Meditation, Medication, & Contracts, Oh My!
Update and links for two live events this week
Dear Friends,
I’ve been thinking A LOT about contracts. At first, it seemed like a strange thing to think about. But now, I’m beginning to see how essential they are to this moment we’re in…this moment of transition, this “between times,” this shift in consciousness, this birthing of the New Earth. Here’s the gist of what I am seeing:
The patriarchy is built on contracts. Contracts replaced Love as the glue that bound society together and enabled productivity, industry and progress. Contracts replaced Trust. In many places, contracts replaced basic human goodness. We made contracts “legal and binding” when we stopped feeling held in our traumatized bodies.
Recently, my friend, Peter Limberg wrote about “trauma bonding.” I am something of an expert on the topic. For me, most contemporary contracts are merely legal and binding trauma bonds. A trauma bond is basically a shadow agreement, a source of connection between two or more parties constructed to perpetuate coping mechanisms, unconscious or ulterior motives, such as feeling loved, safe, included, liked, admired, needed, etc. A contract just makes it official.
One of the gifts of the total eclipse in late April was the surfacing of this insight: ALL the old contracts based in fear and paranoia and acquisitiveness and greed MUST be broken. These contracts are null and void in the New Earth. These contracts will not make it through the portal to the New Earth. These contracts MUST be broken in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. These contracts will not withstand the escape velocity—they will be torn to shreds. If you want to make it yourself, you need to renegotiate all your old contracts. Some of them are probably obvious: work contracts, employment contracts, marriage contracts…some of them may be less obvious, but just as real: contracts between friends, romantic contracts between entangled parties, contracts between parents and children. The fact is, we’re making contracts all the time—mostly unconsciously.
We made contracts before we even got here to this earth plane. Some of those soul contracts (let’s call them) serve our development and keep us karmically threaded into healthy fabrics of community. These might be relationships between lovers, parents and children, friends, even “perpetrators” and “victims” of crimes and other terrible acts. We make these agreements and “KNOW” about them on the subtle plane, at the level of the soul, but here on Earth in our limited perception, we forget. Often these contracts have expiration dates. When they’re up, we need to change the contract or move on. Often, we don’t do this because it’s too daunting, change is scary, or we are afraid to grow.
Even these subtle and soul contracts need to be assessed and reconsidered now. Maybe especially these.
As I’ve been thinking about contracts, a lot of contracts in my own life have come up for review. I’ll give you a few examples:
One of my closest friends and I had been drifting apart. Something came between us finally and we nearly called the relationship off. When we both came back around and decided to sit down and process things—bring everything into the light—we saw that our old contract: “We are best friends,” had expired. This was really sad to see. At first, it felt like our whole relationship was crumbling. But, slowly as we began to let go of the old agreement, we found ourselves in a delicious space of all-possibility. We saw that we get to create a new contract…one that suits us now in the ways we’ve grown and in the ways we’ve changed. What we both want most of all is for the other to thrive. The old contract had become too restrictive, so we decided to change it. We’re in the process of doing that now.
After ten years of separation, my ex-husband and I recently applied ourselves to the task of finalizing a divorce—legally. For many years, we’d lived separately and co-parented so amicably, we just hadn’t bothered to mess with the arduous and expensive task of legally dissolving our marriage. But, when I turned 50, something in me knew it was time to cut that cord. We did it collaboratively and cooperatively. It was actually a beautiful process of acknowledging that we have indeed moved on. Both of us are with new partners whom we love. This was for them, too. We just filed the papers during this eclipse portal.
My new beloved and I are working through the old collective contracts of the patriarchy between men and women—how they show up in the ways we relate. We are excavating our relationship and finding the deep tentacles of power imbalance, providership, victimhood, and dependency. We are pulling all the loose threads because we have dedicated ourselves to building our union on a foundation that CAN make it to the New Earth; that will actually become a building block of a whole new way of relating in the New Earth. It’s an audacious goal…and exquisitely beautiful. It feels less like making a contract and more like making art or making love.
My daughter who will enter eighth grade next year wants a phone. This will be her first phone. We are working on a contract to ensure she feels empowered and connected and I feel comfortable that she’s safe. It’s not a perfect process, but it is a rewarding one and I love relating to her in her growing maturity.
There have been many other contracts I’ve discovered I was holding without knowing it (to stay small or likable or non-threatening) or contracts people have brought to me for shamanic/alchemical clearing and healing. I have seen some of the contracts and covenants of a deeply insidious nature…the contracts that are holding the darkness in our culture in power. Talk about trauma bonding.
I also know for a fact that I am not alone in this. Tell your story of contract breaking or renegotiating below in the comments! Many of my 1:1 clients have been working through contract negotiations and dissolutions. Many of them have also been straining against the limitations of old contracts they didn’t even see they’d made. When I bring the topic of breaking old contracts to light these days, I find that it often helps people see some tension or stuckness in their own lives in a different light. Maybe you’re feeling that way reading this now?
I’m finding ways to break or renegotiate any of the old contracts that feel restrictive or outdated. Most of them—but not all—are best done with the participation of the other party (or parties). You can use your best judgment. There is no ONE WAY to do this—this is a very personal matter. It can also be a creative, liberating, and generative experience!
It finally occurred to me the other day, as I sat here thinking how strange it was all this thinking about contracts…it’s actually not strange AT ALL. Suddenly, it occurred to me that the lens and language of contracts is a profound and sacred metaphor and reality for the dissolution of the old world. We can grieve. We can let go. We can remember and integrate. We can bring forward what still works…transcend and include. We can step into the space of not-knowing, openness and infinite possibility. TOGETHER. And we can decide in the light of full consciousness what contracts and covenants will serve us in the New Earth.
If we are going to move beyond patriarchy into a new system of harmonious balance, integration, mutual-thriving and wholeness…whatever the next paradigm looks like…If we are going to get there, we are going to have to break the old contract we all hold with the patriarchy. We have to renegotiate the way we are currently participating in this system that no longer serve and the ways we’d like to be in relationship. I don’t believe this will happen overnight. I think it’s a multi-generational endeavor and it’s already underway.
Coming Home Meditation Is Tomorrow/Tuesday from 9-10am EST
You can join this beautiful group of folks tomorrow or any Tuesday morning. We meet on Zoom for 30 minutes of collective sharing and story-telling. Then, I weave our conversation and insight into a guided meditation. It is magical and medicinal. It’s for any “level” of meditator. You can even lay down.
No pre-registration is necessary. Here is the link. Suggested donation is $10-20, which can be paid via Venmo: @ElizabethSchuyler-Brown or Paypal: schuyler@artofemergence.com.
Small Group Healing and Embodiment Cohort Starts Soon! Limited to 9 Participants
I am thrilled to be offering this POTENT alchemical container for deep healing and transformation. I am capping the group at nine members and we will start when all nine have arrived and taken their place. Are you one? Reach out ASAP if you think you might like to explore embodiment, ensoulment, trauma healing, subtle body work and somatic group process this spring and summer.
Email me for more information or to get on the list: schuyler@artofemergence.com or DM me here.
We will meet once a week for two hours. Originally, this group was going to meet on Sundays, but several people who wanted to do it had a conflict with that time. SO, I am re-releasing the invitation here and now. Let me know if you’d like to join and together the group will find the ideal time to meet. The cost is $400 for 8 2-hour sessions and guidance/assignments between sessions. You can read more here in the original post, but note the day/time for meeting will now be determined once the group has formed.
Kundalini Awakenings and Crises Core to My 1:1 Practice
Over the last couple of years and increasingly in the past few months, I have noticed a trend in the clients who are coming to me for 1:1 work. I have an incredibly high number of potential clients arrive at my virtual doorstep seeking help with Kundalini crises and awakenings.
This was something that dawned on me slowly over time until recently the knocking grew so loud, I knew I had to say something/write something here about it. This is for anyone out there looking for this kind of specialized guidance or help. Maybe you are in the midst of a kundalini awakening or maybe you know someone who is and needs help or guidance. I would love to be a resource for you.
The reason it feels important to say this NOW is that many of the people who come to me for this kind of help have already been to see doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists and are being IMPROPERLY and UNECESSARILY MEDICATED. This is such a shame and often makes things worse.
We live in a culture that is ill-equipped to handle spiritual awakenings, much less spiritual crises. This is not a medical matter if it is accurately diagnosed and handled by a capable spiritual teacher or guide.
Some of the symptoms of a kundalini awakening in these times, in these unprepared bodies, can look like symptoms of other mental and physical health imbalances that MIGHT benefit from medication. For example:
super high anxiety or inexplicable fear
sleeplessness
mood swings
incoherent thought
hallucinations
hearing voices
waking visions and dreams
loss of appetite
loss of sex drive or crazy sex drive/libido
inner heat
megalomania
What I have learned over years of managing my own kundalini and Shakti and guiding many others in the stewardship and care of their own inner life force is that trauma, especially in the lower chakras and subtle channels, can interfere with what is meant to be a natural unfolding, a kind of re-birthing process. When we work with the trauma and clear the channels and balance the chakras, the process can continue to unfold and integrate via its own Divine Intelligence. There’s nothing for us to “DO” expect surrender. But, that’s a tall order for many uptight and control-oriented Western people.
In the words of the illustrious George King, I’m not a physician, I’m a metaphysician. If you feel most comfortable in the care of a medical doctor, by all means, please seek medical attention. But, for those of you who are going through this mysterious process and feel intuitively that this is not a medical matter, reach out. I can help you myself or will help you find the help you need. With a ton of love and reverence for this rising of the Goddess.
Thank you.
The contract stuff is so fascinating. Never thought of it that way, but its language that makes strikingly clear the unhelpful agreements we've all struck with each other out of fear/trauma.
I've been severing the links of the contract I kept with my parents to make them feel comfortable, undisturbed, and liked, in order for me to receive their attention. This contract feels like two vines unhealthily untangled with me deep in my pelvis. They were needy children inside who I could never make uncomfortable, because they were insecure in their own love. The darkness of this entanglement is palpable, and I think hesitancy to see that darkness is what kept me from facing it for a long time.
Your best friend example struck me. There is a friend that we both know we've been in a similar place for a while, and we've slowly, through a few honest conversations re-negotiated who we are to each other. There still feels like there's a tie holding on though, and the resistance I feel to fully severing it is facing the grief of the closeness we once had being gone. But I can almost feel the ripe field of re-negotation and potential that you mentioned just around the other corner. It's a place that feels more "real," but the untethering is scary.