by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 10, 2020 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
There is a bit of a mystery as we unfold on our life’s path. What seems clear in one moment seems obscure in the next. What works at one time no longer seems to apply as we move forward. We might wonder, why this information that way? Why is it rolling out over this stretch of time? Why is it happening this way? The mind desires to be able to know the reasons behind the unfolding. And you can ponder the whys of it all forever—or you can just let it inform you. What new information is this providing for you? How is this helping you see or understand yourself?
And instead of trying to understand our life from a more masculine, solution-focused orientation (“Here\’s my problem, it needs to be fixed”), we might try viewing a challenging dynamic, situation or event as instructing us about how to unfold more completely. How is it informing me? What can I learn from it? Recognize that we can\’t rush our unfolding. Wish as we might, that\’s not what this path is like. It is not about demanding that certain skills unfold when we want them to because there\’s a job to be done. It’s a much more comprehensive path and calling that usually spans not just a lifetime or an eight-month program but multiple lifetimes of developing skills—and also developing bad habits.
So sometimes when you are up against the things that are most challenging for you, you are not just up against your childhood conditioning. You can be locked a habitual pattern because you were or are living in an environment, a culture, a time where this is the only way to act. Or your current challenge may be necessary to your development at this time. Sometimes we lose a faculty because we need it to be offline to accommodate another, growing one. What we see as our greatest challenge might not be a problem to solve but an aspect of the larger picture of our spiritual unfolding.
Whenever we start something new, at varying points in the process, things will feel a bit shaky. Your task is less to fix or eradicate the problem and more to learn how to create the maximum health, strength, and resiliency. It’s just like when a baby starts to walk: you make sure that the baby is supported enough for them to learn how. Sometimes you provide extra support, sometimes you let the baby work through it alone. But there is nothing wrong with a baby who can’t walk gracefully. That\’s what you\’re doing with yourself. Sometimes the remedy for feeling shaky because you are stretching past your capacity is to bring yourself back to a place where you are fully resourced. And other times, it is best to take the risk.
You can move yourself in the direction of what you are creating, knowing that of course it’s going to happen because that’s the direction you’re going. You can make the trip as easy as possible, or you can worry the whole way. You pay attention: “This is where I can hold really well. Okay, this is the line where I\’m not holding really well. Okay, let me find my edge. Let me take half a step instead of a full step. Okay. Still happened. Let me take a quarter step instead of a half step. All right, got it. All right, now let me try again.”
Slowing down to the rate of your unfolding rather than driving it forward with some sort of expectation ultimately makes the process easier and (believe it or not) faster. This is true for all of us when it comes to the unfolding of our lives. The slowing down is actually the speeding up of the process, and it requires maturity.
As we focus on slowing down and resourcing ourselves, it almost magically shifts our focus so that we worry less about making sense of it all and fixing the problem, and pay more attention to the types of things that get the job done. The reasons behind what is happening become more readily apparent, and we can work more skillfully with what we have.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jan 10, 2020 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
I have spent a lot of time in life wanting something. Wanting what is next to come faster. Wanting something different than what is there. Wanting something I don’t have. A good part of my mental process was constructed to evaluate what is happening in order to determine whether it should in fact be happening and then creating a desire around what I would like to be happening instead. You can laugh—and it is funny. And I know it is a common problem. So you are likely laughing because you can relate.
I am learning to be patient, to be present, and to welcome what is. I am learning to refine myself rather than desiring that something be different outside myself. This shift in perspective has been really threatening to my ego, which has been fighting back by intensifying its antics. Mostly it throws me into my evaluating mind so that I feel in some way that I am doing something—when in reality, I am simply getting in the way. It also complicates matters by telling intricate stories about straightforward events.
It feels like parenting a toddler—somewhat tedious attentiveness, making sure that my ego does not pull things off the shelf, drink Drano, or run into the street. It requires the deep patience of the wise mother to lovingly stay on the task at hand and not descend into her own inner child, making a mess out of what is really a natural and beautiful developmental process. It requires the ability to return to center—to alignment—as quickly as possible after each event. It requires not taking myself too seriously or getting hooked on the idea that things should different, thereby getting lost within the cycle of wanting yet again, if at a loftier level.
Creating space for the deeper Self to come more fully into life is skill that develops over time through devotion and the healthiest types of discipline. How are you doing this in your life? How are you learning to love what is?
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Dec 10, 2019 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Life often requires that we do things in a less than ideal way along the journey to achieving our ideal. We simply do the best we can with what we have. It is challenging to balance the demands of the material world with our greater visions. It is difficult to work through our developmental stages when they are impacting some aspect of our life, especially when it is our work.
There are a number of ways people can get caught in this process, making the challenging even more difficult or at very least lengthy. One way is that we want things to be different than they are—we want more ease, flow, and joy—and we are frustrated with all the ways that we might not yet have accomplished this.
When we pit our ideal outcome against our current situation, we set up a dynamic that blocks forward movement. One might say, “I don\’t want it to be this way anymore, and so I’m really trying to create a different way of being.” The tension created between the “I don’t want” and the trying to have something different holds the problem in place. It is more helpful in these moments to release the tension than it is to strive toward the ideal.
There is not one solution for this in general, or for you over time. The key is to think creatively about how to release your tension—that will free you up to move forward. For example, you might persist in an action because “I\’ve got bills to pay and I need to get the job done.” If you have thoughts like this, you can explore their energetic impact on you. This increases your awareness, which helps to open the door to new opportunities. As a result of the awareness, you might have a moment, for whatever reason, where you experience some kind of breakthrough. Because of this breakthrough, you may suddenly be in the flow of things and show up to the task that you need to do. When you do this, you can feel that there\’s a totally different energy moving inside of you. And then you can attune to that energy and how that energy moves in you and start to learn about it.
This is one example of how to move through a block and create more of the ideal instead of creating the type of tension that impedes the process. There are numerous other ways, but the point is that you approach things from a new angle and pay attention to what is working or not working in a way that allows you to gain understanding about the problem and align with new solutions.
By working in ways like this, you eliminate or decrease disruption and move into a state of more neutrality. The more you can base yourself in this neutrality, the more you can set yourself up for realizing your ideal sense of flow or whatever you desire to bring into your life.
Once you’re working mostly from neutrality and less in feeding the tension, you will naturally break through into forward momentum. Once there, you pay attention to the qualities of what that is, what brought that into being, how it feels, what the difference is to your orientation. You attune so that this experience becomes like a compass. And the more you practice this, the easier it is to simply switch into that mode. But trying to force the new way of being—trying to process it out or using your mind to override what is with what you want—usually does not work. It will, however, increase the tension between where you want to go and where you are. So, it is most often most helpful to look for creative ways to release these tensions so that you can function more and more in a state of neutrality that is more welcoming to your ideal. Then use your awareness to learn everything you can about this new way.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 27, 2019 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
During a transformational process with you as the guide, people work out their relationships to what they want but don’t know how to have, in a sometimes challenging dance.
During some of these encounters, I have been told that I don’t care enough, that I am not spiritual enough, that I am responsible for another person’s pain because I cannot save them, that I led them to treacherous waters, that I should be doing things another way or with a specific agenda, and more. I have been blamed for taking too much control, taking not enough control, over sharing, under sharing, being manipulative, being too materialistic, being too driven, and not being driven enough. I have had my life picked through and my body picked over so that the other person can get what it is they feel they need on the way to becoming who they want to be.
There is nothing wrong with this process or either of the people involved in it. It is a facet of the healing process. Still, I am a human and I have feelings, so sometimes this process is harder than other times. Most of the time I am able to see if for what it is: the transference that is needed for healing to happen. But when it brushes up against my own wounds—especially the places where I have bought in to the lie that there is something wrong with me—I can lose my way and begin to wonder if they are right.
These are teaching moments for me. Moments in which I can learn to trust more. Moments when I can learn to expand the borders of my limitations and to be more deeply committed to my work in general. To face these moments, I benefit from the solid knowledge that I do my work and I don’t hide from my limitations. I open the door to them, welcome them in, and hold myself accountable to what I see. This willingness builds my faith in myself and my work.
I benefit from knowing that I am a vessel for transformation, not the creator of transformation. This transformation may look like many things; it is not my job to judge it one way or another, only to trust each type of unfolding. I benefit from knowing that each person has a path and what they need to walk that path. I have faith in this. I don’t need to worry that something has gone wrong. I can simply offer what is right for me, and let go.
Essentially,
I need faith—faith in me, faith in them, faith in the process. Healing
can be mysterious, and some of what appear to be “mistakes” or
“problems” end up being the catalyst for powerful transformations. In
fact, this can always be the case if we want to look at it that way.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 10, 2019 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
For me, leading ceremony is not about making something happen. Yes, there are structural and energetic components to attend to, but the real work is creating a space for people to have a direct spiritual connection inside and outside themselves.
It is the art of un-doing, the space holding, the emptying.
We have been taught to look to someone else to tell us our deepest knowing and show us what spiritual connection means to us. We have given up our own power and because of this, we are eager to place it on others. This is hurting us individually and collectively quite deeply.
For me, leading is as much about disentangling from this dynamic as it is about the creation of the ceremony. If you want to deepen your spiritual practice, learn to listen. If you want to create a ceremony, learn to listen.
It does not matter whether you get a form just right – that your hand moves precisely the right way, that your prayer is spoken perfectly, that you even know exactly what you are doing.
I say this as an artist and someone who deeply honors a well-developed technique, and as an academic who values knowing. These are beautiful embellishments, but not necessities. What is necessary is the unmediated connection with spirit. A connection that is yours and yours alone.
For me, my non-doing speaks louder than my doing. My lack of showmanship is a vehicle for others to see their own brilliance. The emptiness or absence of activities is an opportunity for others to step forward.
Disentangling from the misplaced spiritual power dynamic is complex. As soon as the space is open, it is often filled with all sorts of things that are not in service of direct spiritual connection or upliftment to try and put the familiar dynamic back in place.
Stepping out of the “I have the spiritual truth” game brings up unconscious fears. Fears because suddenly we are faced with our own spiritual nakedness and want desperately for someone to wrap us in the blanket of “you don’t need to know because I do.” These fears can be projected on leaders in the form of “you need to do more so that I feel secure.” The remedy is that we vulnerably step in and ask for our own spiritual connection.
It can also call forward an ego-driven superiority simply because the person experiences that lack of condescension and middle-manning as an indication of limitation. They have bought in, so deeply, to the idea that competence and spiritual connection mean dominance and oppression. The remedy again is to work on our own spiritual connection. Direct contact makes these dynamics untenable.
When I am talking about divine feminine principles, I am not talking about goddess work. There are plenty (and most setting predominantly are) goddess works that support the patriarchal structure that keep us detached from our inner knowing all while having a fabulous goddessy face.
I am talking deep in the bones dismantling of the structures that keep us from ourselves and our deepest spiritual truth. I am talking the remembering of how to steward our own spiritual journey and gather the wisdom from the universe one handful at a time. This requires something totally different.
Yes, it is divine feminine work. It is the work of non-doing. It is the void, the vessel, the opening. And like the feminine, it gets devalued, criticized, feared and condemned. And like the feminine, it has been told that it is nothing and that something needs to go in its place. It forgets its own value. Yet it gives and gives and gives to us because it is the divine mother herself understanding that we, as children, need time to grow up.
So ceremony for me is not about doing something, it is about creating an opening – or in some cases working to create even a small crack so that this wisdom can find its way into the room and hopefully the world. Because I know that people with a direct spiritual connection can heal themselves and heal the world.
