Permission to Nourish: An EPIC Retreat
When I received the email that registration for the EPIC 4 Permissions Retreat was open, I couldn’t stop reading. I watched KC’s video several times. I reviewed the pricing and dates. I just KNEW I was going to be there.
Right behind that knowing, doubt raised its voice. “Where are you going to get the resources from? Your business? You just signed on with a writing coach for six months for your professional development! You have already spent your personal travel budget, so there’s no money there. Will Jake be supportive? You are only barely getting settled in Tucson. You promised to stay put till January.” Yada yada yada…
Despite doubt’s insistent chatter, I couldn’t shake the draw to attend. I texted my coach Laura to explore the fears, reality, and what requests I needed to make of myself and Jake.
I talked with KC who asked, “What do you need to commit?” I needed a full body YES! At the time, I only had an intuitive yes. I still needed to work with the resistant parts inside of me and my husband. Off I went to have some difficult conversations with myself and Jake to see which way it would tip Yes or No.
It tipped YES. Decision made, I registered, scheduled flights, rescheduled clients, and got excited.
Intention Setting
As I prepared, I had a sense of closing a chapter to open a new one. KC’s work with entrepreneurs and executives emerges from his commitment to meditation and chanting in the lineage of Paramahansa Yogananda. It felt to me this was another closure related to my Vedic spiritual and personal journey (I’ve written about this here.) Maybe even a bookend to the rather harsh-but-necessary panchakarma I partook in June.
I went with two intentions:
To step more confidently into Dragonfly Coaching and Consulting, LLC. To nourish it so it could energetically blossom, the precursor to it fully manifesting in the world.
To face the hardening of my heart I have noticed over the last 18 months or so. I couldn’t make sense of it, but I knew it was there.
Not surprisingly, I discovered the two were linked.
On Tuesday as I sat down with Shauna, the essential oil healer on staff, I simply asked what was mine to work with today. What emerged was a traumatic experience I had with a man in my life (not my husband) in May of 2021.
Interestingly, the fall-out of the event had been resolved between us. I had done forgiveness work around it and moved on. But I was holding something. I was fed up with the amount of male energy in my life. Holding the resentment was causing much disruption – a closing of my heart to my husband and the feeling of banging my head against a wall with my business without knowing why.
Shauna saw that the stuckness revolved around the words “I’m sorry”. She asked me to consider:
How can I change my relationship to this phrase?
How can I cleanse what I’m holding from the event so that it is no longer hardening my heart?
My homework was to write about the words “I’m sorry”. We both noticed just how resistant I was to this idea. I simply did not want to work with this energy or explore the situation any further. But I agreed to do it. She suggested I complete the work before I left the retreat for the best effect. I just scowled and walked off knowing I needed to do it but not wanting to.
We closed the session by drawing a card from her angel deck. I pulled Archangel Gabriel, representing the 5th chakra (the throat) and “Happy Family”. Clearly, I needed to clear my throat and chakra speak my truth to be a part of a happy family!
I’m Sorry
I had been attempting to schedule a time with the other healer on staff – Allison – and finally did for Thursday late afternoon. I knew she was working with someone else in the early afternoon, but was confused as the session with them was extended. Maybe we weren’t going to work together?
At 2:00, I surrendered and started writing about “I’m sorry”. It was difficult, but revelatory.
When I was younger, I often used that phrase to make myself small or invisible, as many women do. I hardly use it anymore because it is such a general phrase. I want to give or receive an apology that is specific. I want us to take responsibility for behaviors that caused harm and speak to our willingness to make amends.
I found clarity about the incident that occurred in 2021. I am not sorry for my behavior that day as I was firmly and gently setting a boundary. I am sad that he experienced emotional pain from the story he created about what I said. But I am not sorry for taking care of myself at that moment.
As I finished the writing, Allison walked into the cabin.
Through energy healing, she supported me in releasing the energetic cords and tangles still in my body from that day. We reopened the channels of the body that had become so depleted when I closed my heart. I reaffirmed my need for reciprocal, caring, nourishing relationships with both women and men in order to live my purpose. (BTW, we all have that need.) We discussed the steps I can take to rehydrate those channels, rebuild those muscles, so this physical form can hold the ever-evolving frequencies required of my work in the world.
And then we were done. I journaled, rested, and listened to people read their Lens Statement from my bedroom, which adjoined the group space. Then I joined the group for dinner.
The Power of Energetic Release
As I wrote this blog, I realized the details of the healing were no longer in my memory. The stuckness, the hardheartedness, even the memory of what Shauna, Allison and I talked about were gone. I had to re-read my journal to fill in the blanks. It was as if they had never been there.
This is the power of an energetic release.
All of the truly effective energy work I have received (and given), whether homeopathy, flower essences, or hands-on/distance healing, has released things so completely that I don’t remember it was ever an issue. I just move from the new, clear space into the next iteration of my life.
In the last blog I talked about “being a more aligned expression of my soul, ready to move into ‘legacy work’ – passing on the lessons from this journey through stories, coaching, intuitive work, and energy healing.” I am soooo curious to see how that will unfold. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading!
