Hola and buenos dias
Many of you may know - after a career in film, my journey involved many years of deep yogic practice in Thailand, Bali and India.
Those years also separated me from my family and home-country friends by time, distance and experiences I could not convey to them easily.
I found myself in an enchanted, magical world that few get to really live.
My yoga community became my family and whilst the world outside went through major socio-political upheavals, economic inflation, mass media propaganda overload, and even Covid, I for the most part remained in my paradisiacal, spiritual bubble continuing to work on reaching higher and higher levels of "consciousness," or at least that's what I thought.
There is a lot that gets overlooked in these bubbles.
Without being exposed to certain outside triggers, there are certain areas of myself I wasn't able to see clearly.
If Love and Light and Yoga is conditional, you haven't reached enlightenment.
I could write novels about what this time opened up for me and all the positive magic and knowledge the yogic path I took provided.
But "Guru" culture, along with the austere practices I rigidly revered as the "best way," led to certain distortions for me as you can imagine.
After leaving the yoga world I came from, I had to deconstruct a lot of conditioning that had happened over those years.
Humility comes in many forms.
The shadowy side of this time was arguably just as, if not more, valuable than the "love and light" side was :)
Putting certain people on pedestals for no reason, giving my power away, getting confused about my boundaries and subconsciously comparing myself to others in order to bolster my ego. (oooohhh, that one's hard to admit, but it's true)...
Shadows are places of suffering inside us we haven't yet admitted to - and in some cases, we haven't yet seen.
And we won't see them until we're ready.
We have to be pushed to a level of readiness recognized by the Spirit and actualized by humility to expand and learn and grow in some ways.
And it has nothing to do with time...
And we can be growing in some areas and falling behind in others...
Look at your relationships - this is good grist for the mill.
Or maybe it's might be another area of life you may well accept as it is, but it doesn't give you the warmest, fuzziest feelings...like the level of fulfillment you have with a job.
“Within the spiritual journey you understand that suffering becomes something that has been given to you to show you where your mind is still stuck. It’s a vehicle to help you go to work. That’s why it’s called grace.” ~Ram Dass~
Unraveling these layers is a delicate process that can be held in compassion, as you open up for space to feel new love and wholeness within yourself.
No one's path is the same and sometimes it takes a hand open and outreached with honest eyes to allow you to feel "ready."
If this is something you'd like to experience and explore further with a trusted guide, I would love to talk more with you.
Check out my offerings page here for more info.
Love and light and shadows and darkness and everything else,
Ashley
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