Angel Insights - February Edition

I'm in many spaces where people speak about joy as resistance, rest as resistance. As you read this email, I invite you into witnessing the space of inner resistance with your own self rather than trying to conceptualize all of it that we are seeing in the world right now. Just for this moment as you read.

Where are there places within you that feel like a fight? What are the things that you've left unsaid, places that you are shrinking or waiting or controlling even? I have found over time that one of the most potent acts of internal equalization is acknowledgement. We are so underacknowledged for who we are in most spaces in our world, and I'd argue to say that the place it happens most is in our own minds. We discount our contributions, accomplishments, and innate value. 

No shade or shame. We are taught to do that in many ways. It is often mislabeled as humility. If you put yourself down, they call you humble, and it can often even be a tactic of getting more external validation. True humility requires a strong sense of self, though. That's the big secret! It's also sometimes wrongly called strength. I cannot count the amount of times I've heard someone say that they don't need praise for whatever it is they've brought to the table. Very infrequently, though, is that because the person already knows in their bones how valuable they are. Often, it is a flimsy attempt to look too tough to need to be seen, a pretty innate human need if you ask me.  

This is not an affirmation, per say. Although, if this email makes you want to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how hot you are, by all means! Rather than just gassing yourself up with things you don't even fully believe from yourself, start where you are. Perhaps that's listing your values and then writing out places in your life that you live into them well. Maybe it is asking people you trust to reflect what value you've brought to their lives. Maybe it's a simple "I'm proud of myself" when you accomplish something you've set out to do rather than picking it apart with perfection goggles on or quickly moving onto the next thing before saying thank you to the one person who has always been there.  

I'd love for you to join for this month's Tea Time with Mel: Acknowledgement for some applied practicing of this and a bit more on what makes this truly valuable for anyone who may be hitting a plateau on their way to their dreams. 

In speaking of dreams, we have just completed the fifth of eight weeks of Dream Club, and it is absolutely popping off! There are 12 people in this cohort who have all had some sort of shift or breakthrough or realization about their dream world that has changed something in their lives, and I am incredibly moved by the work we've done together. So moved, in fact, that Chelsea and I will be opening another one  for those of you on our waitlist and anyone else who would benefit from working with their dreams. 

Week 1: Remembering the Language of Dreams 

Week 2: The Body is the First Dream Interpreter 

Week 3: Images, Symbols, and the Mythic Field 

Week 4: Ancestors, Lineage, and the Dreaming Field 

Week 5: Shadow, Grief, and the Dreams That Disturb 

Week 6: Ritual, Ceremony, and Dream Incubation 

Week 7: Collective Dreaming 

Week 8: Dreaming the Future and Integration