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Have you experienced YŪGEN?

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I heard a funny word today. YŪGEN (n). It means an awareness of the universe that triggers an emotional response too deep and mysterious for words.

Now immediately I thought.. hmm that’s a funny definition. I thought of describing this word to my friends in my hippy stoner voice just to get the full effect of the “deep and mysterious-ness”. I then chuckled a little bit to myself because I’m so funny (of course).

Then I thought, wait a second. I have had this awareness. I have felt this emotional response that was too deep and mysterious for any explanation I could come up with.

I feel it when I’m hiking through the trees and listening to my podcasts or music, when the wind is in my hair and i have went over ten minutes without stepping over my feet or twisting an ankle. I feel so in tune with nature. So in sync with my universe and creator. I feel this when I’m on my deck practicing yoga, looking upside down at all the beautiful trees that have been there for many many years.

I’m just a spec. One tiny little spec. But I am a big light. As are all of you. It’s so easy to get caught up on the world of Staci. To complain about my problems, worry about my weight, about my hair, about silly boys. But then I get this phenomenon of yūgen. Where I can’t help but to be in complete awe for this amazing earth and universe we are all a part of. Brothers and sisters, it’s all here if you were to just notice it!! Breathe it in!! And enjoy!!

I’m so thankful for each of you following along. I’d love to hear back from you!! Any advice or critiques or praise! Help me help you.

I’m here for you friends. Namaste.

Breathing isn’t everything

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“Emotional pain is not something that should be hidden away and never spoken about. There is truth in your pain, there is growth in your pain, but only if it is first brought out into the open.” -Steven Aitchison

Credit: Mark Patterson Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many deep breaths you take, the heaviness just wont go away. Frustration, fatigue, sadness, anxiety, you name it. There are times when sitting in silence and concentrating on your breath just doesn’t fix things unfortunately. When this happens to me, I use the quiet time to identify what I am feeling. I try to name the emotion and then seek to understand why this emotion is lingering and how I can overcome it.

Here is a list of some strong negative emotions and what they might be showing us:

Bitterness: shows you where you need to heal, where you’re still holding judgements on others and yourself.

Resentment: shows you where you’re living in the past and not allowing the present to be as it is.

Discomfort: shows you that you need to pay attention right now to what is happening, because you’re being given the opportunity to change, to do something different than you usually do.

Anger: shows you what you’re passionate about, where your boundaries are, and what you believe needs to change about the world.

Disappointment: shows you that you tried for something, that you did not give in to apathy, that you still care.

Guilt: shows that you’re still living life in other people’s expectations of what you should do.

Shame: shows that you are internalizing other people’s beliefs about who you should be (or who you are) and that you need to reconnect with yourself.

Anxiety: shows that you need to wake up, right now, and that you need to be present, that you’re stuck in the past and living in fear of the future.

Sadness: shows you the depth of your feeling, the depth of your care for others and this world.

Feeling these types of emotions are not negative in themselves. There is no need to tell yourself “I need to stop with this or that emotion because it is negative… I need to just be positive”. Yes, being positive is good, but you can be positive about these emotions as well. These descriptions are positive ways to look at these negative emotions.

(Negative meaning that they are not “uppers”, negative doesn’t mean bad and positive emotions aren’t always good.)

Looking at emotions in this way gives me the opportunity to step outside of my small scope on things. It gives me the opportunity to sit in the silence of my darkness and tell myself its okay to feel this way. Its okay to be hurt or disappointed or to feel sadness. But it also reminds me that I don’t have any other place to be except right where I am right now in the present moment.

Hopefully you can use this list to come to better understanding about your negative emotions as well.

Thanks for the journey friends. I’m here for you.

Is it Friday yet…? Let’s take time to slow down

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“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

-Lao Tzu

Take time to slow down. To appreciate the breath you take. To appreciate the wind and the trees and all the bugs that live in the park.

What a week it’s been so far, I’ve noted so much about my experiences since moving to my new home. I’m trying to be the person I want to be and the truer person I know that I am.

Finding that balance, the peace, following my intuition, listening to my heart, calming my mind… it’s the journey.

It’s been awhile since I’ve made it out to the trails. This time last year, I was here almost every day, using the freshness to bring me back to life.

But with all the bugs and the heat I’ve been hesitant to come run out here. Something told me today that I couldn’t put it off anymore, that I needed to go and reconnect to the earth and the trees.

And man, I’m so glad I did.

My mind feels clearer and my breath is deeper. I’m so glad I listened to my body and my third eye.

Learning to note the thoughts and emotions help to be able to distinguish between when the self is speaking and when the SELF is speaking. The little self is full of pride and ego while the capital S self is filled with compassion and wisdom.

Lately, I’ve been trying to be more mindful of my inner voice. My intuition that leads my heart has been telling me lately things aren’t right. But I couldn’t figure out where it was all coming from. Well today, again I followed my intuition into the woods and now know the true reasons why I let fear and past worries lead my decisions and thought processes. How exhausting it is to follow the path that is not meant for you. How exhausting is that unease. I knew I had to get away and tune in to my SELF.

Well friends, how did you follow your intuition today? Who is speaking and who can you hear the loudest?

Thanks for joining. I’m here for you.

Day One

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Flashes of dark memories keep polluting my vision. All I’m trying to do is remain present. I want to be healed. I want to be over this.
Your hands covering my face and your arms wrapped around me so tight that I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to pass out from suffocation. I feared for my life. I was so afraid of you.
I remember you slamming me on the ground while you barricaded me when I tried to kick and move. Why didn’t anyone hear us and come help? Where was everyone? My dorm became a place of rotten tears and silent screams.

You’re on your way here right now. I sit at this coffee shop and anticipate what you might look like. Will your head be buzzed like the time after our big fight and I thought you might be crazy? Will it be shaggy and sweaty from the heat of this miserable summer day? I’m imaging you with a hat on, jeans shorts cuffed above the knee, and an oversized t-shirt showing your collarbone tattoo.

All the flowers in this coffee shop are dying.
Seems fitting for the occasion. We will be sitting across from one another while the vase of dead flowers watch over our conversation.

I moved to the other side of the table away from the people walking in.
I don’t want to upset you.
I don’t want you to watch as my eyes gaze upon the business of the building.
I know how you get.
That night when we were in the foyer and you got more and more upset with me the more people who walked in.
I couldn’t help but have my eyes drawn to the movement in the room.
I’m still haunted by that. Ashamed to break eye contact from anyone.
I never wanted to upset you. I didn’t mean for us to abuse each other.

My appetite has diminished completely. I’m nervous because I don’t know which person you are going to be today. I’m nervous because I don’t now if you’re going to like who you see.
I don’t know what you want from me.
Why are we meeting at all?
Why do I even talk to you still?
Usually when you have to call the police on someone multiple times, you stop all contact with them. But not me.
I’m an idiot.

It’s only a few more moments until you walk in. My back is turned toward the door. I won’t see you first.
I kind of like it that way.
You’ll walk around and sit your things down, maybe you’ll be upset that I turned away from the door. Maybe you’ll recognize why and you’ll notice the fear in me.
Part of me wants to leave but too much of me knows that I have to stay. I have to do this. I have to see you and I have to uncover who I am with you now.

The lunatic inside me needs this and obviously the lunatic in you does too.

You’re here.
I was right about the hat.
Khakis. Collared shirt. Glasses.

 

I wanted to share my anxious journal entry from the day that I met at a coffee shop with my ex. June 2017. Almost a whole year ago. It was so scary but I needed to do it.

Honestly, I typically wouldn’t recommend meeting up with the person who abused you, but for me, I needed to see the person who was haunting my dreams and know that I was stronger than him. I was stronger than the scariness of the dark that was held over me for so long.

He wasn’t as scary as I remembered him being. He was less conniving. Less threatening. Funny even. Gentle and sincere. He apologized and listened as I talked about the trauma our experiences left on me.

It was nice to hear that he was sorry for what he did. His excuses didn’t mean anything to me but I was glad that he was trying to figure out his own madness.

Before that meeting, I would get wild anxiety heading into the city terrified that I would run into him. I would get this cringe and sick feeling like he was going to be right around the corner… and a couple of times he really was.

I was so haunted. My dreams were haunted.

Those repressed memories I tried not to hold onto would flash in my mind while I was driving and would block my view. I didn’t know how to make them stop. I thought I had tried everything.

I tried to move on to someone new. Forget the past. I tried to journal and get out my thoughts. I tried counseling. It wasn’t until I faced my fear and gained back my power that I finally felt the pressure release.

I will be forever thankful that he was willing to meet with me and listen to me. I know so many people who will never get the chance to hear their abuser say that they’re sorry. Forgiving someone who will never mean it is hard work. Trust me!

It has been almost a year now since that coffee date. Close to the beginning of all the growth I’ve accomplished. I am light years away from the person I was then. So much healthier and happier. I’m not afraid of breaking eye contact with people anymore. That simple thing is so freeing!

My hope is that you find that strength to take back your power in whatever way that means for you. Mine was facing the darkness. Yours may be cutting your hair, moving, new friendships, whatever it may be. The power is inside of you and if you can’t do it yourself, reach out!

Thanks friends for the journey. I’m here for you.

The Journey Begins

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Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe its about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.

closeup photography of purple petaled flowers

Occult means hidden. Concealed. Deep. Unknown.

Deep in my unconscious lies hidden content unknown to my consciousness.

Past traumas have never weighed me down because I repressed them to protect myself. I would not feel the pain because I would not store the memory in my brain bank. Covering up hurt and abuse with superficial happiness was a tool that worked on autopilot.

From a young age, I developed the mindset that I needed to just “be happy”. I believed I could trick my mind to being happy, and for a long time I think it worked. I thought it to be a special skill that I had and that “god wouldn’t give me anything that I couldn’t handle”. I relied on religion and church to come to better views on processing the trauma. Any difficult times I faced were obstacles I needed to get through to learn the necessary skills to prepare me for who god wanted me to be. Some day, I was going to help others dealing with trauma in their lives.

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that this way of thinking was extremely unhealthy because I was magnifying all of the good and dismissing all of the bad. All of the bad, that I thought I was away from, was actually in my subconscious and was hindering my ability to perform well in the areas of life that I cared about the most.

All of my childhood trauma from a home fostered in addiction led me to an emotionally and physically abusive relationship in college. Reaching this tipping point affected me more than I could consciously comprehend at the time. Heightened anxiety, caused by the unsafe feelings about myself and my environment, impacted my performance in every area of life. Which in turn gave me more anxiety.

It’s taken lots of time, but I’ve been taking the steps for the necessary self work to overcoming the damage left by these traumatic events and I now have reached a still point where I can perform effectively again. Where the good is noted and the bad is noted. Its all balanced. And it all is wonderful.

This blog is about my journey in healing. My journey with true occult knowledge. The journey to discovering the SELF.

Collab with Sab means walking with me in the collaboration of my real life. Yoga, consciousness, mysticism, love, kindness, meditation, mental health, charity, best self, living every day to the fullest, mindfulness, self-love, family, friendship, all of it. The collaboration of it all to discovering how to make this world a better place.

I promise to be authentic. To be accountable. To be myself.

Journeying with me means that we can heal together. We can grow together. We can love together.

More love to the planet. More love to others. And more love to self.

Thanks friends. I’m here for you.