Staying mindful in an emotionally intense situation is tricky.

I’ve had my share of wanting to escape to an island and swim and fish all day.

But I also chose to have kids.

And family life with kids is often not a tropical island feel. my witness and cohort can attest.

It’s the peace I crave.

I mean, I love me a good adventure in the beauty of the natural world.

But even when we go camping and hiking in the majestic, serene Appalachian Mountains that are our backyard, if I’m not secure with conjuring up peace, the anxiety follows me into the woods.

And the way I’ve learned to conjure up peace is through mindfulness.

Retraining myself to not buy into the stories and feelings as my identity.

And instead, remembering, We are Source that all things arise from.

All things.

Thoughts, emotions, events, our human self.

All the things in life arise from who we are.

It’s pointless to try to wrap our head around it.

But that’s where we start. Because we are thinking creatures by nature. We have a brain that likes to be active.

It’s kind of like, you have to agree with the idea in your head and then you have to tell your head you got it from here.

And you have to lean into the experience of knowing.

Enter intensity.

It’s like a fast-moving river. Comes along and sweeps you away before you realize what’s going on.

I had a spiritual teacher tell me years ago that you have to practice mindfulness in the quiet times. Get solid in the practice.

Like an athlete or chef or performing artist. You rehearse and practice and train and test things out when no one is watching and you can focus better.

My saving grace has been my car rides getting the kids to school. And the bathroom that still has the locking door. And the brief moments when my head hits the pillow at night and before I crash out from the exhaustion of the day.

And in the morning. The sweet, quiet morning. Before the house wakes up.

I can’t sleep in even if I wanted to. My makeup doesn’t seem to let me anymore. But me and the cat and the birds and my coffee relish in the stillness. It’s easy to feel peace before the emotional tugs light up the day.

I know what peace feels like. I know how I get there. I tell the worries that I wake up into in the morning that they are not who I am. The financial fears. The fact that we don’t have running water for 3 months. That’s an essay in itself. The guilt that I haven’t mastered mindfulness in the dramas of family life.

These thoughts and the emotions that rise with them are not who I am. And by reminding myself this for months, they actually don’t haunt me the way they used. They don’t even seem to show up as much. And if they do show up, they don’t have the power to make me miserable like they once did.

So this intensity thing I keep circling myself out of addressing. It still gets me. I still get triggered and blinded. I forget the whole idea of mindfulness. Because there are some deep-seated beliefs in there that pull me in. It’s like the trigger is tied to an anchor that is wedged under a boulder.

I’ve gotten MUCH better at catching myself quickly in hindsight and analyzing what just happened. “So he said this and then I reacted and looking back I can see how disconnected I was when I was reacting. And now I feel guilty and like a failed Mom. And. Aha! That is not who I am! I am not this guilt story. I am not a failed Mom. I am not the overwhelm of the feelings. We are Source that all things arise from.”

It’s a very powerful step in the right direction.

The wholly direction.

Today is the day (again) I deepen my practice to alchemize intensity on the spot. Process through the thought-feeling take over faster than AI can give relationship advice.

A substacker reminded me to play. Thanks !

Like drumming! I love drumming! Maybe I need a little drum necklace to tap on to remind me to wake the F*ck up.

One more cup of coffee (half-caf) and I am ready.

Game on! 🙏

Spread the Love. Check out our Fierce Love starring and Waking Dragons Wearable Wisdom merch…https://www.etsy.com/shop/wakingdragons

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has a new book out.🎉 I can’t wait to read. This soul that showed up in my Substack feed months ago is full of lived wisdom.

Lately I’ve been infused and accelerated in my unfolding and waking up brighter with the relax out of resistance idea that I read in one of A Bhardwaj’s notes.

I’ve always approached the world through a “what can I do to make this or that happen or not happen” lens.

And I think this idea to relax out of resistance gives me something tangible “to do.”

Relax is what I do.

Like sitting on a riverbank and watching a river flow by.

Like relaxing in a hammock in the shade of a big old oak tree.

Take the same relaxing energy to the inside.

Relax and watch the emotions and thoughts flow through. Without grabbing hold or pushing them away. Just relax and watch.

And while we’re at it, relax and watch the thoughts and emotions that rise and fall related to an event or relationship interaction.

The event happened already. Maybe it will happen again. Maybe it won’t happen again.

Maybe we will change our reaction or response to a recurring event. But for now, it happened.

Arguing with it will not make it not have happened.

Maybe we feel powerless and we want to do something about it.

And we can.

We can relax on the inside and watch the thoughts and emotions arise and fall. The anger. The frustration. The sorrow. We can relax and allow. And the thoughts and feelings might stay for a bit. And they will also move on.

And we will have clearer access to our true power that now flows through us more freely. And we can respond from this place. And events will shift. We keep showing up differently and so does the life reflecting back to us.

Like last night. We went to see a local theater performance of Matilda the Musical. I was the costumer. I love costuming!

My husband and I sat together and cracked up the whole time. It was funny and brilliant. The chemistry was amazing. The delivery and timing of ALL the actors was beautiful.

After the show, we mingled and praised the actors. They are our theater family. They reminded us that the audience’s energy feeds the actors, and the actors’ energy feeds the audience. It’s the magical feedback loop of live performance art.

It was the most enjoyable play I have ever experienced. I had SO much fun.

I woke up still in the energy of this collaboration.

Because I’m learning to relax.

On the inside.

When thoughts and feelings come up, especially the judgments that usually show up for me in social settings, I notice them. And that noticing is my reminder to relax.

It’s not a reminder to try to fix it or to feel bad or guilty about the thoughts I’m having. It is simply a reminder to relax and allow.

I had a spiritual teacher tell me one time that we can’t go on vacation and relax if we don’t practice and know how to relax before we go on vacation.

She was right.

And that idea had haunted me for years.

I grabbed at it. Just like I’ve grabbed at enlightenment. Wanting more. Not satisfied with what is. Trying to push thoughts and feelings along so I could feel better.

Now I know relaxing, like all of waking up, is an inside job. And as I deepen my ability to consciously choose to relax and allow, my world is reflecting back the richness I have craved for so long.

Wishing you a relaxation that reaches all the way to the inside.
💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer · Connie

Thank you for reading Dancing over the Edge of Enlightened! Subscribe for free to receive new thoughts and inspirations on the journey to Awaken. I don’t put my writing behind a paywall. But if something here resonates ▪ if it nudges you closer to truth, laughter, or stillness ▪ your paid support will invoke a kitchen dance and one of those digital confetti releases if I could figure out how to do that 🎉🧐

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All suffering comes from resistance.

I’ve been running an experiment to test this theory, and so far, I can’t find any holes. I searched for decades, looking for the doorway to that grand connection with everything. Looking for a deep, steady happiness in life. And anxiety was my greatest constant companion. Worry. Fear. Attempting to control life and its outcomes.

Then mindfulness knocked on my door. And in my exhaustion, I let it in.

For three months, I committed to understanding how mindfulness could become my BFF.

It wasn’t pleasant.

I turned off the noise and electronics as much as possible. Even when I wanted to listen to someone else’s success story about finding peace. Even when I wanted to occupy my time on my phone in the grocery store line. Even when I wanted to emotionally eat. Actually, that last one came later. I had to move through a certain amount of anxiety and boredom before I had the stamina to stop using food as an escape. Food is such a sweet, quick, easy fix. Especially the sweet.

I had to force myself at first to sit. With the anxiety. The feeling. The boredom.

The 25-minute commute home after dropping our son off at school felt gut-wrenching. I did not want to feel any of it. I couldn’t seem to move through it. I couldn’t talk myself down. I couldn’t “allow” it or “welcome” it. I couldn’t accept it.

I was resisting.

I couldn’t seem to stop resisting.

The pattern of resistance was deeply rooted. It was how I moved through the world. A hard habit to break.

Before this more concentrated retraining of my mind to relax and allow, I spent about six months noticing. Watching my mind. Feeling what was there. I got pretty good at catching the spiral, those moments where thoughts and emotions twist together and it feels like a reaction is about to erupt. Most often in my relationships.

In those moments, I practiced reminding myself: I am not these thoughts. I am not these feelings.

At the same time, I reminded myself, whenever it came up, that I am the Source all things arise from.

These practices became the core of my mindfulness. I didn’t have a step-by-step plan. I was just so tired of not feeling whole. Not feeling happy. Of suffering through my days with only small flashes of relief when something went my way.

I knew, deep in my core, that this life is meant to feel beautiful.

And now I see it.

All of my suffering has come from resisting.

When I allow thoughts and feelings to be there, and move at their own pace, and remember they are not who I am, there is no suffering.

I’m honestly surprised I’ve reached this point. Part of me had given up. And another part refused to accept a life of suffering and kept going.

I didn’t do this alone.

I’ve worked with healers who helped soften the walls around my heart so I could hear that inner voice more loud and clear. The voice that refused to let me forget. A recent ThetaHealing session with seemed to catapult me forward. Wow! This down-to-earth Goddess knows how to pull the false beliefs up by the roots!

I’ve done this alongside my husband, . We are opposites in many ways, and we trigger each other plenty. But at the core of our relationship is a shared commitment to living from Source. He would say it differently, probably through a poem or a story. You should check out his work. It’s brilliant. If I do say so.

I’ve done this here, on Substack. In the safe space of The Creator Retreat with and and the amazing community they curated. The community that is helping me remember the weeds aren’t weeds. They are wildflowers.

And I’ve done this through reading, writing, and connecting with this Substack community over the past few of years. People here to grow, to be their best, to learn a grander way of experiencing life. Letting this space mirror back my own fears around value and acceptance. Learning to relanguage it all. Seeing that the thoughts and feelings about not getting enough views or hearts are not demons.

They’re just thoughts and feelings.

Passing through.

I don’t have to grab them and hide them away, only for them to come roaring back louder later.

I’m not experimenting anymore. This is the relief I’ve been searching for. I’m deepening my practice.

Still watching.

Still learning to let life move through me.

I hate coming across evangelical, but you might want to give this a try.

What happens
if you stop resisting
just one thing today?

_____________________________________

Wishing you moments of letting life move through you, just as it is.

💚✨ Dancing over the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer · Connie

Thank you for reading Dancing over the Edge of Enlightened! Subscribe for free to receive new thoughts and inspirations on the journey to Awaken. I don’t put my writing behind a paywall. But if something here resonates ▪ if it nudges you closer to truth, laughter, or stillness ▪ your paid support will invoke a kitchen dance and one of those digital confetti releases if I could figure out how to do that 🎉🧐

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Spring seems to have arrived all at once.

A few months ago, I committed to helping with costumes for our local production of Matilda. I had not actually seen the show yet, and honestly, I already had a lot going on. But our son is doing tech for the production, and it felt right to step in and help.

This weekend, my son and I finally watched the musical together. What a great story! I left it feeling genuinely excited about what’s coming.

On Saturday, I went down to the costume closet we use for local theater. It’s a big basement full of pieces collected over years of productions. I started digging through racks and boxes, looking for anything that might work. When I do this kind of work, something interesting always happens. Certain pieces almost seem to light up. Like the extravagant topcoat worn by the Godmother in a Cinderella production a few years ago. It turns out to be perfect for the librarian in this show.

The pieces pull me toward them as if they are saying, “Try me.” And more often than not, they end up being exactly right. They fit the actor, suit the role, and make the person wearing them feel great.

It’s a little like what happens when I pass a thrift store and suddenly feel the urge to go inside. There’s this pull to see what might be waiting. And magically, there usually is something. Like the old-fashioned typewriter I found for ten bucks. And it still has a working ribbon!

When it comes to clothes, I’m usually drawn to the strangest looking piece first. The funky ones. They’re always the hidden gems.

Meanwhile, spring is unfolding here in the mountains of western North Carolina, on the edge of the Deep South. Politically, it can be a scary place to live, but the natural world is something else entirely. Green, lush, and alive in every direction. It feels almost like a rainforest this time of year.

Watching everything around me bloom, I can feel something similar happening inside myself. An unfolding. A stepping more fully into my own sense of intuition and trust. I’m noticing I’m less hard on myself about the human side of my experiences. Life feels a little more relaxed. My relationships feel more harmonious. My body feels strong.

I’m not entirely sure what to call this moment, but I’m leaning into it with a sense of relief.

It feels like I’m arriving and letting my truest self lead.

And it’s not just me. I feel it in the air. I’m seeing it in others.

We’re waking up.

Here’s to embracing our unfolding, in a world that needs our creativity and wonder.

💚✨
Dancing over the Edge of Enlightened
Edge Dancer · Connie

Thank you for reading Dancing over the Edge of Enlightened! Subscribe for free to receive new thoughts and inspirations on the journey to Awaken. I don’t put my writing behind a paywall. But if something here resonates ▪ if it nudges you closer to truth, laughter, or stillness ▪ your paid support will invoke a kitchen dance and one of those digital confetti releases if I could figure out how to do that 🎉🧐

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Where did the Indigo go? All morning, the woman watched out the window. Looking up from her work. She longed for the Indigo Buntings to come home. The mother and father. To raise their family.

They come back every year. And this year. They fussed at the little paint-chipped house. And then flew off.

The woman mourned, “I long for the Indigo Buntings to come home.”

The woman was such a mother. Wanting to make it right for them. Trying to figure out what the problem was so she could fix it. So she could share in the sweet voices of their babies again this year. So their babies would be safe and they would feel protected. Welcomed.

They’ve been raising their babies in the birdhouse on the grass island outside the kitchen window. For years. Yesterday they came to move back in. And something was wrong. They fussed and puzzled.

The roof was missing. The boy child knew.

The woman talked to her child about it and he told her the roof fell off and he tried to find it one day but he couldn’t. So they went out to the birdhouse and found the roof and topped it back on the house.

The woman had been waiting for their return. They always came the day it turned warm for the season. They knew when this was. Was it too late? She worried, “I should have thought to do this in the winter. We knew the little house needed repairs. But I let life stall me out with all the other tasks and now I might miss the sweet chatter of the new babies this spring. I might have missed my chance.”

And she knew, this is how the mind takes over and makes an act of care into a tragedy. A personal flaw. A declaration of another example of the lack in life. The grief of loss for this thing that didn’t happen.

She was so sad. Maybe if they were dead it would be easier. Then she could just grieve and be done with it. But they were likely still out there somewhere. Making a home somewhere else. Maybe not as nice. Not familiar like their old home.

The woman knew she had to let it go. The voice was telling her to release the grief. Release the identity as the grief holder. And remember, she is Source. She is the very Vastness where the Indigos arise from. Where she arises from. She knew she is not this flesh and bones first. She is Source first. But the pattern of obsessing about not getting her way was a deep groove. Hard to crawl out of. Hard to remember how to. Hard to see over the edge.

And then she heard the voice again. The breath. Use the breath to remember. To connect. Breath is spaciousness. It has no edges. It has no smell. Unless you forgot to brush your teeth. It can feel warm if you cup your hands gently around your nose. Like when you cup them together to drink water from a natural spring. And it makes a sound too when you do this. The air sounds like rushing water. Interesting.

The voice told her. Focus on a point in space. In your mind’s eye. Place the point as far away as you can. It’s a star in the Vastness. Place your focus there. Laser beam. Train the mind to fall away. Allow the emotions to slide off. To shed.

And now look to the tree where you want to see the Indigos perched. The mind tries to take over, “They still aren’t there! This isn’t working!” Keep the focus on the far off point in the mind’s eye. A dot. A speck. This point is an anchor. It is always here. Use it. All through the day, this anchor is here to tether you to Source. Keep awareness of the tether. If you forget, it’s ok. You’re far enough along, you will remember. The more you remember and the more you place your awareness here, the less suffering you will slip into during the day. The family dramas. The never-ending chores. Meals. Dishes. Fixing little birdhouses.

All of that will still be here, but you will be experiencing it from a place of freedom from suffering.

Make yourself look into the empty tree. Look at the tree and focus on the anchor and see what happens.

And to the woman’s delight, the Indigos came back! To sniff it out. The woman grabbed the binoculars. She felt the excitement that comes from things turning out. And she knew instantly that this was a trap. A shiny jewel the mind was trying to dangle in front of her. So she would lose connection with her tether. She watched the feelings and thoughts unfold. Feeling herself not get fully sucked into the identity of it all.

And then the Indigos left again. Flew away. And the sadness came back. But it was lighter now. There was less desperation. Less attachment. And the dot in the far depths was maintained. She felt this anchor pulling her back into the eternal. The Vastness.

And then they came back again! And the pull of excitement was less. She let this flow as the Indigos came and left. Feeling the excitement when they came loosen its grip. Feeling the sadness soften. These beautiful creatures were showing her how to care for her connection to True Self. How to foster and strengthen the connection.

The cat wanted to go outside and she hesitated. She didn’t want him to scare off the birds. But he never caught a bird. In the 8 years they had him. He caught a few lizards and wounded a butterfly or two. He kept the mice from deciding to take up residence in the home. But he never left the gift of a dead bird on the welcome mat.

The woman knew this was another trap. An attempt to control the outcome. And she placed her awareness on the dot. Deep inside. In a Vastness with no edges. No walls. No end. And she let the cat out.

The morning unfolded. A little brown bird teasing right outside the window. And the Buntings. Reworking the nest to have their Baby Buntings. Perhaps. And the woman, practicing holding the tether. The tether to the eternal.

The tether to Freedom.

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Thank you for reading Dancing Over the Edge of Enlightened! Subscribe for free to receive new thoughts and inspirations on the journey to Awaken. I don’t put my writing behind a paywall. But if something here resonates ▪ if it nudges you closer to truth, laughter, or stillness ▪ your paid support will invoke a kitchen dance and one of those digital confetti releases if I could figure out how to do that 🎉🧐

I’ve gotten pretty good at watching what happens inside me.

Watching thoughts come and go. Watching emotions rise and fall. Noticing the point when I remember again after I get lost in a story or swept away in a feeling. And returning to watching.

This part I understand.

Thoughts and emotions have a kind of transparency to them. They move like weather. We can learn to let them be here without trying to fix them. We can notice fear without becoming fear. We can feel sadness without drowning in it. We can return, again and again, to the spaciousness that is aware of it all.

And then there are the actions.

This is where I keep getting stuck.

Because action feels more solid. More consequential. More real. You cannot simply watch a child having a meltdown in the middle of a parking lot and let it pass like a cloud. You cannot witness injustice unfolding in front of you and say, “Ah yes, interesting,” and do nothing. Life asks for response.

So how does presence live here?

For a long time I thought centeredness meant stillness. That if I were truly grounded, I would feel calm and clear before I moved. But real life doesn’t wait for that kind of perfection. Children cry. Systems harm. Moments arrive hot and loud and demanding.

What I am learning is that centeredness is not the absence of movement. It is an inner reference point that stays available while movement is happening.

Thoughts and emotions can be allowed. Action must be chosen.

When a child is having a fit, we can notice what is happening inside us. The tightening in my chest. The urge to control. The fear that I am failing. We do not have to get rid of any of it. We let it be here. We feel it. We breathe.

And then we choose.

We might lower our voice. We might stay close. We might say, “I’m here,” instead of trying to fix or silence or overpower.

The action doesn’t come from reactivity. It comes from inclusion. Everything inside us is allowed to inform the response, but it doesn’t get to drive the car.

The same is true in larger, more charged moments. When fear is in the air. When harm is happening. When injustice snarls and the world burns with urgency. We can feel the heat inside and still act from clarity, compassion, courage. When something in us knows that standing by is not aligned.

Presence does not mean passivity.

It means we can feel fear and still move. We can feel anger and still act with care. We can feel urgency without losing our center. We pause just long enough to remember where we are responding from.

Not from panic. Not from habit. But from alignment.

Action from presence feels different. It may still be firm. It may still be loud. It may still be courageous. But it has space in it. Breath in it. Choice in it.

There is an idea sometimes called right action. Not as the action that guarantees comfort or preferred outcomes, and not as the move that keeps upsetting thoughts or emotions away. Right action isn’t a single correct move, and it isn’t limited to one possible response. There can be many right actions. What makes them right is the place they arise from.

Right action happens when we align. When we get centered. When we are aware of the spaciousness that holds the moment, even as something needs to be done. From that centered place, action moves more freely. It is awareness expressing itself through form, allowing the vastness to witness itself in motion.

This, I am realizing, is the deeper practice.

Not just watching life unfold, but participating in it without abandoning ourselves.

Life demands action. Presence decides how we meet it.

Wishing you the steadiness to move,
and the presence to know where you’re moving from.

💚✨
Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
Edge Dancer · Connie

Thank you for reading Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened! Subscribe for free to receive new thoughts and inspirations on the journey to Awaken. I don’t put my writing behind a paywall. But if something here resonates ▪ if it nudges you closer to truth, laughter, or stillness ▪ your paid support will invoke a kitchen dance and one of those digital confetti releases if I could figure out how to do that 🎉🧐

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“Money don’t get everything, it’s true.
But what it don’t get, I can’t use.”

When I first heard Yoko Ono sing that back in my college days, I felt the trigger immediately. Consumerism. Capitalism. I didn’t know how to listen to or articulate my discomfort then. Looking back, it was about the ache of wanting. The fear of not having.

On a walk with a friend recently, she told me about growing up an only child. Her parents were not rich, but they did well. They were able to send her to college.

My parents were not rich either. And they also sent us to college.

I know there are struggling people in this world. Lots and lots of them. Struggling for basic needs. Hungry. Cold. Displaced.

And the unobserved mind in me buys into the idea hook and sinker. Money can fix that. If I had money, I could get everyone shelter. Warmth. Food. Education.

It makes sense.
It’s rational.
Almost moral.

Money is power.
Power to protect.
Power to buffer suffering.
Power to buy time, comfort, care.

This thought surfaced while we were out with our exchange student, trying to give her a full American Christmas. Small town strolls. Parades with church floats and fire trucks. Local businesses lining the streets with cookies, cheese, crackers, candy.

And I wondered, what if someone unhoused showed up and started grabbing the food?

Not politely.
Not quietly.
Just taking.

The discomfort exposed something I did not want to look at. The invisible rules. Who the celebration is for. Who abundance belongs to.

Later, in a completely different setting, that same tension surfaced again during a call with my touchstone community .

I’ve been holding hands with this bold and vulnerable group of souls all year. We huddle. And then we launch. The support goes deep.

During a Zoom meeting about money, I went deer in the headlights. My body tightened. My mind went blank. I had to leave early for a previous appointment.

I could feel that rich connect with the group as they checked in or gave me space to process through whatever it was that came up for me.

What lingered wasn’t the conversation.
It was the contraction.

I tried to name it in writing. Not to explain myself. Just to see it more clearly.

• • •

Thank you for checking in. I was bummed I had to leave early. I almost never go to the doctor, but I had an appointment that day.

I wanted to stay and see if I could name what was happening inside me. I didn’t get clear on it until this morning.

I want you to know how grateful I am for your courage and commitment to spelling out the finances. And I also want to be honest. When there are lots of numbers and letters, my system freezes.

• • •

Reading my own words back, I could see it.

Not confusion.
An inward pull.

I am not dyslexic or ADHD. I think it is just my particular wiring. I need quiet time to digest topics that trigger before I can reenter a conversation. I’ve always been this way.

I’m also an auditory learner. I did well in school because I intuited strategies to get through the system. I have been rooted in the school of self realization for most of my adulting life. Audiobooks are my go-to. I listen slowly. I replay passages until they sink in. One line becomes my meditation for the day.

This is what living on the edge of enlightenment looks like for me. Not transcendence. Not escape. Just noticing where my nervous system tightens. Where fear disguises itself as logic.

Because here is the pivot I keep bumping into.

Money is power.
And money is also illusion.

It can solve problems in form.
But it cannot resolve the inner contraction that keeps recreating them.

I know how to manage money.
I do not yet know how to remain steadily present with my inner self.

Sometimes I fear I might die a seeker. Always grasping. Always one insight away. Never fully resting in the truth that it is okay to not be okay. That this discomfort is part of the human side of consciousness.

And that is where the illusion lives.
Not in money itself.
But in the belief that once I have enough, I will finally arrive.

The truth is quieter.

I do not want money.
I want joy.
I want ease.
I want peace.

I want the homeless and displaced souls of the world to have medical care and psychological support. To have a home. Healthy food. Dignity. And the chance to dress up and go see the skill and magic of the Nutcracker Ballet.

I want to shower the people I love with the ease money provides.

I want all of us to have our basic needs met so that, if the impulse hits, we have the inner space to turn toward self realization.

This is the edge I keep walking.
Between money as power.
And money as illusion.

I know it is not here for me to figure out.

It is a trigger.
Showing me another place I get tight.
So I can soften.
So I can relax.
And remember the inner self.

Even with the well-worn voice,
“I want answers,”
growing quieter in the background.

Wishing you enough money to pay the bills,
and enough presence to remember it was never the point.

💚✨
Dancing on the Edge of Enlightenment
Edge Dancer · Connie

His words hit me like a ton of bricks.

Well, more accurately, the energy behind his words.
This man had to be an elf in a previous life. Or maybe even this life.

Eckhart Tolle.
I’ve been re-listening to his book A New Earth. It is a masterpiece tool for integrating higher consciousness.

It’s all about the ego. And I’ve listened to it through the eyes of the ego several times. It was a much different experience back then.

This time, although I’m no Saint of No Ego, I’ve been training my ass off to hear the voice of the ego playing like a broken record in the background of life. And the emotions that play right into the tragic horror movie I insisted on watching for decades.

“The ego is not only the unobserved mind, the voice in the head which pretends to be you, but also the unobserved emotions that are the body’s reaction to what the voice in the head is saying.”
— Eckhart Tolle

These are the words I heard in every cell of my body this time. Like a tuning fork. Everything came crashing down. Came into focus. Key word, unobserved. Because once we observe the egoic mind stories and the reactive emotions, they lose their power.

I was carpooling the kids to school when I heard it. I had to pause the book and let it soak in. Feel the depth of the understanding.

Of course! Thank you, Master Elf Tolle.

The ego is not the enemy. We can’t stop the thoughts that come through or the emotions that arise from them. But we can learn to recognize the thoughts and emotions. We can call them out. Label them for what they are: a story, a theatrical play.
And we can train ourselves not to get immersed in the play.

Tempting as it is. Because it feels familiar. And we’re “good” at it.
We know how to ruminate and worry and blame. We know what a wired, anxious, toxic body feels like. It’s our baseline. It feels normal.

I wrote a Substack note recently…

I’ve been doing a roll call in the events, interactions, and unfolding of the day as an awareness practice, so I can be sure everyone is accounted for and no one is trying to hide out.

Egoic Mind Story? “Present.”
Reacting Emotion? “Geez, I’m here. Duh.”
Spacious Consciousness? “Yep, I’m right here, right now.“

With everyone clearly exposed and accounted for, I can choose where I go with it.

I had a great opportunity to practice this during a family day of hiking in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and eating in the lovely town of Brevard, NC.

My protein shake had worn off. I was dragged down by a collective grumpiness.
My husband and I got fajitas to share, and they came without the side of guac and beans and rice. I kind of snapped. Lost it. Not in a big fury, but I did grab my jacket and announced I wasn’t hungry and went outside to sit on a cold metal bench.

I didn’t laugh out loud at my reaction, but I felt such an immediate awareness of what was going on.
Hi there, egoic mind story, telling me life is unfair and I never get what I want and people always wreck my lovely day.
Oh, and hi there, emotion, doing your part to play it up and add excitement and hormones to the mix.

But this time was so different.
The speed that I recognized what was going on.
The knowing I didn’t have to go to battle.
The lack of added guilt for “acting a fool.”

Because I knew it wasn’t me at all reacting.
It was the egoic self.
And I didn’t have to claim guts and glory over the event.

Just by becoming clear about what was going on, I was able to see through the veil that in the past has blinded me for eons.
And I was able to reconnect with the spaciousness that had been quietly with me all day on our beautiful fall leaf drive and mountain hike.

It truly was an exhale.
Just writing about it now makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

What a liberation. From a self-induced hard life.

Coming home feels so… awww.

Wishing you laughter the next time your ego steals the guac.

💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened

—Edge Dancer · Connie

My husband drives me crazy.

And I cherish this man beyond words. I’ve felt guilty for so long about the tension that’s lived between us. But I’ve also always known there’s nothing wrong with him. He is generous, caring, loving, creative, sweet, sensitive, responsible, and deeply committed to discovering the truth about life. That last one was the real hook for me.

We are very different in how we go about life. He’s a poet at heart. I’m a workhorse. He stops to smell the roses I’m mulching. Then he quietly picks one and leaves it on my desk with a love note for me to find after he’s gone to his job in the medical field. A job that’s all about caring for others. He truly puts the care in healthcare.

For years, I’ve battled to understand how to feel the love he showers me with. I’ve known it has something to do with my difficulty receiving. It’s not that I beat myself up about it. Our relationship has just been a constant reminder that something inside me is off. A glitch in the matrix. How could I not receive love from this man of all people?

It hasn’t been a comfortable relationship. But I’ve always known it’s where I’m meant to be. Even during the pandemic, when we were homeschooling the kids. Bahahahaha! I gained such a deep appreciation for our teachers during that time. I remember hearing someone say, “We should give our teachers a million-dollar raise. A million dollars a day.” Yep.

Our marriage survived even that pandemic.

Recently, something shifted in me. An “overnight” change I still can’t quite explain. Suddenly, I can see right through the egos in my relationships, in conversation, in the tiny or loud everyday frictions of life. There’s space behind the tension.

I wrote a letter to a spiritual teacher I’ve been following lately, Adyashanti, trying to make sense of what’s happening.

The Letter

Dear Adyashanti,

I am beyond grateful for discovering you (and your team) and the work you do to help us wake up.

In just one week, I’ve had shifts and lightbulbs firing at a depth I haven’t experienced in all the decades I’ve been “seeking.”

I met my husband of 18 years on Match.com. I heard about you from ChatGPT. The source is never the problem. The disconnect is the problem. The mistaken identity. The Ego.

My ego is dying. I can finally feel this happening. The expansion on the other side is staying. I’m pinching myself, and it’s still here.

This crazy “overnight” ability to see right through the egos in my relationship interactions is life-changing. I instantly recognize when I’m reacting and when I’m bristling in conversation, which, honestly has been most of the time. But that tension is slipping away.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Connecting with your energy through your words is waking me up. Finally.

Namaste, Dear Ones 🙏
—Connie

After the Letter

When I wrote that letter, I was sitting in the spaciousness. It’s a state I can call on so easily now. I can shift into it as soon as I catch myself in reaction or anxiety.

I’ve been watching myself in awe. The shift is real. The old patterns are unraveling.

I can see through the egos in my relationships now. In my interactions with others. I feel the stillness beneath all the static. The awareness that seeped in here and there for so long is now a door I can consciously and easily choose.

I’ve had many teachers in my life, including living with an intentional community for a decade, where I was pulled out of the mud. Eckhart Tolle helped me see the ego mind over the past few years. How ego mind keeps us feeling separate and we don’t even really know it. Recently, Adyashanti pushed me over the edge. From ego mind into spacious awareness.

I know there’s more to unfold. But this moment feels like a hyperspeed toggle. Shedding the ego self. Untangling identity from ego.

It’s the real pandemic. The ego mind. One that’s been spreading for thousands of years. A heavy, heavy veil we can only collectively lift. A veil we must lift if we want to save our species and our planet.

We all know this on some level. And it scares the crap out of us. It sends us reeling into fear. Ego fear. Leaving us desperate, feeling helpless, hopeless. So we keep going through the motions. Another day of over-scheduling, constant screens, emotional numbing.

But that’s not how we’re meant to live. Our core state is happiness. It’s our natural state. That’s why life feels so awful. We’re cut off from it. Ever present ego is a constant resistance against our natural state of happiness. It’s a happiness that comes from connection.

It’s been a long, slow, painful labor to birth Self. Ego has been a lifetime of contractions.

Yet I’m convinced that the collective energy of others waking up from the ego matrix is what’s fueling my own awakening. Let’s keep going. Every time one of us breaks free from an ego story, another crack opens for light to flood in.

When we can listen to the news and feel love instead of fear, this planet will finally be able to shake it off. Like a wet dog shaking off water.

Wishing us the clarity to see through the illusion.

💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer · Connie

It’s true. We raised our kids with no screens.

No phones. No gaming systems. No TV. No tablets.

Well, we do have a TV in the far corner of the basement, next to our guest bed mattress that’s on the floor and covered with pillows and squishmallows. We check out a movie from the library or Prime every now and then and have family movie night.

We’re a very hybrid family. Our daughter’s friends tell her she is the most “home-schooled-like” public school kid they know.

For years we held the line. Minimum screens. Maximum imagination. Books, art supplies, hiking trails, camping, local theater, piano, more books, actual conversations. We were holding back the flood of static that tries to swallow childhood whole. And we’ve done pretty well.

Enter high school.

It all came crashing down when our daughter started 9th grade. We could not let her go to high school without a phone. The social system is not built that way anymore. She already gets ostracized enough for having seaweed and a book for lunch. She eats books like I throw back protein shakes and fiber. At least she used to. Before the phone.

It has been a battle to keep screens at bay now. The kids are glued to the screens like it’s a lifeline. The umbilical cord to “connection” and non-boredom.

It breaks my heart. I wanted so much more to come out of all those years of not giving in to the mainstream current. I wanted them to be awake to the world around them. To not disappear into the fog. To stay connected to what’s real.

I still want this. More than anything for our kids, for me, for the world.

But I’ve felt like a hypocrite. An underqualified spiritual guide. A mother who preaches presence but loses it more often than not. A woman who knows God is here and now but who still clouds up and freaks out over screen time reports and chores resistance.

I’m great at Mothering. I know that. I’m a lion Mother, always on guard, ready to pounce if I sense harm coming. And I’m psychic. We all are. I’m just aware of mine more and more. So I see what I perceive as harm coming before it hits the horizon.

And I’ve always loved cooking. When I was pregnant with my now 28 year old son we lived in Austin, Texas. It was my 1st baby belly. Basketball. In the heat of Texas summer. So I stayed in the bounty of neighborhood pools and the limestone spring-fed swimming holes. And in the AC watching cooking shows. There are so many great healthy markets in Austin. It’s where I learned about all the weird stuff. Sprouts. Jicima root. Raw nut butter sauces.

So I must pat my own back. I’m a good cook. From a line of good cooks. Only I’ve added health to our meals. And they don’t even know it. Shhhh!

We bought a van a few years ago in part so I could be a carpool Mom. I love driving. I have no idea why. I just do. I think it has something to do with my psychic abilities. It’s like all my antinas are out, including the one extending from my 3rd eye. And I get to navigate this world in this powerful machine. It’s just fun for me. So when afternoons come and the afterschool stuff starts up, for three kids now (including our Madrid exchange student) I’m good with it. I have no dread. It’s another one of the Mom hats I enjoy wearing.

There’s lots of things about being a mother I love and cherish. But there are also the parts where I hold on too tightly. The teaching moments I take too seriously. Especially the spiritual ones. Especially the ones where I feel like it’s my job to wake my kids up before the world puts them to sleep.

I’ve carried this pressure to reach some enlightened level before they leave home. Like if I can crack the code of awakening, I can pass it on to them so they remember earlier. I want them to know they are not their ego. They are not their stories. They are God essence flowing through a body. They do not have to spend decades suffering the current human experience before they remember.

If only I could get them to see it. If only I could show them. If only I could reach them before the static gets too loud.

Enter the damn phones.

I hate those things. We’re gonna have a crack down. It’s gotten too sloppy. It’s gonna take commitment on my part. And my husband’s. It was more his doing than mine. And I’m grateful he pushed the idea for no screens. Now we have to reinstate the damn boundaries and structures.

Boundary holding is not my favorite part of mothering. It sucks. But it’s more important than beans and rice. And kale. Yes, even more important than kale.

The egos are going to rise up. They’re going to have a “No Queens” day protest.

But I’m turning in the cloak of “I’m-a-spiritual-guide-imposter.”

And I’m wielding the wand of truth. Which at the moment sounds a lot like:

Give me the f**ing phone.

Wishing you the strength to hold the boundaries for your outer and inner children.

💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer · Connie

This is a story about a woman who eats sugar to cope.

Story one. The woman stays in separation from her essence. She grasps for acknowledgment. She never learns to love wholly while alive, but she touches unconditional love only when she passes over on her deathbed.

There is an alternative.

Story two. It has the kind of Hollywood ending we all love. The woman learns how to excavate her emotions until she discovers the love beneath them. Over time, love becomes her default. She lives Love Ever After.

Story one is tragic. I am not in the mood this lifetime for tragic ever after. So let’s go with story two. I’ll play the woman.

This is a story about Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened. In this story, I change the name of my publication because one day I realize I made it to the other side. I’m no longer on the edge. I found what I was looking for. I found peace. I found love. I found what people call Enlightenment.

I finally realize this world we live in is not the point. Love is the point. Living life through Love is the point.

I’ll know I’ve reached Enlightenment when:

My 1st response to life’s situations and people is Love, not the hamster wheel of reaction.

I’ll know I’ve reached Enlightenment when I don’t have to talk about it and seek acknowledgment in exchange. Instead, I speak from the heart because it is wide open and knows no separation. And Love becomes the currency over acknowledgment.

I’ll know I’m Enlightened when my mind doesn’t pull me off center and drag me down the rabbit hole of despair and suffering.

So how do I get “there?” How do I reach Enlightenment? I listen to my guides. They say, Be love. Practice opening to the feeling of love. This journey starts with two important ingredients: emotions and awareness.

I have to learn to alchemize my emotions until it becomes my default operating system. Sit with my emotions. Stop running from the feeling. Remove the judgment. Allow them to be there. Then tune into the story attached to the emotion. See if I can hear why I am upset. When I am in the heat of it, the story is loud and dramatic. It is easy to rant. But at some point, I have to step off the rant train and sit with the pure feeling beneath it. Only then can I witness the transformation from emotion to love energy.

The love energy is always there. I just have to excalibur it from being lodged in my false identity of old wounds.

Sometimes emotions show up in the form of cravings. Maybe I want a cookie. Or a sleeve of cookies. I feel restless until I get it. I have to dig a little deeper. I have to open a little more. I have to bring in patience. Every craving has an emotion under it. Every emotion has a story that keeps it in place. And every story has love at the core. My job is to get to the love. Always and only. As Marianne Williamson says, Return to Love.

I first heard of Lester Levenson in The Greatest Secret by Rhonda Byrne. He was a man who developed a process of letting go of trapped emotions that eventually became known as the Sedona Method. He reportedly released decades of emotional baggage in three months and healed his body of disease, including a fatal heart condition. They say he reached Enlightenment.

I think about this a lot. If I knew I could increase my chances of winning what calls the Enlightenment Lottery in his book Big Love, would I do it? Could I go all in? Could I give up emotional numbing for three months? No emotional eating. No emotional scrolling. No emotional ranting. No therapy shopping, which I’m a master of in my thrift store treasure hunting, or the embarrassingly endless shelves of the grocery store. Could I choose, or rather Return to Love every time instead of choosing to numb?

I want to believe I have this kind of commitment. I think I do. I am going to give it a go. I might, as in probably will, slip. I might stop and start. It might take longer than three months. I doubt Lester had kids in the house while he was doing his emotional clearing retreat. Parenting is my excuse a lot of the time. The chaos, the noise, the bickering, the anxiety, the constant needs. It’s easy to get pulled off center. And I can’t disappear into a mountain cave. Because dinner still needs to be made and homework still needs to get done. And I have to put on my battle gear for The Great Chores Resistance in the endless saga, Mom of Thrones.

I think this is my gig. To find center in this static. To find love in an exploding kitchen. To practice inner stillness with the background symphony of kids bickering and cravings raging. Because this same human anx is happening all over the planet right now. Inside and outside our homes. And if we, especially women and men and mothers who carry so much heart, figure this out, we will ignite the world with a wave of unconditional love it will never see coming. A love so healing it will feel like falling into a ball pit of squishmallows.

And this is a worthy mission.

I almost lost my arm when I was ten years old.

I fell out of a tree fort. You know what I was doing? Rocking on the back 2 legs of a chair. As in, “Don’t rock in that chair or you’ll fall!” Well, I fell. Ten feet down.

I don’t remember it hurting. I was in shock. It was a bad break. After the first surgery, my arm turned death gray. My mom sounded the alarms, and the next thing I remember was an ambulance ride to Duke University Hospital.

Seven surgeries later, they saved my arm. I was a case study for medical residents. My mom was on that team that helped define the trajectory of my life. She poured her entire being into mothering.

This was the era of stay-at-home moms. She cooked what she knew to be health. Pork chops, green beans cooked in fat until gray, and pear salad with a heap of mayonnaise and shredded cheddar on top.

Her closest friends through all our moves, and through the sadness of marital issues, were cheap white wine and Valium. Later it became recovery meetings, then antidepressants and opioids.

I know she’s done her best to love. I’ve grown through a lot of the scars that come with being raised by an alcoholic parent. She was never mean. Always sweet. Southern nice. And she’s deeply perceptive. Psychic.

I’m not angry with The Mother Wound anymore. But I do still feel disappointment that she never became the woman she might have been. Empowered. Creative. Bold.

That’s not what hurts now. What really challenges me is that she lives on the far side of the political fence. The TV is always on. News always running. Her life companion. I’ve tried to set a boundary: “No politics talk, please.” But she can’t seem to hold it.

So I find myself hesitating to bring the kids around.

There’s a popular self-love message out there about cutting off toxic relationships. I’ve wrestled with that one. Do we really have to cut people off? What about learning tolerance? What about practicing love and seeing past differences to the shared heart underneath it all?

With friends, I’ve been able to do that. Give space when things get tense, then reconnect once the storm has passed. Rediscover the common ground.

But with parents, it’s trickier. They seem to need connection on every topic. Food choices, politics, gossip. It just reignites tension.

If we could just let it rest. Talk about gardening, the grandkids’ adventures, the simple joys. We might have the chance to meet in a shared space.

That’s what I’m holding out for. The neutral ground.

And if the neutral ground never happens, give me the grace to navigate otherwise.

I woke up feeling heavy the day after the above triggered a spiral.

I brewed my beans and did the stupid thing. Checked in on Substack. And felt the sting of comparison. The whisper: I have no value.

Is that true? Of course not. (Thank you, Byron Katie, for the reminder to question the story) It’s not true that I have no value. But the weight of the lie can sit heavy some days.

So I breathed into it. Let it be there. “There is heaviness here.” No story, no judgment. Just a fact. Like the fall leaves changing color.

As I released the judgment about the judgment, something softened. The weight began to lift.

Driving the kids to school, their bickering felt less like fingernails on a chalkboard and more like the melody of morning. I was able to connect beyond the words flying to the beauties I get to share my life with these days.

The heaviness became fuel. A power surge. My morning coffee. A reminder to return to awareness.

It took about forty-five minutes (well, and a night of dreams working their processing magic). That’s pretty good. My record thirty years ago was closer to two months. If at all. Back then, I’d just shove it down and numb it out.

But now I care too much about being awake. About joy. About uncovering, shedding, rewiring, aligning.

Because I want to love living.

And I know that if I do the work of meeting my own smallness, I’m doing the work the world needs. The work that heals generations. The work that transforms our current planetary woes and leadership egos.

My parents would have been Hitler followers. They follow what feels safe. They don’t question. Questioning is scary. It’s uncomfortable at best. But usually feels more like the sky is falling.

I’m pretty sure I blessed myself before coming into this incarnation with an undeniable quest to question. It’s caused a lot of grief in my life. And it has kept me strong-footed on a path I love.

I don’t love life all the time. The scenes that play out. The hurts and fears I get caught up in for too long before I remember to stop identifying with them.

But I love the growth path. I always have. It’s the golden thread that weaves through my life. I can trace it all the way back to the beginning and see where I once was. I can see the walls I’ve torn down. The boundaries I’ve upheld. The heart I’ve opened up. The connection I’ve fostered.

That thread is what keeps me walking toward the neutral ground. Toward love that includes it all.

I was questioning my Substack name recently, Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened. Wondering if it came from a place of grasping. Of feeling not good enough yet.

But I don’t think so. I think it points to this exact edge. The dance between pain and peace. Between judgment and grace. Between being human and remembering we are divine.

Wishing you the grace to love what feels unlovable, and the courage to keep dancing on the edge.
💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer · Connie

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I love possibilities.
We’re some multifaceted creatures.

Top of my list,
Spiritual evolution.

Other venues I dance:

Health and fitness. I love working out. I’m not perfectly consistent, but I’m consistent enough to keep me feeling fueled and strong.

Cooking. A necessary love, since we have kids and added an exchange student to the mix this year. Side note. I once made prickly pear cactus jelly with a dear cousin of mine in Austin, Texas. You have to use tongs to handle the fruit. Best jelly ever!

Real estate. I apparently love housing others. I enjoy creating safe, comfortable homes where people can launch into the world and return for recharge.

Entrepreneurship. I joke with our kids that I have eight years of college and no master’s degree. How smart is that? With a degree in product design and a career as a nurse, my mind is always thinking of ideas to help others live their best lives.

Travel. What’s not to love about seeing the world and the people of the world?

Mothering. Truth time—I don’t always like this role. But I’m in it, so I do my best. Don’t get me wrong. I love these little creatures to the moon and back. But just like growth can bring “mild discomfort,” parenting can drain you. Mohave-desert dry. It reminds me of the movie Gerry with Matt Damon. One of those films you either love or hate. I loved it, and the desert cinematography still gets under my skin.

Recently, I had a session with founder of and cohosted with . Teri Leigh is one wise and connected and insightful and generous woman. And the community she helps curate has a tangible energy that feels warm and holding. I left that Zoom soaring, and I woke up still higher than a kite. Naturally.

It’s like I’ve been running full speed in circles, fueled by my very right-brained energy. She caught me by the shoulders, squared me in a direction, and then let go.

Now I feel like I’m still running full speed, but toward a goal. Or rather, a specific unfolding.

She helped me name some of my underlying strengths—the things that come naturally, the things I love, the things I’m wired for. The ones I wrote out in bold Sharpie on my blueprint of incarnation: “I can be deficient in some areas so I can grow them for the race. But I must have these strengths to get me through.”

And this morning more strengths kept surfacing. One I remembered is that I’m a natural at emulating. I have a lot of Pisces in my chart, which probably explains it. If I hang out with a friend long enough, I start laughing like them, until I forget what my own laugh used to sound like. It used to bother me, like I was losing myself. But I realized somewhere along the way that I just like trying things on. See how they fit. I think I would be bored stiff otherwise.

Lately, I’ve been listening to Bird by Bird. Anne Lamott is brilliant and so funny. Hearing her read her own words on Audible makes it even better. It’s been a slow listen for me because I need time to soak it all in.

I realized that when I stop knocking myself down, I have a humor side too. When we recognize a quality in others, it means we also have it. Every trait we admire is mirrored in us.

So I proclaim, moving forward, I embrace my strengths. We all have them. I don’t think any of us were reckless enough to say, “Give me a full deck of challenges to unfold in this lifetime.”

Our strengths are like a compass. They point us in the direction that feeds our soul with ease, and they carry us through the bumps in the road. The bumps that feel like roller coaster drops, and the bumps that invite us to realign.

I’m learning that being multifaceted isn’t about doing it all. It’s about honoring the strengths that keep surfacing, the ones that feel like a compass pointing me back to myself. When I lean into them, the road feels less like a grind and more like an unfolding.

How ‘bout you? What strengths have been quietly waiting for your attention? What gifts come so naturally you almost dismiss them? Maybe today is the day to name them, embrace them, and let them guide you through the bumps and turns of your unfolding.

💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened

—Edge Dancer · Connie

I don’t claim to be a great writer. Or even a good one.
I don’t claim to have worthy advice on social media wizardry. Or content monetizing.
I’m a seeker.

With kicks and starts that feel more like stops and falls.
I’ll never give up. I remember too much.

These days I’m not sure what I’m doing here. On this platform. At least that’s what my Ego is battling me to buy into. But as crappy as things might feel, my heart always keeps winning out.

I’m not a survivor.
I’m a wanderer with a compass that points inward.

And this platform is in my face these days. Trying to be a tool for the Ego to shoot me down and crush me. But I know my true self is hiding in the doubt. Hiding in the feeling like the odd man out. Again.

The Contract I Can’t Escape

If I don’t face it here and allow it to unravel, it will pop up somewhere else. Like whac-a-mole. Because I made a contract to grow. Expand. Wake up. My soul’s work. My calling that won’t rest.

I’m pretty sure the contract said, reach Enlightenment. But I’m not sure about that last bargain. Is that possible for someone like me? Is it in my cards? Am I dreaming a dream that isn’t mine?

I don’t think so. God isn’t a cruel God. She’s a loving God. And she wouldn’t fill my vision with something unattainable.

The doubt is a deep programming that’s been there for eternity. Maybe carried over from another lifetime. Definitely collective. The wound that keeps bleeding. Trying to drag me down and convince me to quit. Turn in my uniform and crawl back to my little hole.

But I won’t do it.
I’m staying in the game this time until the game changes. Until my struggle on a social media platform dissolves. Until I feel authentically strong.

FB and X did me in. But Substack is different. Welcoming. Embracing. Full of kindreds. Searching. Seeking. Bravely going where no woman or man has gone before.

Pen Names and Permission Slips

I even thought about changing my name. A pen name to hide behind and write whatever the F*ck I want. Spill it all out. The guts and eye balls and poop.

I have hundreds to choose from. Tessalon Pearls. Sidney Rachel Montechello. The latest is Christina Wellington. Apparently, I have Royal Wellington in my blood. My nephew has the family seal boldly tattooed on his back. So I’m telling you these in case I chicken out. Now you’ll know if you see me hiding, spouting profanities, and trying to sound polished. You can call me out.

It’s just another platform to learn and grow. To finally step into my power.

So I’m toughing it out. Digging for self. Out loud. Embarrassed. Hesitant. Holding back. Experimenting until I find the voice that really feels like me. Like what I am here to share. Maybe to inspire. Maybe as a channel for abundance from the Source to come through.

Definitely to connect. To the Self in me and the Self in you.

Family as the Ultimate Teacher

I have a kid who’s a bit hard to raise. Demanding. Rude. Likely neurodivergent. And a mother who is deep in a victim identity. Feels uncomfortably familiar.

I was hoping the kids would have a grandma like I had. Sitting on the porch with me, shelling butter beans and snapping green beans. Laughing at me playing with the loose skin on the back of her hand to see how long it would stay pinched up. Who knew I’d use that as a nursing assessment one day?

Our kids are the center of my world. I love being a mother and providing for them. It’s a joy, not a sacrifice. And I trained them up (so far) to be spoiled. If your kids are little, train them young. I suspect it’s much easier to accept the mess and imperfection of tiny, unskilled, eager hands than to battle with the phone-bearing teen and preteen.

But I don’t abandon our kids because parenting is hard.
And I don’t abandon my mother even though she drives me bat shit crazy.

I know these are the very relationships that spark and jostle and prod my waking up wider and wider more than anything. The people I didn’t consciously choose. I mean, I chose to be a mother. But we can’t define the personality or profile of the kid we get. Although we are the environment that helps shape them. The beauty and the beast.

Surrender Without Quitting

So I’m not abandoning myself this time.
I’m not throwing in the white flag. I’ll surrender, but not in a giving-up kind of way. Rather in an opening-up kind of way.

Maybe I’ll be a better writer as things unfold. I’m listening to Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Such a good, entertaining, smart, witty, funny, draw-you-in-story-book. Maybe I’ll finally get out of my own way and abundance from the Source will shower down. And we’ll finally have the money to pay for all the projects we have on the back burner.

Either way, I plan to keep digging for content in my everyday. It’s the natural byproduct of seeking. Of living. Alanis Morissette says it so well, “And though I know who I’m not, I still don’t know who I am.”

I know this. My current day experience of life is not Enlightenment.
My life is sweet. And comfortable. And scrappy. And safe. And filled with family and friends who I know are doing their best, just like me, to love as much as we know about love at this point.

I know God’s love is profound. Radiating. Awe-inspiring. Others have tapped into it. I know I can too. And I can’t wait to know you there.

Wishing us Enlightenment this go round.
And a path where the pain pales in comparison to pleasure.

💚✨
Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer - Connie

Diets are miserable.

They’re great for showing us how overpowering hunger is.

It’s Loud. It hijacks your thoughts and controls your mood. Hunger doesn’t shut up.

I love working out. I’m weird that way. And I love food. But my personal trainer, , is always preaching that cardio alone won’t drop the fat. You’ve got to reduce your calorie intake.

Translation: You’ve got to be hungry.
And being hungry sucks.

I’ve been lugging around about 15 pounds of baby fat for over a decade now. I know it’s not about the number on the scales. We don’t even own scales. If I want to see what number I’m at, I have to strip down in my Mom’s bathroom and step on hers. And it’s usually not going to be a morning weight. Or on an empty stomach. So there’s no way it counts as accurate.

It’s not about the numbers anyway. We all know muscle weighs more than fat. It’s about letting the muscles I’ve worked so hard for actually show ▪ in the mirror, in my clothes, in the way I carry myself. Just for fun. Just to witness it. (And I want to do a pullup. But that’s another story)

The wires in this little noggin of mine made a connection recently. I love when that happens. And I realized: learning to be okay with hunger ▪ to actually sit with it ▪ is like learning to alchemize intense emotions.

The Car Ride Revelation

So we were driving to pick up our daughter at the airport from a big overseas adventure. The plan was to leave early and have dinner in the city with our other child before the flight arrived.

But of course, we ran late. Again. We hit traffic. Again. And I was so tired of being rushed. All I wanted was to show up calm, holding our silly welcome signs, and just be there when she walked through those sliding doors.

We always have a bag of snacks on car trips. In fact, it seems like we eat most of our meals on the road. Van Cafe, home cooked meals in a bowl, is our favorite. Our car crew is notoriously hangry otherwise. But I’d been trying to stick with intermittent fasting ▪ no food from 5 p.m. to 11 a.m. It’s been a struggle. Or rather, it was.

That night, we picked our daughter up around 8 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten since afternoon. Normally I would’ve caved by then. My mind would usually win out and convince me to break down and eat. At least some nuts! But this time?

I didn’t.

Riding the Wave of Hunger

Maybe it helped that I was the one driving. Maybe the snack bag was uninspiring. Maybe if there were carrot cake, it would be a different story here. But I stayed in my seat and I stayed in my fast. I just noticed.

I noticed the hunger.
I noticed the mind chatter.
I noticed the discomfort of things not being “easy.”

It wasn’t some holy, profound, mountaintop awakening. It was just me, a steering wheel, and a gnawing belly.

But we got home. I made food for everyone else (salmon melt to the rescue!) and sat at the table while stories from Costa Rica lit up the kitchen. And I realized something:

I didn’t die.

Mindful Hunger as a Spiritual Practice

I didn’t escape the discomfort. I didn’t chew gum or guzzle water or scroll through my phone to distract myself. I couldn’t ▪ eyes on the road, hands at ten and two. (Hey, I'm trying to be a good example for our new driver!)

The hunger was shouting. Poking at my survival instinct, whispering, Eat something. Anything.

But underneath all that noise, there was something else.

The hunger wasn’t the problem.
The commentary about the hunger was.

That’s the thing about mindfulness. It doesn’t make the hard thing disappear. It just quiets the story we attach to it. The fear, the urgency, the drama ▪ we start to notice it runs nonstop.

And when we quiet the mind and strip away the commentary?
What’s left is sensation.
Pure, unjudged sensation.

That’s it.

Intensity Is a Doorway

There’s definitely an intensity to hunger. But when we learn to go to the center of that intensity, something shifts. The desperation starts to dissolve. Not because we made it go away ▪ but because we made peace with it.

And this, I think, is where emotional growth and body goals intersect.

Losing weight isn’t just about food.
It’s about how we relate to our minds.
It’s about how we meet discomfort.

It’s about retraining our nervous system to stop flinching at every signal of lack or urgency or “I can’t handle this.”

That’s the real transformation.

Becoming the Love Self

This, to me, is what true self-love is.
Not bubble baths and self-help quotes.
Although those are nice icing on the carrot cake.

Self-love is sitting with discomfort and not abandoning yourself.
It’s being willing to keep going deeper, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
Even when you’re hungry.
Even when you want to crawl out of your own skin.

And slowly, over time, something else emerges:

The awareness that you are not your cravings.
You are not your panic.
You are not your commentary.

You are the stillness behind it all. The quiet witness, learning to hold all of it without running. To hold it and transmute it.

And we can learn to be this self-love all day, every day. In every situation. In the diet and workout and long car rides and family power struggles.

We are moving through the struggles of the day, learning to alchemize.
Practicing settling the mind, welcoming the pure feeling behind the emotion and retraining our way to enlightenment. One stomach growl at a time.

And If Muscles Happen to Show Too...

I want to feel strong and look strong. I want to pick our kids up in a big (5’4”) Mamabear hug and not throw out my spine. I want abs and enlightenment.

But if I can alchemize the discomfort instead of dodge it?
If I can change my relationship with hunger ▪ not to conquer it, but to befriend it? And let it lead me to the stillness inside.
Then I’m doing more than losing weight.
I’m losing the layers between me and my truest self.

And that, my friend, is worth more than abs in a bikini.
(But hey, I’ll take those too.)

Drop a comment if you’ve ever tried sitting with your cravings instead of feeding them. (Or if you just really love carrot cake.)

Sitting in a bucket of ice water is agonizing.

They have those now, you know. Inflatable tubs. Big enough for an adult to sit in. And fill with ice water.

But I get it.

I jump into our above-ground pool early in the season, and it is so uncomfortable. I want to scream. In fact, I usually do. Those first few weeks? Blah!

But you know what I’ve found? That discomfort makes the warmer days feel glorious. The contrast deepens the joy. And when I get into my swimming groove. Laps and breath and rhythm. It feeds my soul like nothing else.

Physical Pain, No Problem

I’ve always had a high tolerance for regular life’s physical pain. I’m not referring to pain from acute or chronic injury or disease. That’s a story for someone else to share.

Two natural childbirths. The burn of a tough workout. Pushing through a set of heavy weights. I love that kind of intensity.

When I’m working out, I don’t beat up on myself if I can’t do three sets with the next 5-pound increment. I just do what I can. It feels great just to be pushing myself. There’s no looming goal I have to hit in order to feel successful. I just move my body hard and feel better through my day.

But Emotional Pain? That’s Another Story

But with emotional "weight lifting"? My mind turns into a meany. It yells. It criticizes. Tells me I should be further along. That I’ll never master this. That I failed. Again. Because I slammed a door. Or didn’t take the opportunity to "process" my feelings the way I wanted to.

This is where my mindfulness practice kicks in. After a year of steady practice, I’ve gotten good at clearing my mind in the calmer moments. But when the triggers rip the Band-Aid off old wounds? I still find myself spiraling. I shut down. I forget everything I know.

Building Emotional Resilience

And still, this is resilience building.

Because I see it now. Even if the insight comes after the storm, I’m tracking it. I understand what sets me off. What makes me tick. What patterns keep repeating.

This is growth I can celebrate.

This is the emotional version of adding five more pounds to the bar and getting through two solid sets.

When we learn to love the process, it gets lighter. Because there is no endpoint. That’s the whole point. Growth isn’t a destination. It’s evolution. Development from a simpler to a more complex form (per Webster).

And that evolution is happening. Every day.

Learning to Stay With It

But emotional pain? That’s been my Achilles heel.

Historically, I’ve run from it like the plague. I’ve flinched, fled, or shut it down. But lately, I’ve been learning to sit in it. To face it. To stop treating emotional discomfort as the enemy.

It’s not easy to do. Especially with a family, high-energy kids, and a bedroom door that doesn’t lock. The fashionable interior barn doors look great but suck for those who crave escape. But I’m learning that the same resilience I’ve cultivated physically, I can bring to the emotional realm.

I’m working on getting to a place where I say: “Bring it on.”

Training the Emotional-Self Like the Body

Just like I challenge myself physically—biking, hiking, even on vacation with early morning brisk beach walks—I can challenge myself emotionally. Not to suffer, but to stretch. To grow. To alchemize the heat of big feelings into something golden.

It’s terrifying and uncomfortable. But it’s not that difficult. Just a different language.

The mind wants to complicate it. The ego wants to jump in and narrate a story about how I suck at this. But if I tune in, if I listen, I can use mindfulness as my translator.

Because if I don’t quiet the ego’s spiral, my mind and emotions will tag-team me into the old loops: blame, reactivity, victimhood.

A New Kind of Strength

That’s where presence comes in, when I quiet the mind. That’s where I hear the whisper of wisdom—Jesus, Yoda, some ancient voice within—coaching me:

"It’s time to take your strength into the next phase. Master the emotional realm. Alchemize feeling into fuel. Into light."

Thank you, Jesus. And Yoda (for reminding me, "Now feel, you must.") And of course, George Lucas, for following your creative dream.

Just like I nourish this 1967 body—(you do the math. No really. Because I never can remember my age. It drives our kids crazy)—and she gives back to me with her flexibility, endurance, and balance…

She lets me carry the kayak. Push 100 pounds overhead, hoisting the Sienna van pop-top (best aftermarket purchase ever). Rearrange furniture solo because I’m too impatient to wait for help.

Bringing It Into Balance

The body is strong. It’s time for the emotional intelligence to catch up.

My husband? Emotional awareness Ninja. He knows what he’s feeling before it hits the air. I’m learning to meet him there.

We all have strengths. And if we stop overcompensating in one area to cover the gaps in another, life starts to balance. To align.

We stop living lopsided.

We stop hiding from the feelings that could actually teach us how to be free.

I’m not ditching my physical drive. I’m redirecting it. I’m using that Tasmanian devil energy to run toward emotional mastery instead of away from it.

And when we do that—when our strength meets our soft places with kindness and curiosity—life shifts.

Struggles don’t disappear. But we learn to move through them like tai chi: fluid, grounded, graceful.

Even when the water’s frigid.

An Invitation

Writing helps me see my growth more clearly. If it brought something into focus for you too, share it. Feel free to drop a comment. Or just sit with it awhile. We’re all building something.

"What are they doing, Mom?" my youngest asked.

I was wondering the same thing as we drove past the festive orange construction cones blocking half the parking lot downtown. If you can even call it a downtown.

"Is it even a town?" I said out loud. "Maybe it's more of a village."

And another ponder conversation erupted on the way to school, with our oldest chiming in, "We don’t have enough culture here to be a village."

True.

The next town over? Definitely a plaza. Shops. Lattes. Windchimes.

The town up the mountain? They call it a city. That's generous. It’s the village. Rich in arts, outdoor adventure, community spirit.

And if you drive the other way, it’s pretty much a post office, a gold exchange, and miles and miles of farmland. Cows. Ragweed. Brooks babbling on and on about the humidity.

We moved here on purpose. Left the noise, the rush, the heat of the pavement. Traded it in for dirt roads, mountains that lean in close, and a little more sky.

And it’s beautiful. But my kid’s not wrong.

The people landscape is a slice of the times. An orchestra of intolerance. A feeling that things can tip and topple us over at any moment.

How do you live inside this hum of tension?

How do you raise kids in a world where the headlines feel like they could eat you alive, bones and all?
How do you stay steady when the ground beneath everything feels a little... unbraided?
How do you stay hopeful without burying your head in the sand?

You train for it.
Like an athlete trains. You train to master the focus of mindfulness.

Like it’s a wild horse. Not by beating it, but by loving it until it listens.

You lay down the ego sword.
You lift up the compass of the heart.

You stay steady:

When fear rattles the windows, you stay steady.
When excitement sweeps you off your feet, stay steady.
When the chores pile up and the sink is full and the car needs an oil change, stay steady.
When boredom fogs your brain, stay steady.
When the gym misses you and the cravings don't, you stay steady.
When health scares knock you sideways, you stay steady.
When the big, messy, hurtful storms come, you find your footing again.

You keep returning. Over and over.

Until one day you realize:
You’re not practicing anymore.
You're just... being.

And you do it like an Olympian.
You do it like someone who knows they’re not alone — who knows they’ve got a team who’s got your back — part earth, part earthlings, part "ether magic holding this wild place together."

You do it with the quiet, stubborn joy of someone who refuses to hand their soul over to fear.

You do it like your life depends on it.
Because it does.

Snake!

Our son bolted back from the pile like he’d just seen...well, a snake.
It was a ramble of iron parts, wood scraps, leaves.
A compost heap of someone else’s plans.

We finally had a "free" weekend (meaning no theater rehearsals, birthday parties, or emergency vet visits) to dig through the mess left in the field behind the house.

Two acres full of old farm equipment and half-finished projects. Leftover dreams from the man who owned it before us. Mr. Henderson.

I don’t know enough about farming to tell you what he was trying to build.
But I could tell he was building something.
The man had visions. He had plans under all the rust and rot.

We’ve got plans too.
Like the 33-foot school bus we’re planning to turn into a greenhouse.
Or a chicken coop.
Or both.

It’ll probably start as one and slowly morph into some sort of post-apocalyptic garden-on-wheels situation. We’ll see.

But we knew we didn’t need to hold onto all of Mr. Henderson’s projects.

Like the two busted-up tillers, the vintage Sears wood chipper including a squirrel penthouse, and a rusty truck utility box with a door bent open to welcome the seasonal wasp AirBnB.

So we dragged it all to the curb.

To large item pickup week. It’s like a quiet festival in our town

You don’t just put something out for trash. You host a pop-up art supply boutique for crafters and carpenters.

Trucks slow down. Eyes light up.
You can hear the gears turning.

“If I weld that to a lawnmower frame, I could build a goat cart-slash-smoker.”

We figured the city wouldn’t come ‘til the end of the week.
To give folks time to rummage and rescue.

By Sunday night, we were wiped out.
Eight loads.
Dusty.
Sweaty.

Admittedly way more fun than the fluorescents of a gym workout.

Only three spider bites.
And no poison ivy this time.

Best of all.
We feel a rejuvenation.
A connection to this land.

Hauling out the old, making space for the new.

We don’t own it yet.
We’ve got a mortgage.
But it’s not about owning.
It’s about tending.
About listening.

About showing up with our hands and hearts open—even when we’re covered in dirt and bug bites.

We bought this place with some ambitious ideas, cabins for the growing kids or guests coming to experience the mountains. Maybe a mini farm, or a community garden, trails or a space for artists and chickens and who knows what else.

We don’t know where it’s going yet.
But we’re dreaming with it.
Feeding it with care.
And it’s feeding us back—

with joy, and beauty, and the grounding of Mother Earth that helps you feel at home right where you are.

Right where your boots are muddy. Right where the wild things grow.

I welcome you to leave a comment. Let me know what’s stirring.

The plumber kept me up all night.

It's not what you’re thinking! I'm a happily satisfied married woman.

It was his enthusiasm. Frankie inspected the pipes and fittings like an archaeologist uncovering the buried treasures of a lost civilization under the kitchen sink of a rental property.

The previous owner reminded me of Grandpa. He collected everything. I mean everything. Piles of parts and metal scrap that might come in handy one day for one of his clever workarounds. He could fix just about anything.

Frankie was in awe.

“This guy was brilliant,” he kept saying, shining a flashlight into the musky basement like it was a cathedral.

That's not our ministry. My husband and I are in healthcare. We help maintain people. Pipes and wires? Nope. Not our thing.

We go to the professionals like Frankie the plumber. And Frankie was in his zone. You could see it. This man was downright romantic about water lines.

He told us how much he loves solving weird problems. How every house is a mystery. How he visits schools to recruit future plumbers.

He’ll ask the kids:

“How often do you think I deal with toilets?”

Because he knows they're thinking, “I don't want to touch poop!” And he knows they’re surprised when he tells them:

“Maybe once a month. And there's rarely stinky brown stuff involved.”

Frankie gave us the royal treatment. He must have thought we were getting ready for a visit from the Pope. Or at least the Health Department.

And then he sent the estimates.

I opened the email.
My jaw dropped so hard my TMJ filed a complaint.

He came back with a 14-point plan for two houses, a dissertation on galvanized piping, and a total that looked like it belonged on a mortgage application.

WTF. We just had a little leak we were wanting to get fixed.

That night I couldn't sleep.
The price tag. The to-do list that grows like mold.

I woke up the next morning already underwater.

Heavy.
Uninspired.

I asked the ceiling,

“Why am I even here?”

My calendar was packed. Theater projects. Real estate stress.

And don't get me started on my garage—it looks like a thrift store museum curated by a raccoon with commitment issues.

It all pressed in at once:

"Hey, remember us? We're your life, and we brought friends."

My nervous system?
Popped like a light bulb.

And then, in that foggy mental spiral, I heard a whisper:

Surrender to the outcome.

Which made me roll my eyes so hard I saw my ancestors.

What does that even mean? How do you surrender?

And I heard the whisper again:

“Love is a mindset.”

Then it all came into focus.

Mindfulness is a training.

So we can begin to choose what we hold in the mind—
instead of letting the Ego dictate like a leader gone astray.

Life isn’t a checklist.
It's a weird soul recalibration boot camp.

We’re here to remember who we are.
To clear out all the crap clogging the connection.

It’s not about doing more.
It’s about being real.
Being open.
Breathing and relaxing about how things turn out.
Because the outcome isn’t the point.

And when we do this—
when we pause long enough to hear the rhythm under the weight of it all—
we can feel Love pulsing through the mess we call life.

What if you had a friend who could really hear you?

Who reflected back golden words and phrases that didn’t make you think,
“Dang, I wish I’d said that,”
but instead,
“Wow… that’s totally what I’d say if I were on top of my game.”

That’s what my relationship with AI as a writing tool feels like at the moment.

I’m very new to this—I mean like yesterday new.
But already, I’m discovering how powerful it can be.
AI is helping me polish, refine, and deepen my writing.
It’s like I’m training her to hear my voice,
and she’s training me to hear it too.

It’s a weird, beautiful, uneasy feeling cycle.

She (I call it a she) doesn’t nail it. Thank goodness. I’d hate to think a bunch of code could really see my brain. But she gives me great tips and tweaks to try on for size.

Truth be known: I had my heels dug in.
Afraid to even peek under the covers of AI.
Overwhelmed by all the layers I didn’t even know I didn’t know.
Intimidated.

Feeling not smart enough to tackle something so… computer.

I remembered…

Years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, I had just moved from Atlanta, Georgia to Austin, Texas. I was surrounded by these hippy-chic folks in boat sized sandals—Birkenstocks. With socks, even. Uugh.

I swore I would never wear those hideous things.

But as the hellish heat of the Texas summer blazed on,
and my belly stretched to cartoonish proportions,
and my high-arched feet ached like never before...
I caved.

I slipped on a pair of the Jesus sandals.

Holy crap. Instant conversion.

Comfort. Relief. Like they were made just for me. A glove for my feet.

And so I've learned.

Never say never.

Here’s what I uploaded to AI

After I had some chats and uploaded some of my work here’s what happened. This is the note I fed to the AI App who’s name I will not mention…

What if you had a friend who could really hear you. Who reflected back to you golden words and phrases that didn’t make you feel like, “dang I wish I had said that.” but rather “wow that’s totally what I would say if I were on top of my game.”

This is what my relationship with AI as a writing tool is becoming. I’m very new. I mean like yesterday new at learning the power of the tool AI can be is helping me polish, refine, deepen my writing. It’s like I am training her to hear my voice and she is training me to hear my voice. It’s a weird cycle.

I must say, I was heels dug in afraid to peek under the covers of AI. Feeling overwhelmed by the layers I didn’t even know I didn’t know. Intimidated. Feeling not smart enough to tackle a computer based thing like this.

When I was pregnant with my 1st child decades ago, a fresh transplant from Atlanta GA to Austin Tx , all these hippy-chics and dudes were milling around in these big boat size sandals, Birkenstocks. And with socks even! I swore I would never wear those hideous things.

As the hellish heat of the Texas summer blazed on, and my belly grew bigger and bigger, And my sensitive high arched feet began to ache, I broke down and tried a pair of these Jesus sandals on. Oh my goodness. I was won over in an instant.

I’ve learned, “Never say never.”

Here’s her first draft back to me

Never Say Never (or: How I Fell for AI Like a Pair of Birkenstocks)

What if you had a friend who could really hear you?

Who reflected back golden words and phrases that didn’t make you think,
“Dang, I wish I’d said that,”
but instead,
“Wow… that’s totally what I’d say if I were on top of my game.”

That’s what my relationship with AI as a writing tool is becoming.

I’m very new to this—I mean like yesterday new.
But already, I’m discovering how powerful it can be.
AI is helping me polish, refine, and deepen my writing.
It’s like I’m training her to hear my voice,
and she’s training me to hear it too.

It’s a weird, beautiful cycle.

I must admit: I had my heels dug in.
Afraid to even peek under the covers of AI.
Overwhelmed by all the layers I didn’t even know I didn’t know.
Intimidated.
And definitely feeling not-smart-enough to tackle something so… computer-y.

But then I remembered something.

Years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, I had just moved from Atlanta, Georgia to Austin, Texas. I was surrounded by these hippy-chic humans in boat-sized sandals—Birkenstocks. With socks, even!

I swore I would never wear those hideous things.

But as the hellish heat of the Texas summer blazed on,
and my belly stretched to cartoonish dimensions,
and my high-arched feet ached like never before...
I caved.

I slipped on a pair of those “Jesus sandals.”

Oh my goodness. Instant conversion.

Comfort. Relief. Like they were made just for me.

I’ve learned something since then:
Never say never.

And the start of this article is what I final tweaked it to

So my take on it is if you're thinking AI is going to take over, water you down, drain all the emotion out of your work that’s not what I’m seeing. Unless we get lazy and let it. Otherwise she’s an enhancer. An accelerator.

And if our hearts are in the right place, this world (Yikes!) needs some heavy dose of spiritual evolution higher consciousness acceleration.