Stages of the Journey
" Coyote will lead you to the life of your dreams if you are willing to accept the great
mystery and have the courage to be guided from the place where you are. " (Ch 2, p49)
To Kill a Coyote is about my emotional journey from a scared little girl to an empowered woman. This emotional journey is an inner journey that I describe in stages: Initiation, Realization, Relation, Transformation, and Celebration
As one follows the inner pathways to the unknown corners of one’s being, the wisdom within - embedded in one’s bones - is uncovered. On my inner journey I found that I had been reacting to life and playing the part of a victim while pretending to be strong and independent and free to do whatever I pleased.
The stages of the inner journey overlap and intertwine at times but sooner or later we will arrive at the celebration stage if we have the courage and perseverance to press on into the depths. Celebration comes when we have processed the pain, grieved the loss and feelings of separation. When we inwardly investigate our feelings of pain - of hurt, sadness, anger, disappointment and loss - instead of pushing them away, we find that we have the power to release the pain. Releasing the pain opens the space for creating happiness.
As one follows the inner pathways to the unknown corners of one’s being, the wisdom within - embedded in one’s bones - is uncovered. On my inner journey I found that I had been reacting to life and playing the part of a victim while pretending to be strong and independent and free to do whatever I pleased.
The stages of the inner journey overlap and intertwine at times but sooner or later we will arrive at the celebration stage if we have the courage and perseverance to press on into the depths. Celebration comes when we have processed the pain, grieved the loss and feelings of separation. When we inwardly investigate our feelings of pain - of hurt, sadness, anger, disappointment and loss - instead of pushing them away, we find that we have the power to release the pain. Releasing the pain opens the space for creating happiness.
I. INITIATION
My journey to become a fully aware human is ongoing. I am on the path of self-actualization and I am working to be the person I am meant to be and to help others create pathways to be all they are meant to be. This inner journey was prompted by painful feelings that refused to stay buried in the depths of my being. These painful feelings began to surface and instead of running from them and looking for relief in the outer world, I questioned them and searched inwardly. Feeling the pain was my initiation. II. REALIZATION
Once I allowed myself to feel the pain of loss, the coyote guided me to the depths where I discovered the love that I thought I had lost. This love was always there, it had simply been buried under layers of fear. The coyote both exposed and caressed my broken heart and allowed me to shed the cleansing tears needed to rid my body of all the painful emotions that I had been storing up through the years. It is in the depths, in the darkness, that I found light. The illuminating light that reveals the truth of who we are and that sets the stage for realization. During the realization stage we must practice making conscious choices and build faith in our new found truth. We must let go of the drama - the distractions we have created - that prevents us from being honest with ourselves and with others. We must not settle for simply scratching the surface. We must dig deep enough to expose our faulty beliefs and the untruths that we have been fed by our families, our churches, and our society. We must learn to be our own judge and recognize when our actions and feelings do not align with the inner truth of humanity that we have discovered deep within. |
III. RELATION
Once the coyote revealed my faulty illusions and led me to truth, it was time to start building healthy relationships and healthy messaging using my new found awareness and wisdom. It was time to enter the relation stage of my inner journey - begin to live honestly in the here and now. I began to make decisions based on what was, what others showed me instead of based on what I wanted. I began to recognize when my emotional reactions did not match my theory. I felt like a child at times, as I stepped into the unknown and acted on the faith that being me was all I could be - take it or leave, in theory. These actions were part of the relation stage and they moved me away from surviving and toward being fully alive - awake and aware. I discovered a lot of paradox and irony in my life as I acted upon bold beliefs and weathered the emotional fall-out caused by my intense fear of abandonment. It is during the relation stage that I began to understand how my perceptions and feelings were controlling and guiding me instead of me controlling and guiding my perceptions and feelings. As I became more aware of this phenomena, I entered the transformation stage. IV. TRANSFORMATION
During the transformation stage our new theory of life and our actions lead to a shift in our perspective. We move from a victim mentality of “life is happening to me” to an empowered mind frame that realizes “I am life.” In addition, when we actively participate in life, we have an affect on the outcome - we leave the deterministic world of fate and enter the universe of freedom and potentialities. It is in this universe of potentialities - at this higher level of understanding - that we are embraced by grace and mercy. We move toward a level of consciousness that begins to grasp that there is no loss, there is no separation. The heaviness and the darkness begin to lift, exposed by the light of wisdom. As I learned to tap into this wisdom, the stage for celebration was set, accompanied by an all-abiding joy and peace. |
V. CELEBRATION
The final stage of our inner journey is the celebration stage. We know when we have entered this stage by the underlying peace that has come to our lives. We experience love and joy at a new level, with an increased depth. I found this peace when I allowed myself to be all of me and had built enough faith in life to know that I would be fine no matter what. Life could take away all I hold dear and I would not be alone, there would still be endless opportunities awaiting. It may be a long journey back to the shores of grace, there may be more loss and more pain than we ever thought possible, and yet this new knowledge, the wisdom of humanity embedded in our bones, assures us that we will reach the shores of the Graces again, arrival is our destiny. During the celebration stage we begin as visitors on the shores of the Graces and their younger counter parts, the Charities. These immortals teach us how to relax and enjoy life. They are the lovely, light-hearted spirits that prompt us to play, to laugh, and to love without fear. They are the intuitive creatures that reveal the marvelous playground that awaits us when we stop hurrying and worrying. They bring the illumination and enlightenment of a higher consciousness and they teach us not to take life, or ourselves, too seriously. As we become more aware and begin to spend more time on the shores of the Graces, we begin to become residents in this land and reach a point where the majority of our time is spent on these peaceful shores - no longer settling for weekend escapes or surviving from one day to the next. Above: Mountain stream near Steamboat Springs (Sept 2012)
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Top of the Page: Mountain road near Steamboat Springs (Sept 2012)
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