“…where you stumble, there your treasure is.”   Joseph Campbell

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition… what you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”   Alan Alda

Being human (as well as divine) we will all travel through a variety of distressing landscapes during the course of our life. And our life is actually a course as we live in Earth school. We may wish that we did not have to travel through some distressing landscapes; however, those distressing landscapes are part of the curriculum of our life on Earth. Our spirit friend Emmanuel says:

“There are no steps to be skipped.

The organic process cannot allow for that.

There would be holes where fear and doubt

and lack of faith would lurk

and it would all come tumbling down again

and you certainly do not want that.

You will find your path

and you will follow it to the end.

After all, this is not such a terrible place to be.

Have you not come to see the beauty and the ugliness,

the love and the hate, the light and the darkness?

Do not run from it.

Your task is to transform it

not to avoid it.”   (EMMANUEL’S BOOK)

We lightworkers pass through a number of distressing landscapes during our heroic journey of transformation. Having traversed these distressing landscapes myself – part of my work involves helping others find their way through as they simultaneously gather their gold nuggets of wisdom. In her book THE MAP psychic medium and intuitive counselor Colette Baron-Reid helps us to find the magic and the meaning in the story of our own life. I have attended lectures with Colette in-person and also on-line and find her to be a great guide on the journey of transformation because, like all effective dedicated spiritual way-showers, she uses her own distressing landscapes as teaching tools and as a compass for others rather than to elicit sympathy or as a return to victimhood. As a recovered drug addict and alcoholic Colette shares her own personal story to Rock Bottom where she ‘awakened’ to the challenges she had been avoiding and learned the lesson of surrender and the courage that came as a result of trust in Spirit.

At this time of my writing today I pulled a Rune for you my readers and the Rune is Algiz. “Control of the emotions is at issue here.” You are being advised not to collapse into your emotions, either the highs or the lows. New opportunities and also challenges typify this Rune and this Rune indicates that now and ahead on your path may come “trespasses and unwanted influences.” I feel that this Rune appearing at this stage of your journey is a reminder that you may be currently in or approaching a distressing landscape and therefore are advised to remember that this Rune serves as a mirror for the Spiritual Warrior and indicates that you may be pulled back into a distressing landscape by someone else – and yet – you need to remember that the Spiritual Warrior’s battle is always with the self. Stay watchful. The keywords with Algiz are: protection, sedge or rushes, the Elk. “The warrior’s protection is like the curved horns of the elk, or the warning rustle of the sedge grass, for both serve to keep open space around you.”

Whenever we are traversing a distressing landscape it is wise to keep some open space around us. This allows us to take some deep breaths and connect to our center. No matter what the landscape is – it is possible to keep moving forward with courage and Colette notes that we find this courage within any landscape “when we let go of our expectations of how life is supposed to be and discover that without our attachments we still have the capacity to experience joy and tranquility.”

Some of us hold onto our emotions – letting them become an identity rather than allowing them to pass through us. Often we find on the journey that we feel guilty for being happy when another family member or friend is not happy or if a parent died having seemingly never experienced joy. Our clinging to old emotions can prevent us from experiencing emotions as they are meant to be – energy in motion. E-motion. It is healthy to experience the full range of emotions and adventures that life has to offer. Just as we can never be poor enough to make another person rich – neither can we be miserable enough to make another person happy. It doesn’t work that way – we find this out on our path. Sometimes we hold onto our most difficult emotions from our most distressing landscapes because, even though we don’t enjoy them, they feel familiar and therefore they give us a sense of comfort. We likely remember an old chestnut, “better the devil you know then the devil you don’t.”

Children, as we all know, are wiser than adults when it comes to distressing emotions such as anger, sadness, or grief. They feel the emotion and then they return to their fun. They allow their emotions to rise and fall like their breath and do not cling to them.

As adults Colette observes that we give so much weight to our most painful feelings that if they begin to subside “we’ll start penning  an entire novel about why we should continue to feel sad. Then we make sadness a landscape that traps us. We actually give our feelings a much longer shelf life than they need. In a way, our stories are like hydrogenated oils, preserving and sustaining our emotions far past their expiration date.” This is one of many reasons why I ask my clients, once they have processed their emotions, to turn the page and begin to write a new story. To step into a new landscape.

As Colette takes us on a journey in THE MAP we are able to explore our own inner landscapes and harness our own power to shape our destiny consciously. We visit distressing landscapes such as Codependent Land, The Corridor of Uncertainty, Flatville, The Frozen Land, The Ghostlands, Acquiescence Alley, Shouldville , The Island of Broken Dreams and many others including stops on the way to rest and relax such as The Resting Tree and The Field of Dreams. There is much to learn during all these stops. In each one we discover the Spirits of Place.

Colette is a compassionate guide, having told us, her audience, at an I Can Do It conference in Toronto, that she was gang-raped in a Toronto park at the age of nineteen. Her mother, a holocaust survivor, did what she thought was her best at the time to help – but – it was not what Colette found helpful. In fact, it was only after her mother’s death that she was able to feel compassion for her mother’s own journey through the distressing landscapes of her life.

“When I was a crazy alcoholic, I had a lot of drinking buddies; and when I sobered up, they didn’t like the ‘new’ me. Even my mother had ambivalence about my sobriety. She spent a lot of time … telling a two-dimensional story about a good mother who rescued her hapless, screwed-up daughter, dependent on these efforts to save her. As long as I was a mess, my mom knew that I would never abandon her. Her challenge was to redefine her relationship with me and trust in our connection despite the fact that I no longer needed her to bail me out of some new disaster I’d brought about.”

As a person undergoing transformation yourself you will likely have already become aware of the fact that some people in your life will either distance themselves or eventually drop away when you become the ‘new’ you or they will redefine their relationship with you and your maps will continue to intersect. We find on our journey that there can be painful experiences when people we  care about are not able to support our healing and growth. Remember as you travel you will meet new travelling companions on the road ahead. Never stop believing in the new friends you have yet to meet. They are waiting in your future!

When we have the courage to explore our own distressing inner landscapes and have received our gold nuggets of wisdom from the previously hidden realms –  we often ‘awaken’ in others the courage to find their own compass and begin their own journey to healing. However, Colette reminds us and cautions us that this is not always the case. They may not hear us when we offer our wisdom. Let go of the outcome and just speak your truth with love. It may surprise you as to who hears your call and is open to receiving your light – dear lightworker.

Make sure to examine your own wounds and remember that courage is not the absence of fear. It is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Moving through it and forward. Moving through what Colette calls The Sticky Swamp. “Here you feel utterly stuck. If you relax and stop struggling, your feelings of being overwhelmed begin to subside, and you’ll be able to move forward with creative ideas and clear priorities.”

All these distressing landscapes are bordered by The Peaks of Joy and they feel blissfully delicious after traversing the depths of despair and suffering. How would you feel that deliciousness without contrast?

“The hero returns home from his journey after he heals himself and, as a result of this inner work, brings back something that can help his community. He doesn’t have to experience total healing though – just enough to find the courage and wisdom that he can share with others.” As Doreen Virtue taught our class of Angel Therapists(R) – you do not need to be free of issues – but you do need to be aware of your issues. Otherwise you will project them onto others.

Dear ones – I was guided to write this piece with the Rune Algiz in mind. As you traverse this next chapter of your journey as a Spiritual Warrior do not become overwhelmed by your emotions but feel them, as a child does, and let them pass through you as the energy they are. At painful times feel the pain, observe it and stay with it (it is a teacher). “Do not try to pull down the veil and escape from life by denying what is happening. You will progress; knowing that is your protection.” (THE BOOK OF RUNES by Ralph Blum)

The sedge grass is rustling – keep some space around you – call in the Angels and ask them to help you remember that your true protection is mindfulness, timely right action and correct conduct.

All is in Divine Order and distressing landscapes always give way to blue skies in the end. Follow the Light. Align yourself with your Highest intentions and keep moving forward. Naturally, at times you will stumble … and you will find your treasure there – within the distressing landscape. There is always a treasure waiting to be dis-covered. And that treasure is your Self.

Love,   Monica