Full Moon Releasing

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I AM SHAKING LOOSE EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT SOUL, FOR MYSELF PERSONALLY, AND IN THIS BUSINESS.

Recently, I stood face to face with many fears and soared as I allowed Spirit to hold and carry me through them.  I am manifesting a life I once only dreamed of, and with that comes great responsibility.  

One of the ways that I have been able to witness my growth and the changes that are occurring in my life is connecting with the Moon and her many cycles.  

I have always been fascinated by the moon, ruler of our emotions, and the way it controls the tides and the historical accounts of the red tents.  I have been actively doing Moon rituals consistently for the past year and the power of them has shifted so much for me that I knew I needed to share this with you.  

In Native culture, the moon represents feminine energy.  When women are on their moon (menstrual cycle), they are not allowed into sweat lodges, but are asked to stand guard outside and vision for the community, since they are considered extremely prophetic during this time. Two of the four sweat lodges I attended over the years granted me this experience, and it was deeply profound.

The moon was the way that our ancestors used to mark the passing of time each month, just as the sun was used to mark the passing of time each day.  We no longer need the moon to tell us what day it is, but using the powerful Feminine Moon energy can benefit us all.   

The Full Moon is a time to:

  • Give gratitude for all we have manifested and created since setting intentions on the new moon.
  • Look at ourselves and see what area of our emotional or spiritual lives need more attention.  
  • Let go of the things that are holding us back or keeping us stuck:  fears, daily habits, negative self talk, etc. 
  • Take your sacred items and put them out in the moonlight overnight.  Crystals (though, some can’t tolerate moisture, so those should be placed inside of a window that the moon will shine on), rocks, feathers, singing bowls, statues (think Ganesha, Buddha, Christ), rattles, etc.  The moon’s energy adds another layer of sacredness to your items when done in addition to smudging or rattling them.  

FULL MOON RITUAL

FULL MOON AFFIRMATION

I GIVE GRATITUDE TO THE UNIVERSE FOR PROVIDING EVERYTHING I NEED.

 I TRUST THAT SPIRIT IS ALWAYS TAKING CARE OF ME.

(I do not align myself with any particular religion or belief.  I use the term Universe or Spirit, to honor the higher being that each of you may believe in.  This can be God/Goddess/Buddha/Mother Earth/Gaia/Higher Power/Power Animals/Spirit Allies/Angels/ Guides, etc.  You can call on any or all that feel appropriate.)

Things to Gather

  • Candle
  • Sage or Incense
  • Calming music
  • All your sacred items (crystals, rocks, feathers, singing bowls, statues, rattles, etc)
  • Jars with lids
  • Slips of paper and a pen
  • Journal
  • A fire (in a fireplace, outside, or in a bowl that paper can burn in)
  • Sea salt/Epsom salt
  • Baking soda
  • Your favorite essential oil
  • Your favorite non-alcoholic beverage (save the wine for after the ritual) 
  • A cozy space where you will not be interrupted

Set Your Intention/Create Sacred Space

  • Place your candle in a special spot to begin building your altar.  Add any other sacred items that feel important to you at this time.  I love using a Ganesha on a Full Moon Altar, since he is known as the Remover of Obstacles.
  • Light the candle.
  • Pray for guidance and protection. The prayer can go something like this (but, feel free to come up with your own):  "Spirit, I ask for your divine guidance and protection during this Full Moon Ritual.  May all that is done be for my highest good and the highest good for the next 7 generations to come. I give deep gratitude for the blessings you have given me in the last month including: __________.  I trust that you will always take care of me, as you have done since the beginning of my existence.  Aho/Amen."
  • Create sacred space.  Light some sage to cleanse yourself and the space you are in, burn some incense, and/or rattle.  Call your intention for this time forward.  What is your deepest longing at this moment in time?  Hold that intention in your Heart and Mind as you move through this ritual.
  • Put on some quiet soothing music.  Some of my favorites for this are Deva Premal and Snatum Kaur.

Meditate

  • Grab a crystal, if you have one.  My favorites for meditation are selenite, amethyst, celestine, or clear quartz.  These crystals assist in tuning into our intuition more deeply.  
  • Close your eyes and connect to your breath.  Feel the gentle rise and fall of your chest.  Begin to slow your breathing down to almost double the length in and out if possible. 
  • Silently ask Spirit what needs to be released at this time.  Trust what thoughts pass through your mind.  
  • Meditate for about 10 minutes, or longer if you desire.  
  • Make notes in your journal about what came forward during your meditation. 

Releasing

  • Now that you are relaxed, centered, and peaceful, your intuition should be more accessible.  
  • Close your eyes briefly and ponder what is no longer serving you in your life. This may be daily habits, old beliefs around abundance and money, negative words of self talk, or physical clutter.
  • On individual slips of paper begin to write down what you want to release at this time.  
  • Get the fire, or your bowl to burn the paper, ready.  
  • Say the following prayer/affirmation until you feel yourself smiling:  "For my highest good and for the highest good of all, I release all that no longer serves me.  I release clutter, negative words and people, and all things that hold me back from all the love, joy, good health, abundance, prosperity, and peace that I came into this life with.  These things are my birthrite and I claim them all now."  
  • It is now time to release.  Take each piece of paper and read it out loud before putting it into the fire or lighting a match to it.  After you read each item out loud, say "You no longer serve my highest good.  Be gone once and for all.  I am done with you."  Be bold and affirming when you say this each time.  The Universe reads energy better than words, so feel and speak with conviction how truly done you are with each of these things in your life.  Jump up and down, do a dance or wave goodbye to each of the items you burn.  
  • After all of your items have been burned, offer gratitude:  "Thank you, Spirit, for how these things have served me until this point in my life.  Thank you for removing these things that no longer serve me.  And so it is.  It is done. Aho/Amen."

Gather the Moon's Energy

  • Take all your sacred items outside where the moon can charge them with divine feminine energy.  As you place your items outside, give gratitude for their beauty and for the work they do, ask that they be cleansed and charged in the moonlight, and place your current intention into them as well.  When you bring them back in the next day (preferably before the sun shines on them), give gratitude again for their beauty and for their shining new energy.  
  • Fill a few jars of water with lids on them.  Place them outside with your other sacred items to gather Full Moon energy.  When you bring this water in, store it in the fridge if it is not used immediately.  You can use this water to drink, rinse your hair with, water the plants, blessings or rituals and so much more.  

Full Body Release

  • Water is a magical element that can cleanse energetically, as well as physically.  Conclude this ritual with a warm releasing bath and cool shower.
  • Bring your favorite beverage for drinking and your lit candle into the bathroom with you.
  • Take 2 cups of sea salt and add 10 drops of your favorite essential oil.
  • Add 1 cup of baking soda and the 2 cups of salt to your warm bath.  
  • Keep the calming music playing and RELAX.
  • Spend the time imagining into your life without the things you just released. Put a smile on your face and allow yourself to full-on Daydream. 
  • Soak for at least 15 minutes and conclude with a brief cool shower rinse off all you have released, feeling it all slide down the drain forever.  

Ideally, this ritual is best done on the actual day of the Full Moon, but it can still be just as powerful in the 3 days before and after the Full Moon, if needed. 

At the next New Moon, I will post a new Ritual about planting seeds of intentions for the month ahead.  Stay tuned for that one.  If you aren't on the newsletter list yet, be sure to sign up over on the right so you don't miss it.  

May you have a sweet and Soulful release this Full Moon,

All love.  All Soul.

xx Nicole

What is your Divine Mission Statement?

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This is something that is very hard to admit, but my intention is to always be authentic.  

I have spent too much of my life caring what other people thought about me.  

It kept me over-striving, people-pleasing, unauthentic, scared, low, depressed, and small.  I have always been shy and introverted.  I don't believe in talking over others or shouting out in a crowd, so I can often be found in the corner of a party (if you get me there at all), quiet in a meeting that others are running, and often only sharing when asked.  

DEEP, AUTHENTIC CONNECTIONS ROCK MY WORLD.  

THEY ALWAYS HAVE. 

These were not always easy to come by growing up.  Because I preferred my own company or the company of those that I knew well and trusted, others chose to judge and label me a 'bitch' growing up.  

This label has been hard for me to break down and shed over the years.  I believed and embraced the label instead of fighting it for way too long. I began to think of it as a badge of strength after spending too much time looking to TV and movies in my teenage years, trying to find my way, but only seeing how much the media loves strong, hard, tough, bitchy women.  They are portrayed all over television shows.  They are the ones that all the men drool over, want, and desire.    It is next to impossible to find dynamic, but kind and vulnerable women characters to relate to.

It has only been in recent years that I have begun to drop the idea that what others think of me creates my self-worth and am still doing healing around my self-worth. 

A couple years ago, I offered my Pay What You Can Soul Seekers Virtual Workshop.  I could have used this as a system to measure my worthiness by allowing others the opportunity to put a monetary value on my services.

I mean, really.  I spent 5 years in school training to be a midwife, with a $75,000 student loan debt to show for it.  I spent 10 years working with women as their primary health care provider during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.  I trained with a Shaman for 3 years.  I studied and worked with energy healers and mystics for the last 15 years. I have spent significant time, money, and energy learning my craft and gathering the wisdom I hold inside of me today.  I know I have a lot to offer.

So, when some paid me $1 (66 cents, after Paypal took their portion)  for a service I normally charge $300 for, it could have felt like being left a penny as a food server after serving someone a $300 dinner.  Even though I had friends and colleagues up in arms about the $1 payment, I chose to not allow this external representation to determine or challenge my self-worth.  

My goal for offering the Pay What You Can Workshop, was to make sure money would not hold people back from participating if their Hearts and Souls desired to. I trust that people truly paid what they could, and that they placed more value on their own well-being than they do on their daily cup of coffee. 

What I know to be true...my divine Mission Statement:

I AM A SACRED, DIVINE, SOULFUL, INTUITIVE, HEALER AND EMPATHIC LIGHT BEING WHOSE PASSION STEMS FROM GUIDING OTHERS IN FINDING THEIR OWN DIVINE LIGHT IN LIFE.  

Here I am sharing my own Divine Value Ritual to guide you in finding your own Divine Mission Statement...

Divine Value Ritual

  • To begin this ritual, find a quiet place, light a candle setting your intention, play some soothing music and take come nice, long deep breaths to deeply connect to yourself.  
  • Write down a list of all the things in your life that make you unique.  
  • From that list, create your own DIVINE MISSION STATEMENT, as I have done above. 
  • Write down your DIVINE MISSION STATEMENT in as many places as you can that you will see regularly this week.  The more you write it, the more it becomes embedded in your subconscious, and the more it begins to rewire the neuropathways that are otherwise filled with the negative self-talk we tell ourselves.  Write it in your daily calendar, your journal, your bathroom mirror, next to your desk, and on a sticky note in your car.  
  • Keep writing it down until you know it and feel it by Heart.  By doing so, it allows your conscious mind to travel to your DIVINE MISSION STATEMENT the next time your self-worth is challenged by outside influences.  

I would love to hear what your DIVINE MISSION STATEMENT is in the comments below, so we can hold each other up in our own unique DIVINE Self-Worth.  

You can also share your Divine Mission Statement on social media and using #divinemissionstatement to spread your light by uplifting and encouraging others to do the same.

I love each and every one of you for sharing your struggles and your light with me, as I share my own.  We are on this Soul Seeking journey together.

XO!

~Nicole

Untangling the Ties of Privilege that Bind Me

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In my youngest years, I always felt special.  

I grew up thinking it was the oldest child syndrome, where the world revolved around me for my first few years of life before my sister was born.  

My parents tell the story about my first year of life living in Italy.  Apparently, I cried anytime someone who spoke Italian tried to hold me.  Since I don't remember this time in my life, I can only assume that it is part of human nature to be fearful of something different. 

Children, who don't have filters yet react and say things that as we grow up we are taught to quiet, hush, not look at or even acknowledge.  We are literally taught by most people around us to not speak the truth or look at our differences, which only increases the divide that was placed there long ago.  

When you were a child, do you remember when you realized you were different?  

It may have been the language you spoke, the color of your skin, which gender box you were put into, or a religion you were raised in.  Do you recall that moment?  How old were you?  Where were you? And most importantly, how did it make you feel? 

The immersive nature of our family of origin, good, bad or indifferent, shapes the way we see the world, our language and our belief systems due to our inability to filter out truth from myth at young ages. 

As adults, this causes significant challenges in untangling our own inner Truth (with a capital T, the divine deep truths and values we hold) from the “truths” we have been fed from a young age.  

As children, it is inherent for us to seek love, and to do whatever it takes to receive love from those who we are closest to. 

This can show up in the form of being a caretaker to an alcoholic parent to be seen as important to the family.  Or, showing up as the clown in the family to gain or keep the attention on themselves.  The list of ways we adapt as children to feel love is massive.  

Then, as we age and seek acceptance from our peers, at some point our differences make their way into our consciousness.  Perhaps, it was through a traumatic moment of teasing or bullying.  Oftentimes, it is simply someone stating their belief that diminishes your existence.    When that happens, we all sought to conform somehow to be accepted.  

And, here is where this goes deeper. 

Understanding that for myself, as a white woman, I had the privilege of conforming.  I could change my hair, my language, my friends, and I was still going to be more accepted than those with more diversity than me. 

In this last year, I have begun to look hard through my hetero-normative lens of privilege.  My primary focus for the last few years has been to focus on the oppressed community of being female vs taking a long hard look into where my privilege lives.  

I refuse to be caught in the Spiritual Bypass lane.

As I seek to be allies for marginalized and oppressed communities, I will be shifting my own language to fully represent my inner Truth (with a capital T).  This is deep work for all of us since our thoughts, beliefs, and language has been passed down to most likely oppress someone else. 

It may be that you were infused with oppressive beliefs and language around a particular gender, race, sexuality or religion as a child.  This may show up in continuing to marginalize a community or in micro aggressions, that we are being called to address now.  It is time.  

I love all human beings and seek to hold space for those of all races, religions, gender, sexual preferences, ability, class, and lineage.

I will be sifting through my website and shifting my language to be gender neutral and inclusive of all.  

I will be changing some offerings to stay in my own primarily British, Irish and Scandinavian lineage in support of the de-colonization work being done around me.  

This work is big and deep.  What was handed down to us goes back many generations and it is our duty to all fellow human beings we are walking this Earth with, to do the healing work needed to support equality for all.  

I am releasing the ties of what has been past down by my ancestors and society that were meant to keep me small as a woman, and privileged as a white person. 

As I untie each one, I am looking it over, paying attention to what runs through my head and out my mouth, and shifting to language and energy of love, acceptance, inclusivity, and justice for all.  

Huge love to each and every one of you!

Nicole