offer you today. Some hard-earned WIS-to-the-DOM from my heart to yours.
The truth is that you are a Self and a self.
And it’s OK to work at the self level.
But to have true peace we need to focus on and begin to identify with the Self level.
I finally understand why Christians always talk about the “Eternal Life”. It’s a hint to align with something bigger…
But I am not OK with toiling away here until I finally get to die and get that Eternal Peace I’ve been yearning for.
I want that NOW. Because as far as I understand it, the Eternal Peace is available to me now, here while in a physical body AND also when I’m dead and no longer in physical form.
THANK YOU LIFE!
After 17 years of giving the healing path MY ALL I’ve had moments of the one thing that I’ve dreamed of my entire life. To feel peace inside this body and to be in here with the presence of peace and what I identify as “God” — the Love that created me, sustains me and ultimately IS me.
In short, God gave me the cosmic WiFi password and it’s:
Slow-d0wn-breathe-TRUST-everything-cry-pr@ctice-self-compassion&self-love-cultivate-b0undaries-center-!n-the-he@rt-1111
When I’m able to plug in the “password” my ego-self gets aligned with and enveloped by my Divine Self.
When I do the old limiting programming of “I’m broken” I do not unlock peace.
But you know what, there’s nothing wrong with the Ego. You were created like this on purpose. The ego structure is an important part of the Forgetting (I’ll talk more about it in a future article).
Thus, our assignment is simple — but not easy.
We need to switch from identifying with the Ego self to primarity identifying with the eternal Divine Self.
But that said, the Ego-self gets to come too and be totally loved, accepted and aligned with the Divine self.
Because I’ve found that true peace and a feeling of trust and flow comes when they both co-exist together in the heart and there’s nothing else to desire or strive for, because everthing you’ve ever wanted is: Right. Here. Within.
Here is a prayer to remember what’s Real in the midst of all the chaos:
I was created in Perfection.
My world-conditioned self aligns with my Divine Self and unites in the LOVE that we ARE.
I am whole, good, and just right. I AM.
I allow myself to breathe into my heart and flow outward and connect into the beautiful, safe energy that’s flowing all around me.
Love is the Beginning and the End.
And NOW is my time to BE the LOVE I AM - no matter what the world looks like on the “outside”.
I am part of nature and nature reminds me of who I am.
I breathe in and I breathe out.
When pain comes, I activate Grace and Compassion.
I don’t have to save anyone but my self. And even that’s taken care of, I only have to remember that.
It’s OK not to know.
My grief is sacred. My tears are sacred.
I take one step at a time. The path appears before me with each step.
I’m never alone.
God/Goddess/Life speaks to me through intuition and inspiration.
Help will appear when I need it.
All is well.
I hope this was helpful. Let me know! I LOVE to hear from you.
Mwah!
Karna
P.S. For those of you deep in this process. I bow to you in gratitude and respect. It can be very dark at times, so I invite grace and self-compassion for you, no matter what is up for you.
Bonus Resource 💫
Lucky for us there are people in this world now who have done the absolutely humbling, brutal, unglamorous, and earthshattering work that it takes to become Truth and Love in Action. I look forward to sharing more of their work with you in the future.
For now, I will share my two favorite articles by my client, mentor, and friend Bethany Webster that’s helped me beyond words on my journey. Bethany speaks about the process of aligning with your Self as Discovering the Inner Mother. In my experience, Inner Mothering (and healing the Mother Wound) is a game-changing practice that has the potential to heal the root of the triggers and pain.
💜 Here are two of my favorite articles by Bethany 💜
The importance of endurance discomfort for the sake of transformation.
Female assertiveness - Stop resolving the tension.