Tag: growth

The Leap: Relearning Lessons- Lesson #2: Have a Little Faith

On By Brittany BigleyIn Adventure, Authenticity, Conquering Fear, empowerment, faith, Female empowerment, hope, Letting Go, optimism, Trust, Uncategorized, vulnerabilityLeave a comment

The Law of Faith is about trusting the inherent love and intelligence working through you and all creation.

Trusting in Spirit, The Laws of Spirit, by Dan Millman

The second lesson I’m having to relearn is the ability to put faith in the Universe (God) that it will support me. My Australian adventure was my first test of faith, where I jumped and the net revealed itself every step of the way. My faith carried itself over into Colorado. I moved knowing one person, but through that one person serendipitously found a job and a living situation that worked itself out nicely. It couldn’t have worked out better even if I had planned it. It was proof that the Universe conspires to work in my favor. So why haven’t I learned and embodied this lesson?

Past traumas and a parental example are forefront in my mind. I witnessed and experienced my father completely implode his life, making terrible choices that further impacted him and his family (me) negatively. I catch myself wondering if I’m likely to repeat his karma. At one point during this transitional period, readying myself to move to Oregon, my mom implied she was afraid I’d end up like my dad.

With his misfortunes in the back of my mind, I still press on with my decision to pack up and wrap up my life in Colorado, because I feel in my gut and bones there is a greater force at play. Spirit (Holy Spirit) has been preparing me to make this move since 2021, when Washington/Oregon was first put into my consciousness. Physically, I’m feeling called to the land in Washington, across the Columbia River from Hood River. There’s medicine for me in the land in Washington, possibly even a spiritual teacher waiting for me there. Through meditation, it’s been revealed that my knowledge of nervous system and emotional regulation is my medicine I will bring to the Columbia River Gorge. With intuitive hits, downloads and sensing, I feel divinely supported. Yet, it’s hard to have faith when I’m craving concrete evidence that everything will work out.

I’m taking a big risk in having faith in the Universe. I’m out of my comfort zone, waaaaay past my growth edges! Letting go of control, letting go in general, is not my strength. Not knowing details like a job or stable living situation still has the ability to send me into an anxiety attack. As I’ve been told by a psychic friend, my ability to “logic this out” will be of no use to me, and will even hinder my ability to thrive in Oregon. Fuuuuuck! That’s literally how I’ve survived the past 36 years.

This chapter, this launching off point, feels much different than the Leap I took to Australia/Colorado. My spiritual practice has deepened, and I have more spiritual tools in my tool belt. I can feel the Universe’s supportive energy. I feel Spirit calling me to push myself into significant and expansive spiritual growth. I just need to surrender and believe that the Universe will support me. I just gotta have faith (faith, faith).

Hindsight 2020: Shedding My “Conditioning” and Returning To Authenticity

On By Brittany BigleyIn Uncategorized1 Comment

This time last year, I was Ouray, Colorado, with some adventure friends from Philadelphia. I took the day off from climbing to tend to my weakened knee from a bouldering accident, and put my energy into writing for my blog and planning my posts for the upcoming year. I was excited to commit to a personal project, one I had dreamt about for so long. Like any start to a new year (new project, new ANYTHING) there was lots of excitement. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE new beginnings! Innovation, excitement, energy, enthusiasm, exhilaration are just a few words I associate with any new beginning. It’s what brings life energy back to me.

BUT coming back from Ouray to my “normal” daily routine, it became very apparent that this was not going to be my year to work on creative projects. Creativity, true authentic creativity, required outward expansion, when really I needed inward reflection and cleansing. It was finally time to come to terms with my shadow self.

Coming into the New Year, I had just learned about Codependency, reading Codependent No More, by [insert name] and processed the core traumatic incident, the root cause of my codependent nature. Processing that memory, and the emotional energy I carried with me from the incident, left me feeling heavy, deep, RAW. My metaphoric scabs were ripped open and I was left vulnerable. As much as it hurt, I knew from past trauma cleansings that I was healing.

Month after month, I found myself digging in deeper, making a true commitment to my healing. I isolated myself, cut myself off from friends and family, like an injured animal walking off into the woods to tend to its wounds. My isolation coincided perfectly with the collective consciousness shutting down and social distancing for COVID. I couldn’t have asked for a better present from the Universe, divine timing at it’s best!

During that time of isolation, I focused on my mother wounds, my daddy issues, my trust issues with myself, the universe and the divine, I tended to my blocked heart chakra (the reason I felt like I had to hide myself during my healing) through Reiki and therapy. The economic uncertainty following the social distancing orders challenged my “scarcity mindset” and forced me to trust that the Universe wanted me to live in abundance. I “called back” my sacral energy I gave away freely to others, which sparked a flow of creativity I hadn’t seen since college. There was this euphoric feeling that I was closer to the person I had always dreamed to be.

Realizing my worth and untapped potential, I left a toxic work environment which exacerbated my codependency, perfectionism, and people pleasing tendencies. That job left me emotionally exhausted, and resentful, the classic signs of burnout from constantly giving inauthentically. I found a job with a Principal that understood personal trauma, respected boundaries, and a work place that felt emotionally safer.

Due to the safer working environment, my psyche/body decided it was time to start working on the bigger shadow aspects of my personality: trust issues from my abandonment wounds, perfectionism caused by emotional neglect, and people pleasing (the residual effects of my codependency).

Thankfully, after working on my heart chakra and allowing trusted friends into my world of hurt and pain, I was able to talk more openly about what I was processing, and found most of my friends were on a similar healing trajectory. Discussing these shadow aspects with friends allowed me to feel less isolated, less alone.

What does this mean for 2021?

All of this deep healing and shadow work over the course of 2020 allowed me to get closer to my authentic self, and align with my higher self. My past conditioning: the codependency, the abandonment, the lack of trust, perfectionism, scarcity mindset, were all preventing me from living as my authentic and empowered self. Shedding the conditioning from my past, rooted in survival, allows me to now focus on thriving. I can’t expect to thrive with the same social conditioning and behaviors used to purely survive.

Now I can work towards outward expansion, creating authentically, not from a place of ego but from a deep desire to share my ideas with others. The creativity is rooted in connectedness and collective healing, not individualism and personal gain. I find myself being more playful, curious, imaginative, and wanting to help others from a place of genuine generosity.

I am thankful and feel blessed to have experienced the past year of personal trials, triggers, challenges and lessons. I’m better for it, and its helped me to get back to, well, ME! #thrivingnotsurviving #abundancemindset #higherself #authenticself