This workshop is an opportunity to explore our longings, callings and the fears that block them.
Longing
We often long for what we didn’t have when we were young. For example; love, acceptance, or recognition of who we were. Or we may be longing for something we dream about or something that we thought others had that we didn’t. We often long for what was missing, or something that was the opposite of what our life was like. If we experience trauma in early life, we long for what was lost due to the trauma. What we froze, dissociated from or were trapped in – like a false, pleasing persona – in order to avoid further trauma. Longing is often a call from the past – help me; keep me safe; protect me; look after me. Sometimes longing is comparative – wanting what our culture says is success, beauty, or all the other lifestyle sales pitches. And often we substitute all these for our deepest longing.
Workshop Preparation: Be curious
Make a list of what you are deeply longing for?
Is it something you never had but desperately wanted when you were little?
Is it something that you dreamed was going to be fulfilling or going to make you happy?
What is the source of your longings – where / when did they originate (how old were you)?
Have you set goals to try and achieve what you longed for? Did you succeed in achieving the goals? Did this achievement fulfil your longing?
Is there trauma or wounding that needs to be resolved in order to fulfil your longing?
Where are your longings located in your body?
Calling
We often confuse longing with our calling. We all are a unique expression of spirit. Calling is a pull from spirit, drawing us into authenticity, wholeness, our essence, and being. It comes through our soul (We are a soul with a body). Calling is drawing us toward our unique way of being in the world. Responding to our calling does not lead to a fixed destiny, rather it is a process, ongoing, never complete, always taking us deeper into the mystery of life and who we really are. The next step and then the next step. Our calling always seems uncertain, never truly known, so we often shy away from responding to our calling because we don’t know where it leads and we’re not in control. Our calling is always relational, bringing us into connection, never separate from others or the more than human world. It is not a vocation or a doing. What we do is a secondary expression of the gifts of who we are, bringing forward our creativity, wholeness and healing. Calling often often reveals personal wounds, traumas and blocks, and the opportunity to heal them, so we have the energy that is trapped in the past available to us. To sense our calling we need to listen deeply (attune) to our inner spirit and then respond (change) with curiosity and openness.
Workshop Preparation: Be curious
Make a list of the characteristics of who you are called to be.
What are the whispers that draw you deeper into authenticity and being?
How long have you heard these whispers? Have you answered the call?
Who are you when you attune to spirit’s calling? Who would you be if you embodied this?
Where is your calling located in your body?
Fear
Fear is one of the main ‘forces’ that block us from sensing and embodying our calling. Chronic fear creates a contraction in our energy system that closes us down, making it difficult to tune into the subtle signals of our calling. Unresolved trauma that is personal, ancestral and collective lives in us and holds us back. Often when we tune in to our calling and start to move into our authentic expression we pull back out of fear of standing out or being excluded from friends and family – our calling is overridden by our desire for attachment, or the trauma based safety of ‘invisibility’. Our calling almost always leads us into new and uncharted territory beyond what is comfortable, ‘normal’ or certain. With this comes the fear of lack of control and not knowing who we really are or where we are heading.
In the face of fear we often substitute a ‘false calling’. Something that is socially acceptable, known, and based on what we do rather than who we are – something safe.
Workshop Preparation: Be curious
When you consider being and expressing what you know is your next step on your calling journey (or at least sense the whispers), what fears arise?
Are you holding back, or watering down your calling?
Make a list of these fears and the impact they have on you hearing/responding to your calling.
What happens when you deeply feel these fears? When in your life did you first fear feel these fears?
Who reinforced (is re-enforcing) these fears – current people or voices from the past?
What do you think will happen if/when you are free of the constriction of fear?
Where are these fears located in your body? What color, shape, density do they have?
Workshop Preparation:
Find two stones that will be symbolic carriers of your longing and calling.
These will stay with you after the workshop.
Remember to ask permission to take / use these.
Gather a ‘handful’ of tree needles (dead or alive) in a container – find a tree that wants to share its needles with you. These will represent your fears and will be released after the workshop.
Workshop Process: Three phases of sound work.
Phase 1 – Connecting to our longing
Circle: Describe what you most long for.
Sound session: 20+ min. Connecting with what you most long for and the source of this longing.
Can you fill your longing from within? What would fulfill your longing?
Blow your longing into one of your stones
Sharing and deepening of the sound work.
Drink water / breathe.
Phase 2 – Connecting to your calling
Circle: Describe what you are currently aware of as your calling.
Sound session: 20+ min. Exploring the deeper aspects of your calling. Hearing the whispers.
Blow your calling into one of your stones.
Sharing and deepening of the sound work.
Drink water / breathe.
Phase 3 – Shifting the fears
Circle: Describe the fears that arise when you consider answering the call of spirit.
Sound session: 20+ min. Journeying to deeply connect with, honor, and release your fears.
Blow your fears into your handful of tree needles.
Sharing and deepening of the sound work.
Drink water / breathe.
Phase 4 – Releasing the fears
Go outside with your handful of needles / fears (and a rattle).
When you are ready rattle to the spirits for assistance and release your needles and commit to continuing to release your fears.
Sharing of food and community