Have you ever felt helpless?

And did that experience warp your ability to trust yourself and others?

Concerned that you can't tell the difference between self-care and self-sabotage because of what happened to you?

Sometimes bad things happen to good people... I know.

Yet Source wants you to know that all things can - and do - work together to form greater good in our lives.

Watch this week's 11-minute Love Letter to hear my story of overcoming a very dark time in my life and how I healed from cycles of self-sabotage to embracing a lifestyle of self-care and healing.

"I only smoke because it helps me cool off."

We're continuing the series, sourced this time around has asked to continue you and I building a deeper relationship and a deeper understanding about certain concepts that come up in our spiritual lives.

This series is going to be a five week series around the dark side of self-care. Woohoo. I'm so excited.

I am so excited to bring you to the dark side of self-care. What that basically looks like is self-sabotage.

Now this first week in particular the guides have asked me to share more of my story.

I just finished a session with a new client. I'm so excited for her. It's amazing what inspires people to begin their healing journey. She's beginning a new six month healing journey, Sojourner healing journey, which means she's coming in for an hour, a private hour a month for me. She also gets unlimited meditation classes here at the dojo.

It's so interesting to hear people's stories of what inspires them to begin to heal. What motivates you to really begin healing.

It was just fascinating sharing with her some of my story of what caused me to get into all of this in the first place.

Believe it or not, it comes from actually my pain.

Simon Sinek, very beautifully says that your big why comes from your pain more often than not.

For me, it was a series of three breakups that caused me to break open. The first one was someone that I thought I was going to be with. The whole soulmate situation that you think you have and then turns out sleeping with your coworker and calls you on your wedding day to ask how are you? One.

Two, the next one broke me open again because of the color of my skin. He had decided that we couldn't be together because of the color of my skin. That also compounded my perspective.

Then unfortunately the third one that really broke me open was when I got date raped. Yes, I'm sharing that with you.

No, I'm not happy about what happened to me. I honor the fact that these were the events that grabbed my attention that something is not quite right.

Now maybe you grew up with a history of abuse or maybe you grew up with alcoholic parents or that sort of a thing.

Something happened in our lives that forced us to take a stand and say, "Wait a minute. I don't like this. I don't like this." Right?

It's those moments where you put your foot down and say, "No more. I'm not going to be beaten anymore" or, "I'm not going to select people who would do these kinds of things to me anymore."

One of my first spiritual teachers her question to me, that changed my life, was: "what is the pattern in you that's creating this situation?"

This is where we get into our five week deep dive around self-sabotage.

When I look back into those dark times in my life where I would have suicidal thoughts and would be sleeping at around 22 hours a day, only getting up to go to the bathroom and have a sip of water, trying to escape, escape, escape there were things that I was doing to self-soothe that within my compressed mindset I thought were good for me.

When you have a compressed, like as in a really limited mindset, bad stuff you can't really tell that that's bad for you.

Some of the ways that I used to self-soothe but actually turned out being self-sabotage ... Well, one it was the constant sleeping. Also, I used to chain-smoke Clove cigarettes, the black ones. Like talk about breathing death. Emotional stuffing. I used to live on Twix and Chex-Mix and nothing else except for Captain Morgan's spiced rum and Malibu coconut rum. I remember. I'm so happy that I'm sober now.

There's these things that, "I'll just have a drink so that I can soothe" or escape, get rid of this negativity, or, "Let me go have a smoke. Let me cool off." Or, "Let me just check out." There's so many things that we do to soothe ourselves that within a limited and a compressed point of view feel pleasurable and we interpret them as good even though they're working against us.

Now there was also another form of self-sabotage I would do at the time. I would work around 12 hours or so a day at a really, really toxic job. Like screaming bosses that were financial abusers as in dangling your pay check over your head in order to get you to do things that are completely outside of your principles.

Be kind to yourself if as I invoke the darker side of my story that this is resonating for you like, "Ooh, ooh, I still do some of that, Victoria" ... This is not to say like, "I'm good and you're bad." No.

I want you to know that I've been through some things and when I'm going to talk to you over the next few weeks around self-sabotage versus self-care there's some history there. I'm only tapping on the tip of the iceberg here with respect to your energy.

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Know this: Be kind to yourself. What motivates great healing is usually great pain.

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My story is my story and it's made me who I am. Here's the light in the darkness is that when you start self-soothing you can choose to raise the vibration of the forms of self-soothing that you do.

For example, I remember even when I was still chain-smoking I started learning more about crystals and oracle cards. "Well, you know, maybe this will help me feel better." It was something positive about these cards or I feel the energy when I'm holding this crystal. I don't know what the heck it is. I'm going to get into that in the next few weeks.

That was the turning point. It was following things that brought me joy and uplifted me in the self-soothing cycle. It's natural.

I want you to know this and watch this in yourself this week.

Watch the way that you soothe yourself, whether it's positive or negative. Just notice how do you soothe yourself when you're feeling bored, when you're feeling depressed, empty, anxious, angry, unacknowledged, lonely, et cetera. How do you soothe yourself? It is positive things? Or negative?

Most of us have a mixture of both. By the way, at the filming of this video I still have some not so good things, such as eating chocolate and ice cream, that is harmful against my body. As well as doing hours of meditation, grounding out in nature, doing reiki. I have a mixture.

This is called being human. I want us to have a deep dive now for the next five weeks around honoring that self-care versus self-sabotage dance that we're all doing.

I know that you're doing it. If you clicked play on this video chances are you're a natural empath. You're already sensitive to the energy and trying to figure out how to cope with all this energetic overload. We're going to confront this head-on.

We're going to dive deep together. I can't wait to see you next week and hear what you think.

Comment below. Tell me what's coming up for you around this.

Do you have a story that you wanted to share, by the way? Did my story bring up some of yours? I would love to witness you in sharing your story, privately, just to honor you. We don't want to post all that out in social media and all over the place.

Send me an email back and let me know and I'd be happy to set up a share your story call so that we can hold space for you speaking your truth for the first time.

I know it's tough. I feel you but we're going to get through this together.

Are you ready for this? Five weeks. Five weeks. Let's do this. Self-care versus self-sabotage. Going to the dark side. Whoop, whoop. Shining light so that we can all grow together. I'm sending you so much love and I'll see you next week. Bye.

VictoriaWhitfield.com
Facebook.com/SenseiVictoriaWhitfield

Just for Today...

Watch the way that you soothe yourself.

Track what you do to soothe negative feelings, to observe if it’s positive self-care or negative self-sabotage behavior..

Notice how you feel at that moment - you're already healing!

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Hello there. I am Sensei Victoria Whitfield, your business reiki master. And it's my joy to get to support empathic entrepreneurs and business owners like you in getting and staying grounded and clear in mind, body and business.

Welcome back to another installment of your weekly love letter from the dojo at naturalintuition.com and victoriawhitfield.com, my blog. These are your sources for channeled holistic stress management techniques and guidance for developing your natural intuition. Whether you're looking to improve the quality of your personal and professional life, let this love letter be your reminder that you are not alone and that together we can make that happen.

Let's schedule a chat, and see how I can help you...

The post Love Letters | Self Care vs. Self Sabotage – Part 1 of 5 appeared first on Sensei Victoria Whitfield.

Do you have a hard time connecting and communicating with your clients?

Is your marketing message or mission statement unclear or ‘not quite there’ yet?

Have you been feeling ungrounded in your business, like something foundational is missing?

Be kind to yourself: you have yet to awaken your true potential.

Inside every spiritual entrepreneur is a Visionary, an inner intuitive shaman who can see the way forward.

Watch this week’s 10-minute Love Letter video, the first of a 4-week series, to Awaken your Shaman Within and take your business to the next level!

"I think my communication with my clients is going well."

Whether you are looking to improve the quality of your personal or professional life, let this love letter be your reminder that you are not alone and that together we can make that happen.

This next four week series is going to be really powerful because the guides want you to awaken your shaman within. We're going to take the next four videos to cover this as a topic integrating shamanism and the shamanic perspective into your business and into your professional life for better grounding, creativity, innovation and communication.

As always, in these series we begin with a mediation around why. Why is it time for you to awaken your shaman within? Let me come a little closer. I know, you're like, "Oh my God, you're far away," right? It's time for you to awaken your shaman within, and the reason why is that source is calling you to better connect to your employees and your clients.

This is about communication, communication, communication, baby. I'm sure you've taken so many communications courses, gone to the events, gone and done all of the workshops and gotten your certifications and things, sensitivity training and so on and so forth. Be kind to yourself, it's not that you're not good enough, as to why communication is coming back up again, but it's actually because you are being called to go higher.

There's a huge difference. This is the tweetable of the week, there's a huge difference between feeling not good enough versus being called to go higher. And that's where this concept of bringing shamanism and awakening your inner-shaman in your business and in your professional life, that's why this is coming forward.

‪Know this: There’s a huge difference between being not good enough, and being called to go higher in your #business 💕

Let's talk about this a little bit more. The word shaman, in western culture we tend to think of shaman as some dude, first of all, I'm female. Some dude up on the mountain top or in the jungle with his junk hanging out and paint on his face, looking regal and natural and fabulous and super spiritual and hits you with the oak leaves and clears your energy.

I know you don't think that but I've got to get to the lowest common denominator, so we can all find ground. So not to knock anybody who believes that but some people, that's the first emotional, kind of guttural reaction that they get when they hear shaman. "Why the ... I own a plumbing company, why would I want to be a shaman in my ... that's ridiculous. You're a weirdo." Right?

So be kind to yourself if that comes up or be kind to yourself if others have said that to you. We'll be weird together for the next four weeks, or if you've been following my love letters for a while, baby, we've been weird together for years. So good, right?

The word shaman actually comes from the Siberian Tungus tribe and it means one who sees in the dark. One who sees in the dark. My guides are telling me to actually shut the lights for a little bit. When things start getting darker in life or a bit more uncertain, it can cause your ability to see detail to decrease, right? So if I were to go and cut the corner light out here, it's even hard to see me. The uncertainty is increasing because it's getting darker.

Now I'm not going to go completely dark but this is just to make the point, what if when I turned that light off you were still able to see me and you were still able to see how many fingers am I holding up? If you have the ability to see in the dark when others can't, you are, according to the Tungus tribe you're a shaman, but my more contemporary terms you are a leader.

It gives you the ability to, I'm just going to cut the light back on. It gives you the ability to better communication with your environment because you have access to more energy and wisdom, and that is why this month we are awakening your shaman within.

By the way, go ahead and click the link below this video if you want to join us live in the Berkshires, so that you can come to the retreat, the Awakening the Shaman Within Retreat, so you can learn these practices in depth, me and you and our tight-knit tribe of visionary entrepreneurs and business owners. So, links below.

But let's continue on this topic of being the visionary, because that's what it means to be the shaman. You are one who sees in the dark. You're the leader, and that is where we're going higher in your ability to communicate in your business, access to information, innovation, creativity, certainty and confidence, so that you can best lead your teams or best lead your clients and customers to all go higher together in the process.

Now I'm hearing the oracle cards calling in the energy. All month we're going to be journeying with earth magic, our shamanic deck by  Steven D Farmer, an amazing, amazing author. Just go check out his stuff. One of many beautiful oracle card decks that we have here at the dojo. Guides, what do we need to know right now about why it really is the time now to awaken our shaman within in business?

I just cut that. Bam, lightning, power. Here's where we're going to leave off for this week. Lightning is re-polarizing the electrical charge of an environment. Perhaps now more than even you need another level of resource, another level of perspective in order to deal with the charged environment that you are moving through. Just like a bolt of lightning is powerful and it is a burst of insights that brings neutrality between that thunder cloud and the earth below her.

So maybe it's the tense environment of restructuring at your corporation, your organization. Or maybe it is that charge of discomfort that is going on between team members. They're just not communicating very well because of limited perspective. Or, I'm going to do a pun on charge is what I'm hearing to say, that even this is your discomfort with receiving more money or raising your rates. You need a higher vibrational perspective and higher mindset to help you make it there, and your shaman within can see the way forward.

Comment below, tell me what comes up for you and throw your tomatoes at me by the way if you have any tomatoes on this. Like, "You can't bring shamanism into business." Bring it.

I'd love to hear both the light and the dark. You know I love you just the way you are. So get ready for the rest of this month, we're going to be continuing down this line of discussion on awakening your shaman within. I look forward to seeing you at the retreat.

Click below for more info on the retreat or to join the next info session. See you next week. Bye.

VictoriaWhitfield.com

Facebook.com/SenseiVictoriaWhitfield

Just for Today...

Decide to be the Visionary of your group or organization.

Call upon your inner Shaman to intuitively reveal the way forward.

Notice how you feel at that moment - you're already healing!

SHARE THIS! You’d be surprised how many people you know right now are in desperate need of healing and could use this information to change their life. If you can read this, you know someone who needs this Love Letter!

Want spiritual support on your healing journey but don't know where to start? Let's work #together!

Click the pink button below to book your Private Support Sessions with Victoria and jumpstart your healing journey, today!

The post Love Letters | Awaken Your Shaman Within – Part 1 of 4 appeared first on Sensei Victoria Whitfield.