Dive Towards the Flames

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Have you ever felt like something was trying to burst out of you? Like a creative project, or a baby, or some kind of spiritual crisis? Something that makes you feel like you’re burning in the flames. Usually it feels somewhat chaotic and like you don’t have a choice in it…

Rosemary shares advice on how to dive towards the flames to get through these times so that you can find your true self, your tribe, your path in life. If you want all the best, most wonderful things in life, you have to go through some kind of burning process. Listen to find out more.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

– Poem by T.S. Eliot

Transcript

You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach Rosemary Pritzker.

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Hey guys, Rosemary here. Today I wanted to talk to you about those times in our life where we have something that’s trying to burst out of us, whether we’re trying to bring some creative project into the world or an actual child, or there’s some kind of spiritual crisis going on. Whatever it is, it’s something that we feel like we’re burning in the flames. Usually it feels somewhat chaotic and like we don’t have a choice in it. There’s this image I wanted to share with you guys that Martha Beck talks about, my Mentor, who I trained with as a life coach. It’s this image of this sphere that represents our psyche, where the outer shell of this sphere is what she calls the Shallows, and it’s basically where most people spend most of their life, going through the motions of everyday life, never really going very deep.

But then in the center of the sphere is what she calls the Core of Peace, which is where you find your true self, your true tribe, your calling, your path in life. But, the kicker is that between the Shallows and the Core of Peace, is what she refers to as the Ring of Fire. In order to get to the Core of Peace from the shallows, you basically have to burn through hell in some way. There’s no way around it. If you want all of the best, most wonderful things in life, you have to go through some kind of burning process. The swiftest way through the flames is to dive towards the flames, let it burn. It would be so easy to sink into the pit of despair or spiraling into focusing on how hard moments like this are or how scary it is or how hopeless it feels. But if we can little by little incrementally continue to choose to come back to our hearts and breathe into it and recognize the gifts and lessons in this moment, even if there’s enormous pain along with it, there’s always some kind of gift or silver lining.

And then there’s this poem that I want to share with you from T.S. Elliot. This one is for all of you out there who are burning through the flames right now, who feel like you’re trudging through the darkness, who may feel like you’re completely alone. You are not alone, and you’re not going to be stuck here forever. So this is for you.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

If you take the time to really sit still and go inside and sit with the discomfort you have the opportunity and the possibility of discovering whole worlds within yourself that you could never have conceived of; some of which are unique to you, and some of which are universal to all of us. Sometimes when these hurdles come along in life that we are blindsided by, they are often what’s necessary for the very specific kind of growth that we need in that moment, allowing that blossoming to happen and to take shape in the way that it needs to and sort of surrendering to that process. You may look around at everyone around you and go, “Ah, I just, I can’t relate to them. They can’t relate to me because what I’m going through is my own thing.” But I promise you, you are not alone. You are not the only person who understands that experience.

It may be hard for those of us to find each other sometimes, but that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to actually start this show, is so that it could be sort of a beacon or a light house for people who need to go really deep, who you know have gone through really intense things and want to use it as an opportunity to be stronger and wiser to come together and go deep together. I wanted to provide this as a platform to be able to come together and find each other and talk and create community in the virtual world. Hopefully that will spill out into the actual world. You can find us on all the social media at A Show of Hearts. That’s Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all @ashowofhearts. Comment, share your stories, support other people who are sharing their stories. Thank you guys for listening. If you liked this, subscribe and share it with someone who you think needs to hear this message. Thanks. Love you guys.

Thank you for listening to A Show of Hearts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe on iTunes and share it with your favorite people. Visit our website, ashowofhearts.com, where you can sign up for emails and explore all our episodes in depth. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @ashowofhearts. Remember to choose courage even when it’s scary and join me in igniting the world with our hearts.

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