Hello Dear Ones!

Had a tough day yesterday. Yet the end results were dramatically profound. Here’s how it all unfolded and why I chose today’s topic: Intrinsic or Extrinsic? (Note, if you didn’t come to this page without first seeing our prime post for the definition of these two words, please go here.)

I have partaken in two of three intuitive webinars with David Morelli. The first week instructed us on meditation, centering and the removing of outside influences, such as other peoples’ gunk that we allow to affect us.  Valuable!

This past week (the second of three sessions) was incredible for me. The prime lesson of this second webinar focused on clearing from within – our own ‘stuff’. I was able to follow along with David’s guided meditation and the result was powerful.

I’m blessed with the ability to be very visual with meditation – I’m right there! Yet the day after the session I tried to do the same thing on my own – to negligible results. Every time I tried to remove my own personal ‘stuff’ from my body and leave it outside of me in the fashion David recommends, it wouldn’t stay out there! I could actually sense myself pulling it back inside! Now isn’t that the strangest of things?

Why would I possibly want to keep negativity inside? What benefit would it be to me physically, emotionally or spiritually to hold on to ‘stuff’ that is harmful to my spirit?

After trying again yesterday with, unfortunately, the same result, I chose to take a walk to my very favourite nature spot – Christmas Hill and the Swan Lake Sanctuary. Just south of where we live, Christmas Hill itself is a fabulous focal point for locals. Accessible from various locations around it, there is a relatively gradual incline of grassed slope and stone steps – at least from the route I take. It takes me about 25 minutes to get from my home to the top where there is a full 360 degree view of the city of Victoria and her surrounding waters, plus the snow capped mountains of Washington state in the southern distance. Breathtaking.

Atop this area is a stand of Garry Oaks, which are endangered, and that are being kept to their most natural state there. As well, though, in the center of it all is an Arbutus or Madrone tree – old, strong, healthy, wise. I get near an Arbutus tree and all I want to do is stroke its smooth, muscled, barkless surface.

Knowing that I would be going for a specific reason – to literally ask for guidance and insight – I decided to follow a traditional peoples’ practice of taking a gift of thanks. Looking around my apartment, I chose to take an orchid blossom. In addition I decided I would share some filtered water from my own canteen. Before I left for the hike, I decided also to take a wee pink bow that  decorated  the package the orchids arrived in and that for some reason I had held on to. Each gift was, for me, symbolic – representing earth (orchid), air (ribbon) and water.  I chose not to look for something to symbolize fire – for what you would agree might be obvious reasons!

I gathered all these things together and walked with heightened anticipation to my designation. The journey there was, itself, also part of the gift and I treated it in that fashion, meditating along the way. Once I arrived at the spot, I reached out to touch the Arbutus tree. I was so suddenly overwhelmed with emotion that I immediately broke out into sobs that filled me with an immense sense of gratitude. I was where I needed to be.

I’m not going to go into any more detail about the experience for me up there at the top of my world. It was incredible. That’s all I wish to share here. Yet even more became apparent as the day progressed.

Before I left to descend the hill, I ensured that I placed my forehead upon her – this amazing Arbutus tree – with a prayer of thanks for her gift to me today.

Insights continued and became even more intense as I started to descend from the top of Christmas Hill. I realized that all that I had gleaned to the point of my descent had merged into a theme. The theme was ‘value’. Specifically my own value – my value as I relate within the world in which I physically reside.

Let me do my best to explain what was going through my head. Physically I have certain gifts that I was born with and that have developed over time within me. Proud of them, I am. Yet to the world at large these gifts and talents have no extrinsic value. (You knew I’d get to the topic eventually! You did, didn’t you?)

In other words, I can use these gifts to my heart’s content and whenever I want. However, the society within which I live, play and have my being will not pay me the necessary dollars I need to survive and thrive from the expression of these same skills. Oh, it’s nice that I do this or that as a hobby – such as  my poetry – but to get paid to do it? Nope. Not in the reality I have chosen for myself.

So I came to the recognition that what I hold as intrinsic values – who I am at the heart of my being  and what I can offer the world – is not valued by my physical, extrinsic world. That realization had me stopping short midway into my downhill stride! Who I am and what I offer my world is not valued. I am not enough. I shouted it out loud I’m sure – I AM NOT ENOUGH! And the tears fell and fell.

The reason I couldn’t get into this meditation and let go of the ‘gunk’ that was within me was that I believed that I had no value.  My world told me so every day. And as a result I had bought into that limited myself. If my world didn’t value me, then – I apparently also believed – I was not worth valuing.

Shouting to myself, this recognition had me screaming inside my head – OMG! OMG! OMG! (In my version of text vernacular that translates into “Oh, my goodness!”) What an insight! Yet what was I supposed to do with it now that I realized the dichotomy I had been carrying within myself for all of my life?

The answers and recognitions that arose within me are ones I shall need to work on. Here’s what surfaced:

The world that accepts my authentic self complete with my own, unique gifts as valid currency:
Where is it?
What does it look like?
How do I find it?

I have no answers in the moment. Yet I felt yesterday, and still feel today, a sense of peace within myself that I shall soon know. I have sent out the request to the Divine to guide my thoughts, my insights, my intuition, my actions and the outcomes – all in ways that will expand on this simple fact: I am of value. Who I am, how I interact with my world, the gifts I offer – these all hold value, both intrinsic (the emotional and spiritual world within myself) and extrinsic (my physical expression and experience of life). My gifts shall, therefore, provide me a currency that translates into dollars and cents as well as the very sense of my own inner wisdom.

Yikes! If I get this much intuitive insight from two sessions with David Morelli and his webinars, what will this week’s webinar bring? David is promising some amazing results. If this past week has been an indicator as to what potential this coming week might offer, then I might be wise to be excited beyond belief for the last session! Bring it on!

In Light and Laughter,

Marcia

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Follow this link to read Mike’s View.