 When someone tells you you're a failure, how does it make you feel? What is your response? Do you yell back at them? Tell them to stop? Drop them as a friend immediately? Most of us have an internal dialogue that yells at us- just like a nasty person. Yet we keep letting this person into our lives- over and over again- without ever trying to change the relationship. Do you catch yourself saying hurtful messages to yourself? The kind that directly connect to limiting beliefs and self sabotage tactics? "What will they think of me?" "Who am I to do that!?" "What if they notice!" "Why try. It won't turn out anyway." These are the messages of your critic. Do you know its messages? The onslaught of harsh and hurtful inner voices that are on constant repeat? What kind of relationship do you have with your critic?! Do you avoid it? Stuff it into a dark corner? Pretend it's not there? Maybe you turn it off with substances or screens, cheap thrills or pretending. It happens. We are all doing it. But if we really want to change our lives- from the inside to outside- avoidance and resistance won't do the trick. Building a good relationship with your critic is crucial. Join me for my 10 Day Embodiment + Creativity Self Care Challenge! Receive daily inspiration for increasing your creativity, joy, embodiment and a sense of thriving. Get on the list. The critic will stop you in your tracks. It will keep you from any iota of creative activation. It will contract you, keep you playing small and feeling insignificant. The critic is the biggest hindrance to our creativity, our life force energy, and it will keep us from living the life of our dreams, feeling nourished and taking action steps. The critic will keep us away from just about anything we truly desire and long for. My solution for working with the critic is not to negate it or try to turn it off. Strangely, the critic, while being our worst enemy, is also the artists best friend. How is that possible? In many regards, the critic is our resistance, our old patterns- usually based in the mental body or the imaginal realm of our being. Often we've inherited these patterns from our lineage and/or we acquire them through life experiences. The critic essentially is all the parts of our being that tells us to stop, say no, resist, refuse. Actually this is a very important protection mechanism. In many ways, the critic has our best interest in mind. Literally! In fact, the critic is connected to the part of the brain that can keep us safe and out of harms way. We need it- just not all of the time. How can we turn off the critic? Rather than turn it off or silence it, I prefer to invite it in to our lives intentionally. Hey, it's already here, and more resistance is likely not going to be useful- or a good use of our energy. I take a Gandhi approach to the critic- befriend the enemy. See what it has to teach you, what its message really has to share with you and why it shows up when it does. I often tell my clients to invite the critic over for a cup of tea! Five Steps for Befriending the Critic: Step #1: Before we can attend to the critic and its messages, we first need to identify it. Most people walk through life completely unaware of their inner thought processes. The mind is on auto-pilot and it never stops! I encourage you to get into a rigorous habit of using the four levels of awareness as a means of navigating your inner terrain. Doing consistent self tracking with a four level check-in is vital. What is a four level check-in? Can you identify the critic and its messages? What level of awareness does it usually come from? Step #2 In your sacred creative space, leave a chair open for your critic to "sit in". Or perhaps place a special reminder in your art space that symbolizes your critic. This is an open invitation to your critic. It is also your reminder that it may arrive, but you don't need to engage with its behaviors. Step #3 Get curious and ask it to share more with you. Create an image of your critic. Let it out of the closet, let it be seen and acknowledge its presence. What colors, shapes, textures and images arrive on the page? Use whatever art medium inspires you- craypas, markers, pens, scraps of paper etc. Give yourself 20+ minutes for this process. Step #4 Title your image. Give your critic a name. Clearly identify this part of your being. Who is it? Get curious. Then ask your image to share with you. If your image could speak, what would it say to you? Step #5: Ask your image to answer these questions: I am___ I want___ I need___ Now that you've harvested some vital information from your critic, it's time to look at your findings. What does your critic want and need? How does your critic help you? How does it harm you? Most importantly, does it have a gift to share with you? Notice the ways in which your critic serves you and acknowledge its messages. Honor this part of your being for trying to help you in some capacity. Now when it arrives, track it. Notice its arrival. Thank it and acknowledge it. You can choose to use the critic to support your creative process or destroy it. What choice do you make? How can you continue to befriend this part of yourself? "Art is primarily about the development of consciousness, not the development of an object." ~Hudson Join me for my 10 Day Embodiment + Creativity Self Care Challenge! Receive daily inspiration for increasing your creativity, joy, embodiment and a sense of thriving. Get on the list. Need some extra guidance and clarity? I have a few August sessions still available. Schedule a session with me. Plan your week in tune with nature. Never miss a planetary update. Sign up for my weekly newsletter. Was this post helpful? Please share it with a friend! Thank you.
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 Over the past several years, meeting with hundreds of clients one on one, studying their jyotish charts, their struggles and their life purposes, I've come to some very interesting conclusions. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) most of the clients coming to me have issues similar to me, and each one of my clients has been a brilliant teacher for me as a result. I've noticed that the majority of my clients are indeed sensitive individuals- and I can see it in their jyotish charts. I now can see "markers" of this sensitivity and the myriad of forms that it shows up in planetarily. I have also developed and refined my resources, tools and offerings, in order to serve my clients more effectively. Tools and resources that I have used myself; the tools that have been extremely beneficial- even lifesaving- for me.
It hasn't been an easy path. Most of my life has been trial and error. Wondering how I could be so miserable, in so much emotional pain, and wondering why I was struggling so much. It has been a challenging path, wrought with torture at times. Confusion about my self worth, my life purpose, my reason for living at all. Jyotish wasn't much help for me and my life path actually. No jyotishi has ever been able to nail down my life purpose! Which is why I started studying Jyotish more and more; to figure out what my "map" had to say about my dharma, my reason for being alive. Now I have some answers, and I have a unique awareness about the life purpose of extremely sensitive types like me. Now I can offer this wisdom to clients. There have been many blessings along the way. The struggles have forced me to open new doors and to keep trying. My persistence has kept me going. The blessings have been the tools that I've encountered, the support, the encouragement and the guidance that has let me know that I am on the right path. As I discussed more in my article Using Sensitivity As Your Greatest Gift, it wasn't until I started a conscious relationship with my emotions, my emotional body, that life began to shift for me. When I realized that the emotional body had validity, had messages, was in fact a precious tool of guidance in and of itself, well, that was the beginning of some remarkable life changing shifts. I realized that this innate and extreme sensitivity that was validated by my jyotish chart, may have seemed like a curse for most of my life, and even interpreted by traditional jyotishis as such, but that in fact, it was my greatest gift of all! As a result of embracing this extreme sensitivity, the shifts keep coming and my dharmic work has enlivened as well. One of these big shifts has been trusting my emotional body and its messages. Remember that the emotional body and the intuition are closely linked. When we have a very strong relationship with our emotional body, then we have our pulse on the intuitive wisdom that is within us- always available to steer us in the most compassionate direction. The intuition will never lead us astray. The mind/mental body may, but the intuition never does. As I've started to trust and nurture my emotional body wisdom and to cultivate a very close relationship with it, a miraculous thing has occurred. I trust my self, my life, my actions and my choices more. I trust life more. And most importantly, I trust my self to live my life more authentically. Perhaps this has been the biggest blessing of all. The one, big necessary shift? Embracing my emotional body as valid, valuable and brimming with intuitive wisdom. All I have to do is harvest this information in a very clear, direct and focused way. The emotional body is our sensitivity. It is our gift. And if you have a heightened sensitivity, you likely have a heightened emotional body. This, as a result, means you can have a very powerful relationship with your intuition. This is the work that excites me, that I'm passionate about, and that I want to share with you more and more. Using your sensitivity as the gift that it is. Awakening this sensitivity so that it can lead you to your dharmic work, work that is meaningful and valuable for you and the world, and work that even can support you financially as a result. Remember, the most important step to having a more fulfilling life is to start cultivating a relationship with your emotional body. I've given multiple tools and resources to start this journey over the past many months on my blog, and I offer my clients a myriad of resources and techniques in private sessions as well. My favorite tools for emotional body awareness are from a body-centered expressive art therapy approach which incorporates the wisdom of the three bodies: emotional, mental and physical. It all starts with a simple technique called the 3 Level Check In. Work with it and use it to help you cultivate presence with "what is". It's at this point that I want to remind you that we aren't here to change anything, at least not in a forced way. We are here to listen, respect, and to be a witness to "what is" within us. Using a 3 Level Check In is a fabulous resource for this listening, for harvesting what "is" in our mental body, emotional body and physical body. It is our tool for confronting our felt senses, our life experience. All you have to do is listen. That is the first step to this process. We can also use a resource referred to as the "baseline statements" in the Tamalpa Life Art Process. This is a series of questions that help us "harvest" our findings, to hone in on our wants, needs and felt experiences. If you have been using my creative rituals, or one of my workshop MP3's, then you have already started to work with these baseline statements. Don't worry, I will be sharing more about this in my August Full Moon Creative Ritual, as well as my upcoming workshops and offerings, in order to help you gain more experience with this technique. It's this part of the harvesting process, however, that we can take our awareness of "what is" and be more conscious about our next steps in life. Once we identify something, we recognize we have options, choices. This identification process can help us make changes in our life. Or perhaps we choose not to make changes at this time. Regardless of our next steps, identification is the beginning of great awareness and insight. My passion lies in assisting my sensitive clients with their identification process, giving tools and resources that shape their choices and actions. My resources and guidance, workshops, jyotish sessions and coaching services, are all about giving jyoti (light), especially to the sensitive individuals feeling uncertain, overwhelmed, burdened, lost, unsupported by life and by their relationships- resulting in lack of trust with the self. This month, I'm offering yet another workshop offering to help you gain insights into your emotional process. In August, the focus will be on cultivating further presence with our sensitivity, our emotional body and our intuition. Recognizing this sensitivity as a gift, the gift that it truly is. My Be Your Gift Workshop series will last four days- from August 28th to the 31st. This virtual (online) series will help you work with your sensitivity more consciously, cultivate more presence with it, and help you recognize it for the gift that it is. What you will learn in this teleclass: -Why sensitivity is your most powerful tool of self awareness. -Why your sensitivity can be your most trustworthy ally. -How your sensitivity can build self confidence, trust in self and others, as well as self sufficiency. -What your body wisdom is telling you about this gift. -How to use your body's messages for deeper insights. -How to nourish and protect your sensitivity for maximum results. -Why sensitivity can be the missing link on your path and your dharmic journey. -What messages to look for in your emotional body in order for personal and spiritual growth. -How sensitivity is connected to the emotional body and the intuition, and why these are vital for your life. -The common mistake most people make when listening to their inner guidance systems. -"Best practices" for being a sensitive individual. -Why sensitivity is an indication of being gifted and talented. I am looking forward to working with you and helping you develop a strong connection with the gift of your sensitivity. Be your gift!! Doors will open for this workshop on Sunday, August 10th at a reduced fee, but only for a limited time. Look for the update via email. Like this post? Please share it! Want more creative resources? Sign up for my newsletter. Befriending Your Emotions: It's Vital for Your Health. Many of you know that I'm passionate about the Moon and all things Moon related. The Moon and its experience within one's jyotish chart says a lot about the individual human experience. An unhappy Moon can spoil the fruits of a chart or at least make it feel miserable regardless of the bounty. The nature of our natal Moon and its experience with the other planets is so fundamental to our life experience that I devote an entire column to it weekly. The Moon is a powerful resource for us and can be a tool for self growth, awareness and spiritual development. Read more about the Moon from a Jyotish perspective and why it is so revered. Unfortunately, the more I learn about the Moon and its purpose- within the cosmos and within our own beings- the more I realize how ignorant the majority of humans are about this awesome inner guidance system we have hardwired into us. As a result, the emotions are one of these "Moon topics" that are the basis of my work. I'm passionate about the emotions because I have found that most people are completely "dumb" when it comes to navigating their own emotions. In fact, our society is almost entirely clueless about this very real and important human function. Most people would like to skip the "feeling" parts of life all together and bypass this very important tool of inner wisdom. There are however very real and unfortunate consequences to skipping over the emotions. Cultivating a relationship with our emotions can help enrich our lives on so many basic levels. Cultivating more awareness with our emotions can enhance our personal and interpersonal relationships as well as cultivate increased creativity, greater harmony and joy. The human body has a fairly predictable response system in it. When we first have an emotional response it usually only lasts a few moments. Then the mental body attaches to the emotion and keeps it on constant re-play, looping it over and over in our minds. Finally, there is a physical response as a result. This three part process is either happening quickly or we are repeating this cycle over many many years until a very old "story" develops. When an emotion has made its way into a physical body response, we know it is quite engrained in our story or personal mythology at that point. This is why the body can be a wonderful resource for emotional wisdom as well Ideally, we would have a relationship with the emotions that provides us the information we need and the awareness we need in order to make very informed action steps in our lives; before the mind attaches to them and they settle into the physical body. Once the emotion settles into the body, health issues can arise. So clearly the emotions are step number one in prevention. When we skip over the emotions and the consistent work that it takes to create a relationship with our emotions then we bypass the most basic tool within us that is hard wired for our satisfaction and listening in our lives. Do you have a healthy relationship with your emotions? Here are some questions to ask your self about your relationship with your emotions: -Do you pause to listen to your emotions, to check in with what arrives and then use this to inform your actions and choices? -Can you be present (very present) to others' emotions and navigate which are "theirs" and which are "yours"? - Do you dump your emotions on others as a way to cope with your own overwhelm? -Do you hate tears? Anger? Do you wish it could be happy and "smooth" all the time for your Self and your relationships? -Do you push past your own emotions, trying to skip to the "good stuff"? -Do you cut and paste over your feelings- especially around others- in order to keep things "tidy" and not rock the boat? -Do you allow time and space for discomfort and emotions like sadness, anger, depression, grief and loneliness? -Do you use drugs or alcohol, food and other "feel good" methods to enhance your life? Especially when life feels tough? These are valuable questions to ask yourself in order to determine what your relationship is with your emotions and the Emotional Body. It is in fact a whole body in and of itself and its very worthy of your time, attention and intention. Unfortunately, the majority of us are ill-equipped to handle the range of emotions that a human is capable of experiencing. Most of us are conditioned from very early stages of life that certain emotions are "good" and other emotions are "bad". Certain emotions will get a "good" response from our parents and our environment and certain emotions will get us a "bad" response. We may learn to shut down our capacity to feel the full range of our life experiences as a result. We may begin to make choices (over and over and over again) that continue to perpetuate unfortunate circumstances and feelings within our life as well. This early conditioning requires some essential re-patterning, but the good news is that a simple technique called the 3 Level Check-in can be a helpful first step in finding a more conscious relationship with our emotions. We can then move forward in life with greater awareness about life choices, actions and our own personal embodiment. It is a practice, and as they say, practice makes perfect. So use the 3 level check-in to help you flex your emotional muscles so to speak. A three level check in is easy, fast and helps us separate the three bodies- emotional body, mental body, and physical body- so that we can easily identify what their messages are. Interestingly, most people are constantly confusing the mental and emotional bodies. Many of my clients can not even find their emotional bodies because the mental body is overriding it and has been for so long! The mental body wants to take the wheel and keep driving you. And drive it does! On and on and on. To the point of, most people do not even know what is the mind and what are the emotions! They are very different and have very different needs, so making sure that we make room for the emotions and cultivating a relationship with them is really step number one. Here are some ways life improves once we start working with the emotional body more directly: We know what we need and what we don't need in our lives. We know what feels emotionally supportive and we make choices and take action accordingly. We create more healthy boundaries within our lives and our relationships. We have more space in our lives for joy and inspiration. We have more satisfying and wholesome relationships- with ourselves and with others. The results are a directly related to being very acutely aware of our emotional body, what it is telling us, what it needs for nourishment and support, as well as what it doesn't need. If we don't know what it needs, we can't give it what it needs. It's quite simple. Use these three simple steps to help you develop a deeper relationship with your emotions: Step #1: Use the three level check in. Try to create a practice of "checking in" at least once a day but especially when there is a strong emotional response happening within you. Step #2: Tracking themes and patterns that develop within your emotional/mental bodies and noticing how these show up in your physical body. Can you feel your stomach tense up when you feel angry? Does your spine hurt when you feel lack of support or encouragement in your life? Do you get a headache when overwhelm sets in? Step #3: Use your three level check in as the impetus for your creative arts process in order to harvest more information directly. Are you ready for more resources? Listen to my free class: Ultimate Self Care for Sensitive Types. *Photo credit to Taira Restar Need some extra guidance and clarity? Schedule a session with me. Plan your week in tune with nature. Never miss a planetary update. Sign up for my weekly newsletter. Alexandra Levasseur. Title: Limbo #3 This painting by Alexandra Levasseur sparked something in me this morning. I identify with it on a visceral level; as if it is a painting of my insides. Recently I've been working with the theme of "limbo" in my personal artistic and therapeutic process. This theme started to emerge from my shadows as I painted and danced, using my intermodel body centered expressive art therapy practice. It's here. It's been here as long as I can remember, yet only recently was I able to identify it for what it is.
Limbo: it's a neither here nor there type feeling. It's not firmly grounded, yet not entirely uprooted either. There's a sense of always "preparing" for something that might be next, just around the corner, arriving today- or tomorrow, or the next. Limbo requires that we don't fully unpack our bags, that life stays in boxes ready for the inevitable changes of life and moving on. Limbo can be used as a protection mode, an internal set point that allows us to not get fully hurt or damaged. "It didn't really matter that much? I'll be moving on soon anyway." Limbo can show up as resignation, a sense of futility, a passivity in our energetics. We may try to take action, but we use limbo as our buffer to give padding for inevitable pains and disappointments. A session with my shaman and mentor was a catalyst in helping me identify this physical response. The tendency for me to "roll out" of my physical body too easily as a protection mechanism has been a default for me since childhood but I've been unaware of its consequences. This is actually quite common for those who have experienced trauma- especially early in life. Staying separate from what's going on within can be like having a "safe zone" to go to when things get too tough. But this doesn't bode well for life, or living fully, nor for one's sense of embodiment. This "neither here nor there" type feeling can be likened to a death process- the in between realms- when a soul is neither in a body nor in the higher realms. And so limbo is thus mirroring death in some ways. (Another reason it's so important to work with the emotional body and somatic embodiment awareness so that we can ground into what is happening rather than push it away. This is a big reason why I'm so passionate about a body centered approach to therapy- and of course the arts- as they are a big messenger for the inner landscape). Limbo can show up in our emotional body, our mental body and our physical body. It can appear as confusion, indecisiveness, lack of clarity, lack of purpose, a sense of disillusionment and overwhelm. It can cause us to lack commitment or refuse to commit. It can hinder action steps and send us into a state of depression as a result. As with any inner process that I'm witnessing in myself, I take it into my jyotish practice. I look at my chart. I assess the transits. I feel into the planetary implications- the felt sense of it all. Limbo can be related to sandhi planets. Sandhi is the gap; the inbetween space. The netherworld between signs if you will. Most schools of Vedic astrology consider this placement to be weak, to lack strength and clarity. Sandhi planets, who are just entering a sign or just leaving a sign can lack clarity, purpose and focus, just as I've described about the sense of being in limbo. Sandhi planets are indeed in limbo. (You can check for this in your own chart by looking for planets that are less then 2 degrees or over 28 degrees). It's true, sandhi planets lack the grounding and stability that a planet who is clearly situated within a sign may offer. It is as though the planet hasn't fully decided if it is in the house that it is in. It is on its way in or out, but hasn't decided which one it will be. Its bags are still packed, boxes are still full, and it may not know if it's here or there. It's a traveler. It's in limbo. This sense of here nor there, however, can offer some profound insights and awareness. Nothing is all good nor all bad, and this is quite true with sandhi planets. The gap offers us a connection to the mystical realms, the nether realms, and can offer great depth and awareness with what feels untouchable most of the time (or all the time depending on the individual). Planets that are sandhi offer potential, possibility, unique insights and depth as a result of their "otherworldly" connections. These are flexible planets and of course that can show up as versatility in a person as well. We can let this lack of grounding hinder us or give us great awareness. That is a choice. I like to remind my clients that what may appear to be a "negative", is in fact a great gift of some sort just waiting to be discovered. If there's any part of a chart that gives this type of indication so clearly, I think it is sandhi planets. The type of planet and its sign placement will effect the experience of the limbo dance, and the gift or offering within the chart as a result. In my natal chart I have a sandhi Saturn. Saturn represents the physical body, its structure, as well as our sense of support, stability and the ability to be consistent and methodical. The placement of my sandhi Saturn indicates that there may be some issues with these indications as a result of his "neither here nor there" placement. However, the gift here is that he offers me a very real experience of the physical body and the physical structure of the universe, that is beyond the mundane, the tangible. My lack of physical grounding has insisted that I put in much effort to change that; hence my passion for embodiment work. It will be my lifelong work, but I will gain much growth and grounding as a result. His placement in my 10th house insures that I will share my experiences of the body (internal body as well as universal body) with others as a result. This is not without constant effort, but knowing this expression of Saturn has been profound for me. As a result I've been working with my "limbo dance" in a very different way. Letting Saturn give me insights and awareness that I may have not been looking for if I didn't understand his complexities and unique placement in my chart. And perhaps all of this limbo work will eventually lead to unpacking my boxes and landing somewhere more permanently. As the planets change (every 2.5 days to 2.5 years) each goes through a time period of sandhi. These time periods offer us an experience of possibility and change, immense creativity and potential. At these times, we may feel unsettled, poised for change, but uncertain when it will come. These junction points may cause us to dream and scheme for something new, yet feel frustration that it isn't arriving soon enough or fast enough. Sandhi times are like a grace period and should be treated as such. Don't rush things, force agendas, or take untimely actions. Let the planet arrive firmly into its house before you force change, make decisions or take forward action steps. Find ways to surrender to your depths, to listen intently, quiet the mind, and settle into your inner knowing during sandhi planetary dances. The gap is a perfect time for meditation. These are times to harvest your inner riches; special times that are otherwise unavailable to us. Listen intently and use these time periods of sandhi, the gap, for the value that they can offer. Was this article helpful to you? Please share it! Not on my newsletter list yet? Please sign up! I use a simple technique referred to as the "3 Level Check In" to bring awareness to what is happening for me in my daily life and to get embodied. This is a highly valuable tool- one that you've heard me talk about if you've had a session with me or if you've taken a workshop with me. This video will share more about how to "check in".
I've written extensively on the subject because it really is step #1 in getting our needs met. We can't get our needs met in life if we don't know what we need! Consider this your basic formula for stepping into knowing what you need so you can create healthy relationships and life practices. Here's more on the 3 Level Check In. Do you tend to get stuck in your mental body? Or maybe nothing comes when you check in with your emotional body? Take my quiz to see what your "default" mode is. Why do I use Jyotish in conjunction with Body-centered Expressive Art Therapy? Here are my articles that share the benefits and my unique approach: Recreate Your Life {Again and Again} via BeYouMediaGroup. The purpose of using Jyotish + Expressive Art Therapy via BeYouMediaGroup. Like this post? Please share it! Want more creative resources? Sign up for my newsletter. |