Intentional Insights - Q&A From Within

Kelley, I am writing because of a problem that has consumed so much of my energy and confidence. I have been experiencing gradual hair loss for about five years. I have tried medical treatments with no success. I have also had blood tests done which did not reveal anything. I am at a loss and have tried all sorts of things but to no avail. I have found this so deeply humiliating. I am at a loss and quite desperate. Is there something going on I am not aware of? P.

Hi P. Thanks for your note. When I feel your etheric field, there’s a lot of anxiety in it. This anxiety feels very old, as if it has amassed over many years. Specifically, what I feel in it is fear of being judged and ridiculed, and these fears stem from childhood into the present.

I don’t feel that as an adult you carry conscious awareness of these fears. That is, you don’t carry thoughts around related to being judged or ridiculed. Yet, at some point in your youth you carried them for years, and these thoughts have become internalized at a deeper, subtler level. I’m not certain why hair loss is the specific result of these fears, but I do feel that it is a result of them.

When emotional states are left unresolved, they become beliefs. These beliefs become the foundation by which we set our boundaries and perspective of life. Eventually hurtful emotional states and beliefs take a toll on the body.

Address this anxiety, specifically the beliefs, “I am only as valuable as others find value in me,” and “My sense of self is defined by others,” and you will quell the hair loss. I suggest doing some research on a good Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor who works with 5-element or 8-element acupuncture to help get your meridians back in balance. I do think that the body is drained and needs support. This is a good way to revive it. Emotionally I would look into techniques that allow you to release feelings and emotions that no longer serve you. This could be Reiki, Emotional Freedom Technique, or a more traditional therapeutic approach. Spiritually you need nurturing. Seek this in a local shaman, or if you are open to distance work, we could work together.  The more you focus on emotional healing, the less physical symptoms there will be.

I do see this condition as one you can manage, P, and I wish you the best health and happiness!

Kelley,  While I enjoy my current job, it has gotten to a stage where I walked out and cannot face returning.  I wish I could make a living from my creativity,  but that seems like an impossible dream. I don’t want to be trapped in my current situation, but the only place I can go is another dead-end job and they may not tolerate my physical and mental illness.  Will I ever be able to follow my own heart-song? Thanks–EJ.

Thanks for your note, EJ.  This stage in your growth is about balance, specifically standing solid in your true self across different worlds.  The core issue is being able to be your creative self and carry that into other, more linear areas of life.  Within you is a belief that you must abandon creativity in order to walk out the door every day, not just regarding day jobs, but to deal with people and life, in general.  This belief generates others, such as “I can’t be myself in ___ company,” or “I can’t interact the way I truly want to in ___ situations.”

This duality of living has set up a  dynamic in which you compartmentalize your creativity, expressing it in the areas you want to and deem worthy of it, while withholding it from areas you feel don’t deserve it. This divvying up of self hurts.

I see sprawling patterns of submersion into either linear, mundane pursuits, or escapist, colorful art–rarely a peaceful balance between both.  One extreme of hardship cannot exist without the other.  Lopping off the artful self to survive in the suit world can only lead to approaching creativity as a wildfire escapist pursuit.  The result is an antagonistic relationship with the outside world and art, whose creation feels like chopping off one of your limbs.  That pattern becomes  self-sacrificial, in which your linear life never gets the best of you, thus can’t prosper,  and your creative world is locked into acting out the anger of that omission.   A push-pull pattern crops up in which these extremes start to feed off of each other and snowball.

Our creativity is our true self, and expressing it must go far beyond breathing it into how we make a living.  We can’t turn our true selves off and on situationally and expect them to carry and sustain us.  Rationing creativity results in bipolarism of the spirit.  Our creativity is also our life force.  When we turn it off and on like a spigot, we start to become less and less able to control the valve.  This manifests in feeling that we’ve lost our artistic skills, collusion of life dynamics that distract us from creative pursuits, and ever-building animosity toward the areas of life that provide our practical means to be artistic.

Expressing our true selves requires a relationship that must be cultivated, like any other. Your guides show me that building this relationship requires full focus on healing that relationship.  Even fun extracurricular activities like studies or travel overtax you right now.  Clear expression relies on keeping the filter for the voice as clear as possible.  To attempt to make art both your survival and soul jobs before doing this healing will only strain the voice further.  There is a deep need to delve in and remember art for art’s sake, and in doing so rekindle the relationship with your true self.

Of course you can’t cloister yourself away from the world to do this healing, though you can greet Life with the agreement that healing comes first.  Healing the fatigue and resentment that has built up from compartmentalizing yourself will improve your worldview as well as your self-view, your art, and your means of earning a living.  By bringing your creative originality and authenticity into every aspect of your life as an ongoing personal spiritual practice, it will just be there in times that you need it to carry you.  Sparse times will become far fewer.

Can you make a living through the expression of your heartsong?  Yes.  The trick is beginning to express your heartsong no matter what, through absolutely everything you do, right now, so that the job that can honor your creativity can come.

Blessings, EJ.

Kelley, Since December, I’ve had recurring encounters with a particular subject and a certain number. I read a review of the film, A Dangerous Method, about Jung and Freud. A few weeks later, I was reading a book about spiritual emergency that made reference to Carl Jung and synchronicity. Over several days things kept popping up regarding Jung. Shortly after I began to notice the number 123. It appeared on a data sheet I was reading, then later was in a book, on my trip meter as I was driving, the call number of a book…

Are these “coincidences” a manifestation of a mind primed to look for these things because of my reading? Could these happenings be some sort of synchronicity or message from the Universe or spirit guides that I should be heeding? If so, how do I get clarity as to what it is? Thanks, Belle.

Thanks for your note, Belle. For me, everything is a sign pointing to some deeper meaning of itself, or to some point of power. Why? Because I choose to see events as such. Because I choose to perceive events at all levels available to me, not just the most evident and most pressing. Symbols are miracles we have recorded into language. They are reminders that the Multiverse is alive and aware of each of us. We are aware of miracles when we choose to be active participants. For me, such coincidences are feedback that I live in an animistic reality, that All Things are connected.

In my experience, miracles are natural signals we allow ourselves to perceive. We have cultural signals to which we have ascribed collective meaning, such as weather patterns and interpreting animal behaviour. Through Jung’s work we have the symbolic interpretation of our own unconscious via archetypes marking the places where we as individuals draw from the same shadow pools of meaning. In specific pockets of divination we have collectively accepted symbolism in the tarot or the Runes. Because we are well aware of each of these systems of symbolism, we have assimilated them into a code that has been interpreted and accepted at a collective level.
The basis for what you are experiencing personally, however, is no different. We tend to reject personal signals and coincidences because there is no lexicon for how to interpret them. In essence, we doubt our own ability to interpret not just what the Multiverse is saying to us, but what our own unconscious is saying about our lives.

When you become aware of personal signals, it is up to you to interpret what they mean. Certainly there are books available to tell you what every sequence of numbers means in discrete detail. They may hit on exactly what you need–a signal of affirmation–or they may not. I suggest a more personal decoding approach. Consider what you were thinking at the time you perceived the signal. What was your state of being? How did you feel? What happened immediately after perceiving the signal? What memories or thoughts were triggered? This sentient information is the map that informs you of your personal language to your unconscious, to your spirit guides and totems, to the Multiverse. The more you work with understanding signals in your life, the more signals will come, the more evident their meaning will be, and the thinner the barrier becomes between your unconscious and conscious minds.

While I can’t tell you what you are onto, Belle, I can without hesitation inform you that you are onto something. The fact that you have become aware of coincidence is half the awareness. The rest is creating the language through which you understand what signals are saying. That language comes from within.
Be well.

Kelley, I enjoy reading your insights. I am 28 years old and have been experiencing bouts of depression for about ten years, although the last few years it has been more consistent. I have tried therapy, medication and even making nutritional changes. I have had a mild positive reaction but the depression seems to be getting worse. I also suffer from anxiety, and have a driving phobia that has affected my life. I often feel disconnected from people I care about. I feel like what I want the most is not available to me, feeling loved and affection. I have a lovely boyfriend but I worry about draining his energy and expecting too much. Please help me, Elizabeth.

Thanks for your inquiry, Elizabeth. I am shown a glimpse of your chakra system, in which the root, sacral and third eye chakras are over active. They burn a bright, silvery white. We don’t often think of these chakras as ‘related,’ in that the lower three primary chakras are “earth” chakras, while the upper primary three are “Spiritual” chakras. The middle chakra is the heart, and it exists in both planes (how fitting!) The thing is, all of our chakras are related and are interdependent upon one another.

The Chakra System

The root chakra is the first one, located in the base of the spine, and it generally relates to our ability to master the formed realm. literally, it indicates our ability to survive here, at a very basic but needful level. It also indicates that we recognize our tribe and where we fit into it.

The sacral chakra is next, located in the lower abdomen, and it’s associated with how we feel about being in the formed realm, emotions, sexual energy. The second chakra also indicates the places where we do not fit into the tribe, what the ‘punishments’ are for that, and how we will react to the tension of that dynamic.

Skipping all the way up to the brow is the third eye. The third eye is the point that we have learned the mastery of the formed realm, have found balance being a spirit in flesh, and are ready to perceive the unseen aspects of this realm. It is all about intuition and the culmination of wisdom.

Overactivity of these chakras as a unit tells me that you have begun perceiving unseen aspects of this realm and you’re not comfortable with that, or that you are not comfortable being able to do that in your present tribe. Another aspect to consider is how your shift through puberty and adolescence affected how you see the world, spiritually. This is related to the onset of depression. Depression is our power withheld, specifically it is intuition withheld. What intuitive perceptions do you put away in order to make other people comfortable? What intuitive perceptions do you have that make you uncomfortable?

I suggest finding someone to work with in a soul healing capacity. That work could take whatever form seems to address restoring your power and confidence in your own perceptions. When that healing is done, working with someone to develop your intuition and finding a community with which you can share it is ideal. It may be possible that I can help you with these things remotely, though I support your choice to work with someone near. Ultimately Elizabeth, you have a wonderful gift. It’s OK to allow it.

Kelley– I was misdiagnosed with epileptic seizures at the age of 15, and was put on many different anticonvulsant medications for over 10 years. None of it helped, and none of my EEG’s showed conclusive evidence of epileptic seizures. I have only recently realized that my seizures are due to some kind of spiritual blockage. I have been able to control them better, but not completely, and would love some insight into what I need to do further to either have them under complete control, or to harness their power. When I was a teenager, and my spiritual awakening began, I had very vivid, powerful dreams, I could dream walk, I had prophetic dreams, I could communicate with my spirit guides easily. I can no longer do this, and it is rare that I have restful sleep. Any insight into this problem would be immensely appreciated! Love and blessings! – Niki

Thanks for your note, Niki. The message that I got from your guides is that some facet of your soul is seeking a different way to express that deeper part of your consciousness, specifically through training in spirit walking, or shamanic journeying. The aspect of your soul that I met with indicated that she is eager and waiting for you to work with her in learning to journey out with purpose to some intended healing. My feeling is that this will sate the part of you needing that release and expression, and it will help manage your physical symptoms.

Also, if you can acquire a naturally formed salt water pearl, this is a powerful fetish to have in your toolbox of spirit travel allies. It came to me very prominently in working with this aspect of you. If you have or can get one, keep it with you when you sleep, and as you adventure into learning to journey. The salt water pearl brings you grounding between spaces, and assures your ability to bring something beautiful from discomfort.

Generally speaking, seizures occur when a facet of the soul attempts to leave the body but is confined for some reason.  The soul is infinite, and aspects of it naturally come and go as they need to.  This is how our consciousness expands, provokes new thoughts and beliefs.  When an aspect of the soul wanders out due to trauma and can’t return, shamans consider this state soul loss, or soul separation.  Soul loss can manifest in many ways, such as chronic doubt, depression, pain.   Soul parts are returned through a process known as soul retrieval.    The phenomenon you have experienced can feel just as bad–when a soul part needs to wander out to expand and release, yet can’t.  This state leaves you feeling trapped in yourself and spiritually isolated.

I don’t recommend learning to journey alone.  Let me know where you are located and I can help you find a teacher. If you are open to distance learning, I can help you with that. I don’t think this means that you have to commit to the servitude of shaman hood or hone the intuitive skills of a mystic, so much as just give yourself this outlet for now. Cultivate it and stay open to what it brings. I wish you healthy, passionate travels, Niki!