Human Tragedy Story Often Obscures Soul Journey Perspective

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Kathy Jourdain

For a long time, I have believed we are soul journeyers having a human experience. The beauty and challenge of life is that our assumptions and beliefs get tested along the way. Most recently for me, one way has been through my mother’s journey.

When the symptoms of my mother’s dementia were becoming more obvious in the years before she went into long term care, I knew it as a soul journey and experienced it as a human tragedy story. This became more pronounced when she went into long term care. Instead of being the only person in a household living out a bizarre new set of behaviours, losing her capacity to communicate and do simple things like change the channel on the TV, she became one of many old and dying people no longer able to care for themselves, most living in their own little diminishing physical worlds.

The human tragedy story is amplified in these circumstances and places. It is hard to see past the story of tragedy when it stares you in the face as you walk down hallways that evoke very visceral reactions in what you see, smell, hear or otherwise encounter – even in a place as loving and caring as the place my mother experienced as home in the last four years of her life.

How many people came up to me, my brother or my father after mom’s funeral to share amazing stories about her that captured the essence of who she was and then proceeded to talk about how they just couldn’t visit her at Harbourview Haven. How hard it was if she didn’t seem to recognize them. How hard it is to be in that building when as a culture we have become disconnected from the death chapter of the life cycle. We no longer experience it as part of the natural flow of life but as something to be feared. Walking in a place where death is imminent generates fear and discomfort for many of us. It did for me when I first began visiting my mother, but through my mother the shape of my experience shifted.

For the few who were able to manage a visit or two, they expressed how amazing it was when there was a flicker of recognition in something she said. I learned how many people besides me she called “little one” (really mom?!) and that was a point of reference for them.

There are others who saw enough through the human tragedy story to visit often. My mother had a few of those regular visitors although we often didn’t even know it since she couldn’t remember who visited or when they did. Deeply grateful for those dear friends.

The length of mom’s journey with dementia and her stay in long term care, invited me more deeply into this paradox of understanding the human tragedy dressing of soul journey. The phrase “oh, that poor soul” makes me chuckle now. We use that phrase to describe the human tragedy perspective. It is the physical experience that appears poor, not the soul journey perspective if you believe, like I do, that we make some choices before we manifest into physical form about what it is we want to experience for our soul journey this time around.

As my mother become more disembodied, I embodied the soul journey perspective from a deeper, more encompassing place of understanding. Towards the end, her human tragedy story didn’t register for me anymore, only the soul journey perspective. This gave me a high degree of peace during her long transition process, allowing me to live my life fully even while being present to my mother’s journey and our family care around it.

For the gifted people who work at Harbour View Haven, it seems to me they also see past the human tragedy perspective, treating each individual with full dignity and respect. Treating them as if they are fully functioning, fully present human beings. It was a gift to observe this most keenly in my mother’s final hours. It made me wonder what would happen if we all treated others all the time with this kind of dignity and respect – whether we thought they deserved it, whether we thought they were fully human or not.

Living simultaneously with my mother’s journey, my journey and the rest of life, I’ve been thinking about how to express this all so it does not fuel the human tragedy story. I now speak about “the many streams of life”. We are all in many streams of life all at the same time. Stuff happens. Stuff comes up. There is a life giving invitation to be well in all of it, although a more typical response is to be stressed by all the things that come our way that we have to take care.

I’m leaning into this invitation to flow with the many streams of life as though that is what they are, rather than challenges. Greater spaciousness beautifully shows up.

And then there are the lessons of embodiment that have been present for me in a big way already in 2012. As I embody my experiences and my learning I understand more deeply my life’s events, my relationships and my soul’s calling.

I’m not saying the human tragedy story isn’t real. But the soul journey perspective is also just as real although harder for many to see, obscured by the human tragedy story. The soul journey perspective allows me to live into joy and delight and allows me to fall in love over and over again in a way living into the human tragedy story does not.

For my mother, I continue to experience a dance of joy, delight and lightness as her spirit soars free from the human tragedy unfolding of her physical body. She continues to be my teacher and my friend and very, very real in my human experience.

Death and Dying – Lessons I Learned From My Mother

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Kathy Jourdain

Never having been present at a death before, I didn’t know what to expect; and, it wasn’t what I expected. My brother, father and I held vigil, practically holding our collective breath, as my mother, Mary Patricia Ann Ritcey Jourdain, drew her last, peaceful breaths on Wednesday, February 8, 2012, falling quiet at 12:30 pm.

Then there was silence. Her silence. No more rattling breaths drawn with some effort through her lungs into her ravaged body; ravaged from dementia for many years and the refusal to eat for many months.

Our silence. In reverence for my mother, her journey and the honour of witnessing the final stages of her transition from physical form into spirit. I already believed much of her consciousness was active in the subtle realms even as her physical presence diminished. With her last breaths I imagined her spirit gently tugging until the last wisps of it were finally released into a delightful little dance of joy and freedom.

My mother’s journey with dementia was a long one. My journey through hers was an inspired one. Her greatest teachings for me may have been in these last few years when she could no longer string coherent sentences together, during the contrast of those times when she seemed to have no awareness of my presence to when I knew she was aware I was there.

I had one of those moments of her awareness the night before she died. We had moved her to a special room where I could stay with her overnight. One of her medication times was missed. I was aware of that but she didn’t seem to be in distress. So, I sat on the arm of the couch, eye level with my mom. I looked into her blue eyes and she held my gaze.

When I say she held my gaze, I really mean she held my gaze. She was just as present as I was. In fact, I was mesmerized. I couldn’t take my gaze away.

So, I talked to her. I told her about some things in my life. I told her how beautiful she is – not was, is. I told her how gifted she is and how loved. I thanked her for being in my life, for being my mom. Mostly, I held her gaze with love. Until she began to exhibit signs of distress and I went for the nurse. And then she was gone again until the moment of her final breath.

Four of us still in the room but now the shape of our lives fundamentally shifted. As long as we stayed sitting in the room, it was like she was still there in her emaciated form. But, of course, now she was free of form. Eventually we had to move and leave her next steps in the capable hands of the Harbourview Haven staff who would transfer her into the equally capable hands of the Dana L. Sweeny Funeral Home.

The staff at Harbourview Haven taught me about human dignity and respect through how they related to my mother. Even up to the last moment, they treated my mother as if she was fully present and aware. They called her by her name. In the middle of the night they would come into our room. “Mary,” they’d say, “We’re going to turn you over now.” “Mary, we are going to give you your meds now. It might sting a little.”

On the morning of her death, a care worker came in to wash her face and freshen her up, providing a depth of love and care, dignity and respect to a woman in her last moments on this physical plane. I can’t say enough for Harbourview Haven and the care they provided, not just in those last few hours but in the three years and eight months (plus a few days) that my mother lived there. And not just care for her. Care for my dad too. For our family. They understand about death and dying. That it is a process and a transition.

My nine year old understands about death and dying. Enough to ask to visit his grandmother with me when I told him I was going to see her. He hadn’t been there much lately. I told him what his grandmother looked like and how she was. He still wanted to come, even when the call came to say it might be her last day. And his older brother and his girlfriend came too. We all sat vigil the day before she died, for hours. Watching my mother with sidelong looks every time her breathing stopped – for the eternity that shows up in a moment.

I am now aware that dying and death requires the same kind of loving care and attention as birth does. It is birth. Birth back to spirit.

When my older boys were young children their grandfather on their father’s side died. Their dad and I had already separated. They went to the funeral and afterwards I asked them how it was. We began to talk about death. They said to me, “We think it’s kind of like this. You know when you dream and when you are in the middle of a dream it seems real? But then you wake up and you know it was just a dream. We think life is like that. It’s really just a dream but it seems real. Then you die, but really it’s like waking up and realizing it was just a dream.” Such wisdom out of the mouths of babes. Closer to source.

I wonder how my mother might be reflecting on the 79 year dream that was her life as Mary Patricia Ann Ritcey Jourdain this time around?

Hosting Lessons from the Field – Dancing with Design Flow in Brazil

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Kathy Jourdain

How many of us have had the opportunity to enter into hosting a day or a training (Art of Hosting style) without any design for the day, completely sensing into what is needed in the moment and fluidly dancing with five other hosts with offerings to meet what was emerging in the field moment by moment? How would you meet that invitation? Excitement? Trepidation? Both and anything in between?

It is one thing to do this on your own or with one other person as Bob Wing and I did last summer in work we’d been invited into that turned into Hosting Ceremony. It is a whole other thing to do it with a new hosting team constellation of six of us on the third and last day of working together – in this case for the first Warrior of the Heart training completed in Brazil in January 2012.

Warrior of the Heart is the work of Toke Moeller and Bob Wing coming out of many opportunities they had to jam together combining Art of Hosting and Aikido practices and principles. Playing together they imagined Warrior of the Heart training into being. I’d participated in a couple of Warrior of the Heart trainings – on Bowen Island in August 2010 and then at Windhorse Farm in Nova Scotia just this last October, 2011 with my 9 year old son. I’d also had the chance to work with Bob where Warrior of the Heart became a component of the Art of Hosting training we were delivering.

In September 2011, after the Art of Hosting training in Porto Alegre, Brazil that I’d been co-hosting, Thomas Ufer, Najara Thamiz and I sat down with Jose Bueno and crafted an invitation to Bob and Toke to bring Warrior of the Heart to Brazil for the first time to seed the field for more and build the ground for the amazing expansion of the Art of Hosting and social change movements happening there.

Working with a larger hosting team for a training the two of them were used to offering on their own invited Bob and Toke to some new learning edges. They invited the rest of us to go there right along with them. There was already a huge reservoir of trust in our hosting field even before we began. We built on it during our preparation and hosting time together. On our last day, it was Toke who invited us into the dance of hosting together without an agreed to advance plan.

I felt in me my own skepticism at the invitation which arrived after morning practice, before breakfast, where we had actually invoked this flow already. I really wasn’t sure how it would work and whether we would all find our own place to play in this day – but I was willing to step into the challenge – because with this team there was nothing to lose and lots to gain.

As the six of us stood in a tight circle on the stone patio outside the training building, a staff was in the centre with the challenge of who would take it first and offer something to the group to begin our day. Silence. A deep collective breath or two. I could feel the tremble in me. Another breath and then I reached for the staff.

I had been preparing during our time together to do a teach with the sword – in this case the wooden representation of the sword – a bokken. Bob had been coaching me. Perhaps because I was preparing to step into the challenge of a teach on something I was still very much learning myself, I had taken Bob’s feedback and coaching in in a whole new way, embodying the teaching and the sword movements with more fluidity and confidence than I ever remembered feeling. I had been preparing for a teach and this was apparently the moment it would be offered.

I started the teach – the four directions – and forgot how to do the step to turn from one direction to another. Without being hard on myself, I asked Bob to step in and help — and he did because he had my back. All six of us had each other’s backs and none of us needed to shine or take up too much space and yet we were all invited to offer our brilliance when we felt the call.

It was the beginning of a rich dance that included all six of us throughout the day. The experience was playful and fun and ended with a touching and powerful ceremony.

Raising the Sword in the Warrior of the Heart (Brazil 2012) Closing Circle

The willingness to let go of control and design flowed into the Brazil Stewards Gathering that followed the Warrior of the Heart – in its own way and to its own degree because, of course, the team and the circumstances were different. But the fluidity of the dance was just as hesitant and joyful in its own way.

I’ve been reflecting on what makes this kind of dance possible? One is definitely trust in the individuals and the collective of the team – knowing that each individual is there to serve the good of the whole and with no need to shine on an individual basis – although, as I mentioned above, of course each person does shine because of the gifts they have to offer in service of the whole.

A sense of knowing when what I have to offer as an individual is exactly what is needed now. This is a complete dance with the subtle energies, with intuitive capacity. The courage to offer it when it is called. A certain level of trust or confidence in my own skills and abilities. A willingness to let other people shine in their mastery or even in their apprenticeship.

It takes a certain level of maturity in each individual, the team and even in the field.

Would I want to completely free flow it every time? I don’t think so. Every situation requires us to be tuned into what is wanting and needing to happen. Different situations will call out different things. And many situations invite a free flowing of design and offerings to different degrees. I and we are already practiced with working with emergence. Practicing to this degree honed my skill and my sensing capacity and invited me into new levels of mastery. It is embodied in a new way. It will always be with me – and with each of us.

Having had the opportunity to host immediately after this experience, I know it’s in me in a new way and for that I am grateful. Looking forward to the next opportunity to dance in the ultimate emergent design – and to all the other variations of that that will show up along the way. Thanks Toke for the invitation and to Thomas, Narjara, Jose and Bob for being willing to dance the beautiful dance that shifted the shape of my hosting experience to new depth.

Intentionally Shifting the Shape of the World in 2012

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Kathy Jourdain

Wow. 2012 is a breath away. When I started the Shape Shift blog I wrote: “the shape of the world is shifting. It is constantly shifting but never more so than now. This is evident in health care, education, finance, communities, technology, organizations and other systems that have become vital to how we function today. We can be passive recipients of the impact of these shifts in the world or we can become active participants in shaping the future of the systems, organizations and communities that we feel passionate about – that are near and dear to our hearts.” This was true when I wrote it, and started Shape Shift Strategies Inc, in August of 2009. It is even more true as we are on the brink of 2012 – a year that has been much prophesied and written about.

If we are paying attention we can literally and figuratively feel the earth shaking underneath our feet as significant shifts take place – in the natural world and the manmade world. Earthquakes and tsunamis in New Zealand and Japan, the Arab Spring, Occupy to name just a very few. I say paying attention with the full awareness that there are many of us who see the greater scope of these stories and feel the significance of them in our very beings and there are many who do not yet see the stories under the stories that show up in mainstream media – a medium that is struggling with seeing and understanding the deeper patterns of these movements in the world.

If I am to imagine into 2012, I can only imagine that the chaos and complexity of our systems, our social structures and our communities will increase. This because of the reluctance and deep resistance of letting go of what we know, even when we know it doesn’t work anymore, to embrace what is waiting and wanting to be born. It is so hard to see new ways when all we can see is what we have already built. I’ve seen it in the conversations surrounding the Healthier Health Care Now gathering set for Utah early in January. “We want you to be different, but please do it in familiar ways. Because we don’t know how to support something that looks and feels different, especially when you cannot tell us exactly what it will look like in the end. We have to be accountable, after all.”

How do we become accountable for our future when we are anchored to what we know, what we have always known, what already exists? This is why the chaos will increase. It is already telling us what we know no longer works. Our collective response? Hold on tighter. Don’t let go. How deeply shaken do we need to be to let go, let fly into the void of the unknown?

Thank God for the growing pockets of people, teams, communities and communities of practice who see a different future and who steadfastly work toward it in the not knowing. There are so many I can name – because I am part of them – and so many I can’t because I don’t have knowledge of them but I am not so insular as to believe they don’t exist. Paul Hawken’s work in Blessed Unrest is just one indicator of this world wide revolution that is taking place right under our very noses – whether we see it or not.

Those of us working and living in the spaces of not knowing the specific shape of the future or of what new systems could emerge from the old as we are shaken free in the chaos, we are Warriors of the Heart. To be a Warrior of the Heart and be well, we need personal practices that keep us connected with source and allow us to access our own resilience, courage, compassion, strength, joy and love. There are individual and collective dimensions of practice. We build personal capacity in our individual practice. We amplify, accelerate and activate so much more when we come together in our collective work and journey.

2012 may show us more and more the intersection between the relational field (love and loyalty) and the strategic field. We have treated love and loyalty somewhat dismissively – the soft skills side of the equation. In business we need to be hard – hard nosed, make hard decisions. What if this is not true? What if our greatest path forward is to embrace more fully the relational field so that our choices are actually more strategic, have a longer term view and value all the things that are important to our survival in a time when so much of what we have always known seems threatened? What becomes possible when we sink into what we’ve known even longer than what we’ve always known – the wisdom and knowledge accessible to us in ancient wisdoms that become more present to us as we pause and listen deeply – to the earth, to the whispers in our own hearts, to the yearning we have to be connected to something that has deep meaning and purpose. What would a world look like that connected through love and loyalty and then developed strategy for the highest good of us all?

The shape of the world is shifting. It always has been. Is it shifting faster now? Feels that way. What is the intentionality we can individually and collectively bring to amplify, accelerate and activate the shift we desire to see in the world? What is the shape of the world you want to live in to?

I experience such deep gratitude and appreciation for my friends and colleagues (the ones I know and the ones I haven’t met yet) around the world. You inspire me. You lift me up in the moments when I have lost sight of my own light. You give me great hope for what is possible in a new world order. I am humbled and honoured to do amazing work in the world with people I care deeply about – from a place of open heartedness and a field of love and connection that makes possible the impossible – only seeming impossible because we can’t always see the how. The how stops us. The vision and intention for shaping a future we want to live into compels us all forward.

Walking the path of not knowing. Setting strong, clear intentions for what I want to see unfold in my own path of shifting the shape of the world in 2012, letting go of the how and inviting what is ready – and urgently wanting – to show up.

Contemplating and Celebrating Turning 50!

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Kathy Jourdain

2012 seems like an auspicious year to be 50 – for me anyway. For the last 3 years or so I have been saying I am almost 50, unlike some who fear that round number of age and wish they were sneaking their way backward, I find myself boldly and excitedly walking my way into it. Which makes me smile and even giggle a little bit.

From 2005 to 2009 I was in a period of great upheaval and transition. After saying repeatedly over those years I was in transition I began to wonder if that cycle would ever complete itself. Then, in 2009 on the heels of a one day vision quest in Gold Lake Colorado and then the first Shamanic Convergence in Nova Scotia, I began to sense the transition process had shifted into a more gentle unfolding process and that I had given birth to the second half of my life, complete with the articulation of a personal purpose statement: from this place of deep rootedness to my spiritual lineages, I boldly bring my healing gifts to the shifting shape of the world and the regeneration of its people. It is a statement that 2 years later still resonates deeply for me even as I grow less sure of what exactly it means.

This was also a period of time when I began to embrace gifts of awareness of the non-physical or subtle realms – and began to feel deeply embraced by non-physical entities – guides, guardians, angels. As a person who lived a very ordinary experience of the physical world up to my late 30s, this was an area I had always believed in and felt could be accessed — but by other people, certainly not by me. My journey brought teachers and mentors to me and took me to places where the existence and substance of the subtle realms and my ability to connect with them became undeniable. It has been a significant part of the rebirthing process and will be a growing part of the journey forward. A few years ago, one of my teachers said this is a time when there is a growing need for and a growing number of people who can walk with one foot in the physical world and one in the non-physical world – with greater ease, seamlessness and ordinariness.

If I gave birth to the second half of my life through that lengthy transition period, now I feel like I am beginning the Fool‘s Journey all over again, dancing the dance of possibility with time and space as a playground. In the Gateway to the Divine Tarot (my favourite at the moment), the Fool is pictured drifting high above the Earth, implying an unearthly aspect to him, with innate wisdom that lies outside the ordinary and mundane realms. The Fool is both emptiness and infinity, bringing movement, change and fresh starts. The path is waiting but the full course of it cannot be seen.

I have been experiencing a sense of anticipation as I approach 50. When I was a child, even a teenager, maybe even a young adult, 50 seemed both a long way off and old, not the launching pad for something new. I’m not sure what 50 is supposed to feel like. It is half a century after all. In the millennia of life this is such a short period of time. I don’t feel old, I feel strangely and beautifully ageless and more and more like age as a number doesn’t matter. What matters is how we approach life and journey, what we are willing and able to embrace and how well we can surrender into the greater forces lighting our path.

Maybe I don’t feel old now because, in the first half of my life, I have often felt older than my years. This was partly through taking on lots of responsibility and finding myself in leadership positions at very young ages. While not feeling old now, I do feel like an elder in some ways. Steward might be a better word. I think of it as elder in the journey – this current physical journey in the world, but also in the sense of my soul journey and the vast expanses of eras I have traveled to be here, right now in this time. To be 50 in 2012. Did I plan that?

A lot of attention has been paid to 2012 – the year the Mayan calendar ends. Some have interpreted this to mean the year the world – or civilization – ends. It may well be the end of much of what we do know or how we have lived but I doubt it is the end of the planet. Likely it is the end of age old patterns, the end of blindly bringing destruction to our ecological systems, the end of allowing only a few voices to dominate. I am of the view that the Arab spring and the Occupy Movement are manifestations of the deeper shift that is already happening in the world, the trending to a greater level of awakeness in the world. A time of returning to greater consciousness that there is far more beyond the physical vessels our spirits inhabit and far more alive in this world than just the plants and animals, just what we can physically see. Maybe it is a time when our sight and awareness will collectively expand again so we can live with a greater sense of the sacred in every place and every one – including in us.

I am aware of this journey in me and of me in this journey. I am aware of a vast array of conversations I am with people in many places in the world where this is true. Of a greater hunger for deeper dives, greater understanding, more meaningful work, love and relationship in new and deeper ways and beyond only the intimate love relationship.

Perhaps we will look back on this time in a decade or so and see what a harbinger of change it really is. I’m certain I will look back on my journey and affirm what I know and sense as I move into 50. This is a time for me to break old, limiting patterns, to step more fully into what is mine to do, to completely embrace my purposeful path and live into all that has been on my own edges for awhile. It is the year I will publish my first book, Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Open Heartedness and begin writing the second book – its companion guide.

There is such a sense of newness on my horizon of 50 and of joyous celebration. I may have unconsciously created an association between turning 50 and embracing life in the fullness of all it has to offer. I have been growing into it for sure in the last couple of years as I have discovered falling in love everyday, have found joy as the baseline of my experience rather than as the exceptional state and have stepped into more conscious awareness of the experience I am living in any given moment. I have been growing my experience of and relationship with the non-physical world and particularly my own guides, guardians and angels.

I didn’t really have a plan for my life up to this point. If I did, it wouldn’t likely have included the things that have shown up. I wouldn’t have imagined I’d be divorced once, let alone twice. While I would have expected to have children, I wouldn’t necessarily have anticipated the quality of relationship that has emerged and been present throughout their growing up years – with them and their friends. I couldn’t have imagined the most amazing people who have shown up in my life and those that have shown me pathways, caused me to grow or reflected back to me qualities I have been invited to embrace – the delightful and profound, the challenging and mundane.

I also would never have imagined that a country like Brazil would play such a central role in my life and journey or that I would be at this point in my life and surrounded by the most amazing young leaders from Brazil and here that I get to play with, learn from and with and journey with. Yay for what I do not know and cannot see. And for the increasing courage and grace that allows me to embrace what is wanting to show up.

The invitation into 50 gives me shivers in the most delightful and shimmering kinds of ways. The invitation into deeper levels of trust, forgiveness, curiosity and joy are apparent. This invitation is flirting at the edges of 50, waiting to see my response. Like the first half of my life, it will be filled with the imperfections of life, of me in my human journey, ambivalent at times, sad at other times, anger more freely expressed when it shows up in my experience but in better and more life affirming ways, like other emotional experiences that are not joy and love dissipating quickly because of the freedom of expression in healthy ways. There will still be days when it is challenging to walk the path, days when my own inner judge will be alive and vociferous, days when I do not know what to do or make choices that will somehow feel wrong. It is a human experience I am living, after all, that we all live.

However, I have come too far to go back. Have I come far enough to fully surrender and embrace all that is waiting for me here on the edge of 50? It seems that is part of what I will discover as I begin the Fool’s Journey anew. I begin with child like curiosity and playfulness and anticipation. I begin with joy brimming over the top. I look forward to seeing where and how your path intersects mine and I am eternally grateful for the path, people and circumstances that have brought me here to the edge of what’s next. 50, here I come. Are you ready for me?

The Voice of the Judge

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Kathy Jourdain

There is no more powerful limiting mechanism in our lives than the voice of the judge. I don’t mean that other person – parent, spouse, child, teacher, boss, friend, co-worker,random stranger on the street or in the shopping mall. It’s the internal voice of judgment or internal critic that often runs rampant inside of us that we barely notice, if at all, because it is so clever and really good at disguising itself – for self preservation really.

I first became intimately acquainted with my inner judge in 2008-09 during coaching work with Sarita Chawla. She recommended I read Soul Without Shame by Byron Brown in addition to the work we were doing together. I will forever recognize this as a pivotal point in the shifting shape of my journey. I wrote about the voice of the judge back then in an article. I am reviving that article here now in an updated version because it is the season of amplification. My inner critic is activated – obvious to me because of how I feel – and I am reminding myself of strategies I already know that help to deactivate it and release its grip on me.

When I first became aware of the force of the internal judge, I had been working with the concepts of self-leadership and hosting oneself for almost as long as I could remember – still do, of course. I worked with coaches, read books, did courses, took part in and led deep group work. I am generally a positive, optimistic person holding deep appreciation and gratitude for much of what transpires in my life and who shows up. I have transformed negative self talk into more appreciative forms of self talk and into periods of quiet in my mind. I meditate and practice other forms of reflection and mindfulness.

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered a voice of self judgment and self criticism that was booming loud and clear in my unconsciousness, stronger than any external voice of judgment or criticism could possibly be. This voice constantly set the bar for my performance at the best that I had ever achieved. The bar moved if I did better. When I didn’t match my most excellent performance, even when I did extremely good work, this voice told me that I had failed, that I did not measure up and that I never would on a consistent basis. Strong performance was interpreted as mediocre. Criticisms from others, whether justified or not, was reinforced by this inner critic.

When I felt most down on myself or just down in general, this voice played a significant role – and still can in moments I feel most overwhelmed or vulnerable – until I expose it. I didn’t actually hear it as a voice until I began to listen for it but I felt it strongly in many forms: sadness, unhappiness, melancholy, anger, listlessness, lack of motivation and many other emotional manifestations.

While I had been aware of this voice (or at least the emotions it manifested in) to some extent, I also prided myself on my journey of self-transformation and change. Been there, got that medal, surely I must be done now, can I just get on with my life and success? I realize now it was the voice of self judgment that said, “You’ve been doing this long enough, how come you’re not done?”

Part of the reason I had been pretty oblivious to this voice was because, in my quest to be calm and serene and professional, I skirted over my own emotional reactions. I barely recognized I had them except in the odd instances where they overtook me. Oh, was that an emotion that wasn’t calm and serene? Oops. Nope. Couldn’t have been. It must have been something else.

Then, a friend told me I deal with my emotions intellectually. So, I thought about that. And I thought my friend just might be right. Emotions don’t reside in our intellect. They reside in our bodies. We feel them and sense them. We use metaphors to describe them. We say things like, “That packed a punch!” If we stop to notice, we will notice where it feels like we got punched. And if we stay with that, we will begin to notice the impact. And if we stay with it longer, we will notice the uncomfortableness and want to move onto something else. This is where I am learning to stop. I have learned to stay with it longer, until I can begin to discern the wisdom that is held there and that can only emerge when we give it an escape hatch to surface to the light.

It is in these moments that my voice of self judgment has come booming out at me in all of its voraciousness. With all good intentions, all it wants to do is protect me – from failure, from being unlovable. But its methods only serve to reinforce for me my failures, even to the extent of turning successes into failures, thus creating in my mind my own unlovability and unwantability. I have also become aware through the Law of Attraction and the teachings of Abraham that this voice of the judge interferes with flow, abundance and allowing the full vibrancy of life.

I learned to journal in this voice. I am astounded by the punch it does pack. Periodically I sit and check inside of me to sense into what I’m experiencing and feeling and what the impact is. I journal what I am sensing until I feel done. Then I check in again to see what I am experiencing, sensing and feeling, and then journal again. And then again, if that seems required. I am committed to going the next layer deep and the next until I feel the light flood back into my soul and I feel a lightness of spirit and of body. This is what I want to amplify in my life now.

Exposing my voice of self-judgment transmutes it into a gift of understanding and insight after which joy can once again arise and take more of the space that is its, and my own, rightful due. Now, instead of seeing my journey as one that should be concluded and being hard on myself because it is not, I see my journey and myself with a gentleness I could not access before as it was hidden underneath the protective layer of the voice of judgment. I have always known, intellectually, that learning and growth is a life long journey. Now I know it and accept it with a graciousness that only comes from the light. It is a good reminder in this season of amplification.

Tis the Season of Joy — And Sorrow

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Kathy Jourdain

The holiday season is an amplifier. It is often a time of great celebration and joy as family members and friends gather together in gift giving and meal sharing. It is also a time of great sorrow for many as reconstituted families find new patterns of gathering and as many of us feel the absence of loved ones who are elsewhere, may have departed, are sick or dying or in long term care facilities or simply no longer a part of our lives. And it can be overwhelming and stressful as we strive for perfection in a season that often already demands a lot of us and where expectations run high – the ones we have of ourselves and of others.

It is impossible to live life and not have our fair share of joy, sadness and stress. Simple little delights often bring the joy. A particular Christmas song. Lights. Tree trimming. Christmas celebrations. Buying someone that perfect little something – or creating it. Traditions that are meaningful. Conversations that are as delicious as the traditional holiday fixings. Lovely memories.

The things that make the heart sing are a beautiful thing. The things that make the spirit sad are harder to acknowledge. Absences seem to be one of the most significant contributors to sadness at this particular time of year. The absence of loved ones. It is an experience I know. We all do.

One example in my life: my mother is in long term care with dementia. She’s been there now for three and a half years. Since May, seven months ago, we have been told she could leave us any day. Some small part of her still inhabits her physical body while most of her is having a different kind of experience that is beyond my knowing at the moment.

She has been absent from our family Christmas celebrations the last two years physically and to varying degrees cognitively for longer than that. A week or so ago, I was in a shopping mall. Something in a store caught my eye. I was hit with a wave of missing my mother – really for the first time. This woman loved Christmas and loved opening presents so much it happened so fast it was over almost before it began – until we found ways to slow the process down. My mom was always like a kid at Christmas when it came to presents – until she forgot what to do with a present, forgot what it was or even how to open it.

We all have these kinds of stories.

Some of us have stories of being in relationships that are not fulfilling, meaningful or relevant anymore. Some of us are no longer in relationships and carry sadness or regret as a result. Some of us are in relationships with loved ones who live far away from us. This is a season that brings nostalgia about better times and brings heightened awareness of what is not working. It shines a light on the imperfections of our lives and relationships. It brings loneliness even as we are surrounded by people and festivities.

In a season that is “supposed” to be joyful, we don’t always know how to handle the emotions and times that are not. When we try to suppress them, we just drive them underground for awhile. They will resurface when an opening shows. There is nothing wrong with surrendering into our sadness long enough to acknowledge it. If it continues to overwhelm us deeply maybe we will need help to come out of it, but for most of us, surrendering into and acknowledging our own emotional turmoil, allows release.

There is nothing wrong with tears. Truly, there isn’t. Although many of us believe there is. We apologize for our tears. Like we are somehow weak and maybe imperfect because we cry – especially when we cry in front of other people. But tears are releasing and healing and an indicator of our experience. How much more beautiful it could be if we stopped apologizing for tears and let ourselves be in our experience and even have it witnessed by other people. In the event it makes others uncomfortable, other people’s uncomfortablenss with our tears is not our responsibility. And for most people who witness, it is also freeing for them.

As we allow ourselves to move through our own experience, we create more space for joy and delight to show up faster in our experience. Staying in our sadness will not fill the absences, will not bring back people no longer here or bring people to us who are far away. And most of those absent, would not want us to be lost in our sadness but would want us to celebrate the joy and vibrancy of life. Even if they wouldn’t, our soul is inviting us to celebrate the vibrancy of life.

Another thing that detracts from the vibrancy of life is the stress of trying to make the perfect holiday – on top of so many other things that need tending – children, parents, work, life and death. Very little of this stops just because it also happens to be Christmas and we now also need to shop, bake, decorate, wrap gifts, go to Christmas concerts and Christmas parties.

Some things could be left undone or done a little short of perfection. How many cookies do you really need to bake? How many presents do you really need to buy? What if you boiled it down to the one or two essential elements that seem the most dear to you? For me, it is gingerbread houses. I make the house parts. I thought about buying them one Christmas but realized how much a part of me is in this tradition – because I love to bake and love the delight of the gingerbread house process from start to finish. Most of the rest of it I can let go – especially in my experience of reconstituted families. When and how things happen is a matter for conversation and joint decision making that usually extends beyond my immediate family.

Tis the season of amplification. What is joyful is more so, what is sad is more so, what is stressful is more so. Tis also the season of reflection and remembering. And maybe most important of all, let it be the season of self-care – because, in that, we shift and grow our capacity to embrace the joy, delight and imperfections of being human that are completely available to us in the season of amplification.

I’ve Arrived – At Least in This Moment

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Kathy Jourdain

I’ve arrived. I didn’t know this was where I was going but, now that I’m here, I can clearly see that this is where I was headed. Feels good to have arrived. In this moment anyway. In the next moment, it might be different. That will be okay too because there will always be a next moment and I get that I get to create or co-create the next moment and the next.

By moment, I mean a period of time, linear time as we know it – maybe just a minute, maybe days, weeks, months or even years. When it is a tortuous moment that goes on for awhile it doesn’t seem like this moment, it seems like an eternity. I’ve had a few of those too. Looking back now over the course of my life, I see them for what they are – moments, in time, moments that reflect my journey and shape my life, my outlook, my wisdom and my experience.

Now, though, I seem to be in a moment of amazing open heartedness. I’m just back from a run in my neighbourhood that takes me to a waterfront park and boardwalk and back again. Every time I smile, nod or say hello to someone I pass, I crack open just a touch more. And, so do they. The moment might pass for them, but more and more I am finding this moment in my life lingering.

I like the feel of this moment. The joy. Delight. Ease. Beauty. Love. Flow. Noticing my emotional state. Noticing my reactions. Noticing where or what next to focus on in my own healing journey. Not in the tortuous way I used to notice it. Now it is just a noticing. An observation. A clue to what to pay attention to. “Oh, look at that response. Maybe there is something there to take a look at, a hook to release, an attachment to let go of.” Surfacing. Surrendering. Swift, powerful movement arising all around me, in me, through me.

It is visible to me. It is continuously reflected back to me because it is visible to others and I am open to receiving in whole new ways. Some people comment. Some just notice. Some come closer. Some rejoice with me. In the people close to me, I see how much they love me and I feel how much I love them. Feeds gratitude, appreciation and joy over and over again.

I have always believed in the Law of Attraction. I have also understood that I have attracted even the things, people, situations I have not liked (and sometimes detested) into my life. Wanting to understand deeply the why of that was one of those moments of determination that led to many moments of revelation over a very long, tortuous moment in my life.

I tried to make the Law of Attraction work and at times I probably gave up – almost anyway – on being able to force it work in ways that work for me. There are times it practically pounded me on the head while I was looking in other directions, focused on the how of things instead of the surrendering into things where truly miraculous “hows” could then show up in ways I could never have imagined.

Through the continuing journey I am learning how to allow, embrace, surrender and step into it. Coming from a place of love, joy and delight. Which is very different than coming at it from a place of desperation. My favourite Law of Attraction material at the moment is Abraham-Hicks. I have been infusing myself with their teachings. One of the things they say is that whenever we want something, that something is actually two things – what we want and the lack of what we want. Usually we are focused on the lack and not on what we want and we are desperately, pleadingly trying to convince ourselves, through stress and agony, we are focused on what we want. Focusing on the lack brings, surprise, surprise, more lack.

They also say a belief is simply a thought we think over and over again. So, I’m becoming aware of my repetitive thoughts so I can shift them and shift the shape of my life more and more to what I want. Since really embracing this, I am seeing and, more importantly, feeling the results. In this moment, I’ve arrived. I like this place. I’m not exactly sure where I am headed next but now I know I’ll recognize it when I arrive and I know it will be even better than the place I am in in this moment – as hard as that may be for some to believe – I am aware that life, if I allow it, will only get better and better, no matter how good it is right now.

While I’m in this moment that I’ve arrived in, I’m taking some time to celebrate. To notice flow. To appreciate deep relationships. To see how well cared for and nourished I am. And maybe tomorrow, when I’m out for my run or grocery shopping or wherever my day may take me, maybe you and I will find each other, smile, nod, say hello, embrace if we actually know each other, say I love you if we are in deep relationship – and both our worlds will crack open just that much more and we will know that we have arrived – in this new moment, for the moment.

Hosting Ceremony

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Kathy Jourdain

What happens when what you are called into host is not actually what you’ve been called into host and every thing you think you know or have to offer of value is not what is needed? When knowledge and experience of methods, processes, theories and frameworks, though asked for, is not what will actually serve the situation or community you are hosting?

These questions, alive and vibrant, were lived into this past week in Membertou, a First Nations Community in Nova Scotia, that a team of us had been invited to, as part of an emerging leadership program for youth, to offer a three day Art of Hosting and Warrior of the Heart training. We were invited by Pawa Haiyupis from the National Centre for First Nations Governance and a team at Membertou to contribute to a program Pawa has been envisioning for 10 years, since attending her first Open Space Technology session. We were to work with youth, elders and members of the Governance Committee.

When the Canadian Government cut funding to the NCFNG in the middle of the four week emerging leadership program the plan was thrown into chaos and the shape of our time together shifted frequently and rapidly. Would there even be an AoH/WoH training and, if so, how many days and with whom? Financial and energetic support was invited from a circle of eagles from around the world and from the larger Art of Hosting community to fund expenses and to be at our backs as we hosted this work, the hosting team clearly called to be in it no matter the circumstance.

The hosting team – Bob Wing, Pawa, Sarah MacLaren, Ryan, myself and one other – convened on the beach at Mira Gut to begin our check-in in ceremony and with a little Warrior of the Heart. Sense of spirit was strong with us and blood memories were being activated. We asked for guidance from Creator in this work.

We did all the usual preparation for a training, including cracking our overall design and the design for day one.

Then we entered day one. We knew as soon as we entered the space that we needed to be prepared to let go of much of what we planned as we waited the arrival of elders to begin our time together with a pipe ceremony. The pipe ceremony was beautiful and powerful, inviting spirit and Creator to guide our path. It had the full attention of everyone in the room no matter their age.

We followed it with Warrior of the Heart and, yes, a teaching on the chaordic path and some time in triad conversations. In this day, we became aware of some disruptions in the field. At the end of this day, we met with the full hosting and calling team and explored what people were sensing and what their concerns were. We did a little teaching on divergence and convergence for this team. We invited all questions and all concerns and also celebrated a little bit the successes of the day. We left feeling a bit of convergence in this team and a willingness to be open to what wanted to happen the next day.

Dinner with an elder showed us that what wanted to happen the next day was ceremony and, specifically a sacred fire. We all knew it was the right thing and in that moment the hosting team stopped designing process and shifted the most completely and fully I have ever experienced into hosting what wanted and needed to happen in this field and this community. It wasn’t process, methods, frameworks. It was ceremony. Ceremony in service of this community, hosted by the elders. Ceremony to activate blood memories. We trusted we would know in the moments following ceremony what else could be offered that would serve the community and the intention of this work well and we knew absolutely we were working with the principles of spaciousness and simplicity.

Host team check-ins are always an integral part of any Art of Hosting training and usually serve the design process. In some ways, they became the design process. Deep check in. Clearing and understanding our field. Strong pull to meditation and other ceremony morning and night to keep intention and presence clear and strong.

We know we were hosted in ceremony by this beautiful community. We know we also hosted, but exactly what is a little less clear. We know something happened in this community that would not have happened if we had not been there. We know something happened in us – individually and collectively – that would not have happened if we had not been there.

I find myself in contemplation of ceremony and the guidance of Creator. I find myself in a deeper exploration of the non-physical world and the allowing of my gifts to emerge and flourish with new knowing and fuller surrender to what wants to be guided through me. In the letting go of expectations and any need to show “expertise” in this group and this community, I know we were more fully available in the co-hosting and co-creating of the space. Sometimes simply being allows things to emerge that might not otherwise. I am wondering how that informs all my hosting work and feel the invitation to work more and more from this place of surrender, trust and “just” holding space.

As Pawa said, “the teachings are still percolating and the brew smells delicious. More to report on as the teachings are digested.”
A deep bow to the community, the team and the field that held us so well in this journey.

Corridor of the Dying or Something Else?

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Kathy Jourdain

It is such a small leap for me I don’t know why it never occurred to me before.

I went to visit my mother this weekend. She has had dementia for more years than we know and she has been in long term care for almost three. Awhile ago I wrote about only understanding her journey from a soul perspective. This is becoming more true for me as she gets nearer to her transition.

During this visit, I sat on her bed with her, maintaining physical touch the whole time I was there. When she looked at me and we held eye contact, she smiled and even laughed. So did I. Sometimes with my tears also flowing. The rest of the time, I watched her lift her head to look very intently at things I could not see all around her room. It is clear to me that spirit in gathering although less clear to me when she will finally decide to let go of her physical body, but likely soon. We, her family, are becoming more ready as we walk this path her.

To get to the dementia ward in what everyone in the town calls “the Home”, you enter the front door of the building, walk a short corridor past the administration offices and enter through an electronically locked door into the main residential part of the building. You then have to walk down a long corridor to get to the dementia ward, behind yet another locked door.

As you enter the residential part of the building, you come upon people – old people and in some cases, really old people – sitting in wheel chairs or chairs – just sitting there for the most part, most nodding off. Those are the ones well enough to be sitting up. As you go down the corridor, bedrooms are on either side and in most of them someone is lying on a bed, oblivious to the rest of the world. Sleeping, snoring, unaware. And, as good as this place is – and I do believe it is one of the best, it smells of old people waiting to die, sometimes less so, sometimes more so. It is a hard corridor to walk with regularity, know the shape of these people’s lives have shifted so dramatically.

I have always thought of these people as waiting to die. We all know the only way people come out of long term care is in a coffin. This is where some of our population go to die – when their loved ones can no longer take care of them and, believe me, that is not an easy decision.

For some reason, with this visit with my mom, I had a little revelation and I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but I’m glad it has now because it expands my awareness of what else just might be going on in these corridors.

My spiritual journey over the last dozen years or so has shown me pathways to altered consciousness, to spirit journeying, to spirit guides, angels and other entities. I am aware that it is possible to “travel” in dream states – sleeping and waking – and that much good and healing work can happen in these states of altered awareness and consciousness.

As I sat with my mother and observed her looking at that which she could see and I couldn’t, I all of a sudden became aware that her physical body might be old and weak and her brain injured, as they say at the Home, but her spirit or soul is strong. I began to wonder just where, how far and how often she may have been journeying while her physical body slept and that thought took me to all those sleeping bodies throughout the whole facility and a curiosity about where some of those souls might be journeying to while their physical bodies sleep. I’m sure some of them may well be wrestling with their own demons, so to speak, but whose to say that most of them aren’t off doing much needed soul work in ordinary and non-ordinary reality.

Then I could feel a bubble of light surrounding this Home. The notion that these beautiful souls might be making contributions to the world that most of us cannot see or understand made my own spirit more joyful. And now I hold my mother’s journey with an added degree of lightness and joy which I have no doubt she feels. She is journeying well and will continue to do so, I have no doubt. She is a great teacher for me. And I love her and she know that.

ShapeShift

The shape of the world is shifting… embracing and being intentional about it

Category Archives: Spiritual journey