Healing Doesn't Have to be Scary

I recently posted an article about why healing doesn’t have to be weird HERE. 

As we approach the New Moon in Sagittarius, I want to take this opportunity to write about why it also doesn’t have to be Scary. 

Sagittarius is often categorized as the sign of spiritual practice, higher learning, and long-distance travel. In each of these cases we make a conscious choice to go beyond perceived limitations in order to understand the bigger picture: higher education crosses mental boundaries, long distance travel crosses physical boundaries, spiritual practice straight up dissolves all boundaries into unity.

All of these journeys require both the commitment and the blind faith/leap of going beyond oneself for the purpose of learning, insight and meaning. There is no guarantee of what will be on the other side, you don’t actually know that it will be worth the energy it takes to cross over, but that’s the point: it’s about going beyond what you know.

The bow and arrow carried by Sagittarius is a perfect symbol for this dynamic: You gotta aim true, line it up, stay as steady as possible, but ultimately you just let ‘er rip.

Release. That’s what I see people struggle with all the time. They’re constantly aiming, never letting go. In my healing practice I am pretty much always guiding people beyond, around or through their perceived limits. I work with every tool at my disposal to clarify the target, and can even assist in the aiming, but only you can take the shot. You don’t have to carry the arrow; you release the string and the arrow flies. Yet there are many of us (definitely myself included) who find themselves clinging to their bowstring when faced with the opportunity to go beyond. 

There’s usually some fear to be negotiated in the crossing of perceived limits: people generally don’t like going beyond themselves because they don’t know what’s on the other side. I get it. Some say this is a fear of death. Some say all fear is a fear of death. I think it’s just a fear of the unknown and all the power and potential that it contains. 

And yet, when we journey past the limits of ourselves we inevitably find something that we can identify with or recognize. This happens due to the law of correspondence, basically saying that if something exists in the microcosm, there is a corresponding existence in the macrocosm. One clear example of this is observed in the corresponding structures of atoms, solar systems, and galaxies.

That’s the secret of Sagittarius (and maybe all spiritual practice?): When we choose to go beyond ourselves we always seem to find ourselves. Enter Joseph Campbell, Dorothy and Oz, and every myth ever.

There is a moment that feels like we are diving into the unknown, leaving our orbit, risking the loss of everything we know and hold dear. And yet, no matter what is lost, YOU are still there, although now it’s a bigger you, a brighter you, a you that is amped up, turnt up, downright swole with love and awareness; You have become a more accurate you, a more thorough you, an unexpected, if sufficiently magnificent version of you that still just feels like lil ol’ you.

Typically, knowing and being this YOU feels really really good. Juicy, succulent, sweet and smooth. There is no experience of limitation, if only for an instant, and that freedom, in that moment, is very real. That is the arrow, flying.

All of this is to make a single distinction:

Breaking through the membrane of our limited self creates friction. The heat generated by this friction is necessary for change to occur. This friction may feel hard. It may seem terrifying. It may cause you to face your fear, all the fears, even the fear of annihilation and/or death.

But it doesn’t have to be scary.

You will greatly diminish the fear of surpassing your limitations by doing your best to remember that you cannot, ever lose your Self. No matter how far you go or how big you get there's always just more of your self to love. So don’t get bogged down with all the aiming. Chase the ease. Chase the flight. Chase the release into the unknown, knowing that wherever your arrow lands will be the sweet spot of your Self.

The new moon in Sagittarius, then, encourages us to set our sights sky-high and beyond; to aim for ideals too glorious to be conceivable; to believe, wholly, that anything is possible if only for the f— of it. You have every reason to aim as far and high as you can because YES! Wherever you go, there you are.

This is a great time to make big changes to your long term spiritual practice: to visit a sacred site, to study with a new teacher, or to start a new meditation practice. Make a commitment to do something that clarifies your faith in the magnitude of your being. Bet on the certainty of your limitlessness. No matter how far you go or how big you get there's always more to love.

With exponential love and incendiary light,

MD