Podcast

Jun 05 2021

Episode 11 The Land Of Story

Mirror, Mirror on the wall…

In the story, the mirror tells the queen the truth and the same is true for the mirrors of our lives that are found in our stories. I discovered my own most powerful mirrors in traditional folktales.

Subscribe to this podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many more.

My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon.

Transcript

The Land Of Story

0:02
Welcome to Love Lies Beneath. I’m Zette Harbour. I’m glad to have you here. Do you feel like stress, fear or pain take up way too much of your energy? Have you wondered if you’ll ever be free of that heaviness of your past? Do you long to feel as good on the inside as your life looks on the outside?

0:44
In this podcast, you’ll discover the story of who you really are, and how to set yourself free. Together, we’re going to travel into those wild spaces of our inner landscapes, and dive deeply into the rich soil of our lives, reclaiming Soul through Story and healing our Hearts. My book, Love Lies Beneath is the map. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of this enriching journey. And now, let the adventure begin.

1:45
In Episode 14, The Land Of Story. I am going to share a section of my book where I talk about the very first story that I reconnected to as an adult that opened a doorway into a land of such wonder for me. There was a perfect storm of ingredients that created this moment, being introduced to Carl Jung’s dream work and archetypes and Joseph Campbell’s mythology and his statement that our world needs a new story. When I heard him say that it really awakened a desire in me to, in whatever way I could, be a part of that, seeking and creating a new story.

The Hero’s Journey Is The Old Story

2:42
When I talk to people about story, it’s really common for them to acknowledge that they’re very familiar with the hero’s journey. We’ve seen it in Greek mythology. We’ve seen it in television shows, in books, in movies. The hero starts out with humble beginnings, and some terrible thing happens to turn his life upside down. And as a result, he begins to search… for himself really. And in doing so he generally learns that he is, in fact a true warrior and is able to attain a mastery of his skills. And it almost always ends with some sort of a battle. There are weapons, there’s armor. Someone usually has to die.

3:37
And I think that’s the story that Joseph Campbell was talking about. At least for me, that seemed the obvious choice. To me, it seemed like we need to shift from our worship of the hero’s journey, and find a new way. So, in order to be a part of this discovery, and creation of a new cultural story, I found myself, just, called deeply to folklore. There’s so much of it that we aren’t really that familiar with. What we’ve been exposed to in the media and movies and books, is really quite different than what the original tales have to tell us. And it’s by spending time with those original tales and feeling deeply into the universal human themes that are there and feeling deeply into what they showed me about my own life, I began to grow in my excitement and my certainty about the new story that was possible. It would begin with me and my own story.

Mirrors For My Soul

5:00
I learned that these folktales were truly mirrors for myself, I learned that these folktales were actually mirrors in which I could discover myself. They showed me so much about who I am, who I thought I was, the sorts of things that I brought along with me to explain who I believed myself to be. And these folktales actually offered me a great diversity, of images, of ways of being, of identities even. And it was in discovering that diversity, that I connected to my own diversity within, that I hadn’t even known existed until these stories awakened within me.

6:11
I’m going to read the next section of my book called The Land Of Story. The first story that reunited me with my childhood love of folklore was Rumpelstiltskin. About 28 years ago, I was reading it to my four year old daughter, and felt myself light up inside. I remembered it from my childhood and enjoyed all of the wonder it had awakened in me back then. Now, with my awareness of Young’s work with dreams, and my blossoming understanding of archetypes, I saw this imaginary world become alive and three dimensional right before my very eyes.

6:55
This wasn’t just the tale of a mysterious, powerful little man solving a young woman’s unsolvable problem in exchange for her child. I could hear the weaver telling his daughter, how he had lied to the king. I felt her pain of betrayal and confusion. I lived with her in those moments of fear, as she faced an impossible task under the threat of death. Like her, I was willing to pay anything to escape the trouble someone else’s mistake had put me in. Once I saw the power of this initiatory story, I knew it was just a matter of setting out on the adventure. My view of my life shifted as it from black and white into Technicolor. I felt like I possessed secret knowledge that had been hidden in plain sight the whole time. Story was the key to making what often felt like a one dimensional life come alive in three and even four dimensions. I was being invited to go on a quest of awakening. Because of this, I fell in love with stories.

The Journey Within

8:07
I have spent a lot of time exploring the land of story. I have walked the paths, wandered in the forests, and hiked the mountains. There have also been barren deserts, murky bogs, terrifying clifftops, and raging floods. What I found is that it is a mystical landscape that exists within each one of us. It is also how we explain the ordinary world we inhabit. My story tells me who I am and how I fit into this space and time I call my life. Folklore has allowed me to find a treasure trove of images and feelings with which to craft a richer story for myself. In these tales, I have seen possibilities that had not been available to me before. I was no longer trapped in a world where things were only bad or good. There would be disappointments, betrayals, losses, and even threats in these folktales as in my own life. From the safer perspective of an adult, I could see these events as essential elements of my journey in becoming more fully me. The characters I came to know and love taught me that life is a weaving of moments. Some of them feel good, others do not. These emotional triggers do not make those moments inherently good or bad.

9:48
For example, in exploring the stories in this book, I have been able to appreciate the alchemical nature of the painful moments in my life. This awareness does not eliminate the sting of the heartache. It does, however, allow me to search for and find its meaning. Before discovering the power of Story, I had lived with a weaving of images that told me who I was. Anytime I had a wounding that I had not been able to heal, I just scrunched the threads in a ball and shoved them into the fabric. This meant that there were more than a few knots and twisted messes jutting out. By immersing myself in the world of folktales, I learned to tease out my story threads and untangle them. This dramatically altered the tapestry I had woven to tell the story of me and my life. It is incredible what a difference it makes when the knots and tangles of life are sorted out. The image that emerges shines more beautifully, even with the inclusion of the unwieldy, darker moments

11:03
Before being initiated into this world of imagination, my response to my journey’s dark moments had been rejection and loathing. It is in being present to those demanding parts of the story that the tapestry becomes art. Only when there are compassion and nonjudgment is presence possible.

11:26
My earlier unloving way of handling the parts of my story that were painful and frightening, ensured that those threads would stay thoroughly tangled. The tableau would have ugly sections that I would not want to look at, for good reason. In declaring them ugly, they became ugly and I was justified in rejecting them. They were not worthy of my attention, and especially not of my love. Unfortunately, since the only way to banish them was to cut out the part of me that felt them, I maimed myself. Lots of ugly spots slashed with swords of hatred and disgust. No wonder I did not want to look closely at my life.

A New Story, A New Love

12:13
I am eternally grateful that I found Story and it found me. As I fell in love with each tale, I embarked on the journey of the heroine within. During my travels there I found a way to stay connected to my feelings of caring and acceptance for my ugly bits. When it came time to look at my own tale, I found it easier to transfer the caring and acceptance I felt for the folklore characters over to myself. The folktales were my dress rehearsals for retrieving my stories, healing my pain, and recovering my power.

12:53
Being able to tell the story of where I came from how I got here and where I want to go next is central to being human. It is foundational and utterly essential to be fully alive. Without Story, there is only a momentary and vague impression. If it is pleasing, then not having a lens through which to understand it may not feel like a problem. However, if that sensation is painful or frightening, it is essential to create some narrative to manage and navigate it. With Story, I may be able to make sense of my adversity or find meaning in it. Without Story, hurt, fear, and overwhelm take over. What I desperately need is to grasp onto some semblance of order. If I do not have an account that helps me make sense of my world, I am lost. Because of this even a negative story is better than no story at all. Creating a painful narrative about myself is at least something I can hold on to.

14:07
Making Story is a human birthright. We may be the only species that has the ability to create fiction, to make Story. In fact, there is no human culture on earth that exists without Story. This gift, which is sometimes a curse, gave rise to our creation stories, as well as the notion of what happens beyond life and in death. It is a tool used to inspire people as much as it has been wielded as a weapon to control them. It is the ability to create images, feelings and understandings most often with words. It gives the power to amplify life. It is also the tool used to engage others in elevating their lives.

14:57
Story is the fuel for every movement and revolution humankind has ever participated in. Your Story can keep you tethered and trapped at the bottom of the abyss, or it can launch you into the stratosphere and carry you into limitless space. Folktales make excellent mirrors for my own stories because they exist at a friendly distance. When I look within them, I only see what is meaningful to me at that moment. I have always encouraged listeners to hold their own hands up in front of their faces like a mirror. Then I ask, what do you see when you look into a mirror? The answer is, of course, that you see yourself.

15:44
Then one day, a brilliant and wise child chimed in that you see yourself and a bunch of the stuff behind you. I was stunned by the insight of this young boy. He had articulated something right there in front of me, but that I had not consciously seen. Of course, in a mirror, I do see myself and a bunch of the stuff behind me. That is the power of tapping into stories as mirrors, I discover how I presently see myself, as well as the stories of my past that make this image possible.

Loving Guides

16:35
Traditional folktales allowed me to begin to see myself with less harshness, less judgment, less hatefulness toward myself. It didn’t happen overnight. And it wasn’t easy. It was simple. All I had to do was rely on the folktale to be my most faithful mirror. And as long as I was willing to look into her, she showed me everything that I needed. It was a skill that I had to develop, to learn to allow myself to see those ugly, tangled places in my story, those ugly tangled places in me, as long as I brought kind curiosity with me, and trusted that every single story contained within me had deep, rich wisdom, just waiting, I knew that I would be able to reclaim all the parts of me that I had left by the wayside, sitting in the dust and the dirt, all alone.

17:54
So I want to leave you with this thought. As you look at the moments in your life where you are experiencing that stress, that fear, or even pain, allow it. for just a moment, to be a story and imagine it as a mirror that you can look into with your own kind curiosity, trusting that there is deep rich wisdom within and know that you have the right that you deserve to become whole once again. You deserve to come home to yourself.

18:45
I’m Zette Harbour. This is Love Lies Beneath. I’m Zette. Please subscribe to this podcast so that you do not miss a single step of this journey. And I invite you to connect with me at LoveLiesBeneath.com There you will find show notes and other resources and you can also set up a Virtual Coffee Date with me. I would love to hear your story. Go raibh míle maith agat!

May 29 2021

Episode 10 Once Upon A Time

Intentionally choosing my Story gave me the power over the conditions of my own life and even the people in it. It’s paradoxical but true that becoming less protective of myself actually allowed me to experience greater freedom and beauty, which made me more powerful.

My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon.

Transcript

Once Upon A Time

1:47
I invite you to come with me and explore the possibility that the stories you have about yourself that you feel are 100% true, might indeed be just that, stories. And all stories are things that we create. And of course, you have events and people and conditions in your life that you can point to and say, those are facts. And that is the power of intentional story making.

Is It True?

2:29
You see, when we unconsciously create stories, they erupt out of our stress, fear and pain. And they may pull in little shreds of facts here and there, just enough to make them appear true. To help us explain the stress, fear and pain that we feel, to even hopefully help us avoid feeling more stress, fear and pain. When we intentionally craft a story, we look for the truth rather than the facts. And that is why one of the things that I always loved being asked, after a storytelling performance, I would share some traditional folk tale and there would be some magical being and supernatural kind of happening. And someone in the audience would always say, ‘is that story true.’ And I loved responding to that. Because what I knew was that these folktales didn’t have to be factual in order to be true.

3:39
And what was true about them was the universal and epic themes that they pointed to, the way of being aliv, that they modeled for us, the way that they opened awareness to new ways of being. And so in today’s episode, I am going to read a part of the book to you where I start talking about my first moments of recognizing the difference between the stories that erupted out of stress, fear and pain, and the stories that I began to understand I had the power to consciously craft, to consciously take ownership of, and the stories that I could now inhabit and live, and in doing so, my entire life would be enlivened. I would feel more vital, I would feel more myself.

Power Over My Life

4:52
I’m going to read the next section from my book called Once Upon A Time. Now, I felt an emerging willingness to consider my participation in the pain and chaos of my life. It felt like the first hint of pre-dawn and its promise of sunrise. It signaled that I was willing to step into my stories as an explorer. This could allow for just the slightest possibility that I might have more power over the conditions of my life than I had ever believed. This first stepping into this new kind of wilderness allowed me to begin to reclaim my Soul, and in doing so, initiate the healing of my Heart. With the appearance of these first rays of the morning sun, the darkness of my life could never be the same again.

5:54
Thankfully, it was not like a supernova blasting me blind. Spending time in traditional tales allowed me to ease into the brightness of my new perceptions. There was no sense that I could get any of it wrong. Even more reassuring was the realization that I also did not need to get any of it right. Folktales were some of my most remarkable teachers. These soulfully distilled tapestries tell the story of what it is to be human. I learned to not just read the words on a page, but to step into them, to live inside of them. They offered me a landscape within which to discover myself, I loved the idea of welcoming the many players in a folktale as parts of me that wanted to connect. It was a relief to spend time with the parts of me that I would not usually accept in stories.

6:57
As I immersed myself in and absorbed each, I let my guard down. This enabled me to truly inhabit each of the characters and receive the tale’s richness. It was essential for me to let go of any desire to judge one as good or bad. Because that allowed me to be a better storyteller. My place was the compassionate witness. And all were welcome. This practice of seeing, embracing, appreciating, and loving all of the characters in the tale helped me open my heart and mind to my own stories. I felt such joy in exploring and sharing the folktales. The characters never had to be all good or all bad. My ability to walk side by side with the helpless and the harmful with compas sion toward both had awakened. My affection for all of them softened the edges of my judgment. In doing so, my conviction of myself, and those I perceived as villains in my own life also softened.

8:08
It was not that bad things were erased or had not happened. This did not eliminate the accountability of myself or of others. Over time, and all of a sudden, I could allow both to be true. I had indeed experienced pain and loss because of adults who were to care for me and protect me. Yet, when I read the stories of Rumpelstiltskin, or the Handless Maiden, I could so easily see the value of the heroine’s entire life path, not just the parts that felt good, or were easy. Once this doorway was opened to me, I was irresistibly drawn to explore what I found within. A passion was lit within me that has burned brightly ever since.

Story Is Limitless

8:57
Amazingly, the pool of Story seemed limitless. Humans love storytelling and every culture known has myths and stories. It was as if an expansive part of myself that I had not known existed had come alive. Spending time living into a folktale was and continues to be a balm for my Soul, Heart and Mind. I enjoyed all kinds of stories, but the ones with the depth created by darkness, were my favorites. It sounds morbid, but it did not feel that way. bringing those stories to life within my imagination or in performance was deeply satisfying. This was a way to dig deep into the rich soil of my life.

9:47
I felt like a tree stretching its roots deeper and deeper into the earth to soak up the richest nutrients. Water from the purest underground spring quenched my thirst for understanding and expression. I was becoming whole. I would take as much time as necessary to fully establish my root system, allow my trunk and branches to become strengthened, and unfurl the leaves, flowers and fruit of my life. I would be on this journey for many years, decades even.

10:25
Story made this possible for me and folklore was my great teacher. As long as I modeled my exploration of my inner terrain after the tales that spoke to me, I would find my way home. More importantly, I would find meaning in the journey along the way. Being able to awaken others to their story’s soulfulness became a cherished gift. Fortunately, I understood fairly early on that it was not my job to help anyone. I understood that everyone who crossed my path was there for their reasons. Like a character in a folktale, they also played a role in my adventure. Whoever appeared was there as a voice of my Soul, as I was a voice of theirs. We each had our own business to attend to and for that moment, we could play a valuable part for the other.

11:24
This is how it works in folktales. You are not responsible for the journey of the other, even though you may be one of the elements that make their story possible. That may sound like I am not responsible for how I affect others. It may look like I have no accountability for the impact of my actions. The truth is absolutely the opposite. When I understand that my interaction with you is an expression of my Soul, and an essential part of my destiny, I will make a far more conscious choice. I am able to see you not as someone who makes me feel good or bad. I see you as a fellow traveler, and we are equals, companions sharing this road of life.

12:16
This completely contradicted my ideas that others were the sources of either my pain or happiness. I no longer engaged in fruitless and exhausting efforts to figure out who was to blame or what it was ‘out there’ that was hurting me. I had a new perspective built on my own accountability for my experiences. This was the mirror opposite of my earlier acts of self-wounding. Before, I had had to blame and maim myself as a pretense of control. Now, those betrayals of myself and the justifications that went with them, were no longer necessary. This was a mind blowing revelation. For me that was also one of the greatest gifts of my time with Joanna. My memory is that it felt like a wave of warmth and awareness flooding over me chasing away all darkness.

Creating Boundaries Through Story

13:18
All of those repugnant stories I had thought to be absolute truth, were within my power to rewrite. Not only that, I was the person who had written them in the first place. Yes, others had behaved in ways that were harmful to me. But the narrative I had created as a response was all mine. Quite unexpectedly this helped me to become more skillful at setting boundaries. This was a skill I had to build over time, but it was only possible once I understood that I had the power over my own Story. My clarity about my stories helped me to stand in a more truthful place about myself. In reconciling my grief and pain from my victimizing experiences, I came to feel like I was worth something. My worthiness meant that I had the right to claim and hold a boundary.

14:21
My wounded parts of me were real, and they called me to bring them back home. The stories I had used to exile them were something of a magic spell. It would take the same kind of power to restore them to their proper form and rightful place, safely and lovingly held in my heart. Reclaiming them would require a reckoning that faithfully bore witness to the beauty and power of my Soul. It would not be a new story. Instead, it would be a return of a true story.

15:13
One of my absolute favorite teachings that I have received from Story is the awareness that it is possible for things to look bad, to look negative, it’s possible for characters to appear to be villains. And yet, in truth, they may be the most powerful elements in the story. And that really taught me that I could look through that same lens at my literal life, and the people in it. And now, I don’t mean to say that there are not people doing bad things. There are and it’s not our job to enable them or make excuses for them. In fact, when we recognize the power, we have to intentionally craft our own most powerful story, that is what enables us to not have those people run all over us, walk all over us, treat us badly.

16:30
If anyone had told me 35 to 40 years ago, that being accountable for my emotions, and the conditions of my life, rather than blaming those people from my past, that I knew had caused me harm. If someone had told me that doing that meant that I would feel stronger, walk through the world with more clarity, have stronger boundaries, know more fully who I am, that I would be less likely to experience harm, that I would be less likely to be at the effect of others, I would not have believed you. Because at that point, the way I saw the world was, the only way to protect myself is to be fiercely angry and hurt about what had happened. And that was how I was going to build my moat, in order to keep more hurt out.

17:33
It turns out the exact opposite is true. The more I accept that, indeed, things happened and they were painful. And I was very young and unable to truly manage. And that my attempt at managing was really by building these stone walls around myself to protect me from hurt. But it also locked me up and kept me from being able to freely and fully enjoy my life, to really show up as who I am here to be. And so it’s a really interesting difference when we stop being protective, yet, we become more powerful. So it’s a really interesting paradox that the more we stop being protective, the more powerful we become. And that’s what Story showed me over and over.

Accountability & Compassion

18:35
In these folktales, what I saw was the heroine, recognizing that her journey was not one of the warrior, one of fighting, conquering, slaying. It was that she would journey through the stress, fear and pain. She was accountable for herself and how she felt and also for her actions. And it was through that accountability, and through her compassion for herself, that she became so strong.

19:08
So I want to leave you with this thought, in the coming days. When you feel a need to protect yourself. When you feel that you are being walked all over or someone is pushing you around. You feel that you aren’t strong, that you are at the effect of others. Think to yourself about what Story you might have, from probably a long time ago, that tells you that that’s who you are. And if that Story is in there, how can you follow those roots all the way down into the soil of yourself, connect to that deep inner wisdom with that kind curiosity, and say, I see you I embrace you. I appreciate you and I love you.

20:07
I’m Zette Harbour. This is Love Lies Beneath. I hope you’ll subscribe to this podcast so you won’t miss a single bit of this adventure. You can also reach out to me at my website, LoveLiesBeneath.com. There you can find show notes and other resources. You can even set up a virtual coffee date with me and we’ll talk Story. Go raibh míle maith agat!

May 22 2021

Episode 9 Dreams & Archetypes

Learning how to think metaphorically about my life was a powerful turning point in my journey. I discovered that I could be accountable for my experience of the conditions of my life while allowing others to be responsible for theirs.

My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon.

My introduction to the work of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell opened my eyes to a new way of seeing and being in the world. I could move from blame, of others or of myself, to empowered choosing.

Transcript

The Power of Metaphor

0:02
In this podcast, you’ll discover the story of who you really are, and how to set yourself free. Together, we’re going to travel into those wild spaces of our inner landscapes, and dive deeply into the rich soil of our lives, reclaiming Soul through Story and healing our Hearts. My book, Love Lies Beneath is the map. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of this enriching journey. And now, let the adventure begin.

0:44
I want to talk with you about stories as guides to greater self awareness, and greater self acceptance. I think what happens is, most often we don’t even notice our stories unless they’re causing us some stress, fear or pain, that’s when they really get our attention. And that’s exactly why they cause those difficult, unpleasant, irritating feelings. And so when I have people and experiences in my life, that are causing me stress, fear and pain, it’s really easy for me to look at them and say, it’s you, you are the problem. In fact, most of the first 30 years of my life, most of that time, I looked at those around me. And I was certain that the problem was them.

2:56
I knew that I was responsible for myself, I knew that I could be accountable for my behaviors. What I didn’t understand was that by looking at them as the problem, I was missing an opportunity to really come home to myself in a really powerful way. And I remember when I realized that the things that I thought were facts about my life, in actuality, they could simply be stories, stories that were giving me messages. It was like they were encoded into the details of the stories. So what appeared to be the problem on the surface, that other person, that situation was, in fact, an invitation. And it was really the moment I learned how to think metaphorically about my life. That is all changed for me. And that’s what I want to read for you now, in this next section of my book.

Dreams & Archetypes

4:20
One way to uncover the truth that love lies beneath all of your beliefs is by allowing stories, including folktales to act as guides. I can still remember learning this. I had worked with a therapist for a few years to one of their her was a gifted guide, and my work with her saved my life. She introduced me to Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.

4:53
Jung: Carl Jung has often been called the father of transpersonal psychology Jung introduced the collective unconscious concept, a psychic system of a collective universal and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. He also identified two ways of interpreting dream images.

5:17
Objective, people in my dream represent the actual person in my life. Subjective: People in my dream represent an aspect of me.

5:26
In later years, the Subjective approach was broadened to include the idea that any objects in the dream also represented aspects of myself. The characters, symbols and signs of the dream were communications from my unconscious mind, whose purpose was to move me along in the individuation process, my self development.

5:50
When it comes to story, I see the characters, objects, landscapes and events as mirrors of parts of myself. That which I see feel and hear within the folktale carries a message from some aspect of my unconscious mind. It is information that I have been unable to attend to in other ways. Whatever I noticed most about the story and its elements is directly tied to what I need most to learn or understand about myself. The story transmits deep wisdom and insight through its imagery.

6:30
The universal, mythic characters are a part of humanity’s collective unconscious and have relevance to me. However, what stands out to me at any given time, is a message from my unconscious. All of the people, the villains, the heroines, the heroes, and the supernatural, are all aspects of myself. Tapping into Story in this way, requires the capacity to think metaphorically. It is the ability to allow an image from a story to represent an aspect of myself,. It cannot mean what it appears to mean.

7:10
Instead, it is an imaginal expression of profound truth. When I am willing to receive it as a messenger, my story deepens.

7:23
Campbell: Joseph Campbell was a professor, author and mythologist, his best known book, The hero of 1000 faces popularize the idea of universal mythic themes. In listening to Campbell, I felt a sense of amazement and hopefulness that the stories about my life that I thought were factual, could be mythological. Surprisingly, it was the story of the Madonna and child that opened my eyes to this.

7:57
I had been born and brought up in the Catholic Church. My parents and grandparents were from upstate New York. We came from an unruly mess of immigrants from Ireland, England and Germany. The story of Jesus and Mary was as familiar to me as any of my own family. Despite loving the spiritual underpinnings of the church, I had been wary of its teachings about the role of women from a pretty early time. I attended Catholic school almost exclusively, which meant mass every week.

8:30
Even with my misgivings about the church’s gender prejudice, I participated wholeheartedly and was an avid reader of the lives of the saints. I played guitar for services and sang in the choir. Finally, in my young adulthood, I gave myself permission to rebel and to become a feminist. One of the things that stuck in my craw was that Mary’s divine child had to be a male at its core. My argument was with the whole maleness of divinity. In Catholicism, where was the honoring of the female as the treasured cherished one. So much of my childhood centered around the church and it’s rituals. I had been baptized and while I certainly did not remember it, I knew it was a big deal that it had been done. When I was about seven or eight, I went to confession for the first time. That was terrifying. That I wore my white frilly dress and veil for my First Holy Communion, which felt much more like a party. And as a teen, I had been confirmed, choosing the name Augustine because we were encouraged to select a male name.

9:43
I loved the smell of the incense, the chanting the priests ritualized motions, and the pageantry of it all. I was deeply in love with the stories of the saints lives, and often had prayed to be one of them. My secret desire was to become a priest. Although that would never happen, at least not in my lifetime. By the time I was a young adult, I had abandoned the church, ultimately believing that it had betrayed me. Like any unrequited lover, I was bitter and rejected everything I had ever experienced with it. That is how I thought and felt about Catholicism, especially the male centrism of it all. when Joanna pointed me in Joseph Campbell’s direction.

10:34
I listened to his exploration of the symbolism of the iconic image of the Madonna, bringing the male child into being I felt freedom open up within me, as I understood that this was a visual metaphor for the breathtakingly beautiful universe, giving birth to all of life. The child was male to represent that life is entirely unlike that from which it arose, and that this source of life has been feminine throughout history. Suddenly, I saw grace in this symbol where before I had only seen oppression. Even though this story had been passed on to me by the church as a literal truth, here, I could see that it held much more profound and more powerful wisdom.

11:25
Almost as if by magic, I understood that my own factual and true stories could also be the bearers of beauty and wisdom. As Campbell shared this mythic story’s earlier manifestations, my perception expanded beyond the borders I had previously accepted. This created an inviting spaciousness, and planted the seed from my relationship with storytelling.

Who To Blame

11:55
What struck me most powerfully about both Jung and Campbell was the notion that the ordinary details of my life played a smaller role than I had been taught to believe. Both of them talked about archetypes and myths as powerful drivers of one’s life. I learned the language of epic themes and dreams by listening to them and reading their work. I began to see patterns in my own experience that felt similar to these universal human adventures. Suddenly, I realized that I was not some isolated, untouchable, and broken being, undeserving of love and happiness. I began to contemplate the possibility that I might actually be a part of something greater.

12:49
Up until this time, I felt like I had been asleep at the wheel of my own life. There were good and bad days, but they all contained an undercurrent of bleakness. I wanted to have love in my life, yet, I looked forward in all the wrong places. I had honed my skill at ignoring my pain and suffering. My level of denial allowed me to project what passed for a sunny disposition most of the time, diving deeply into my life felt much too risky, so I kept to the shallow end of my moat. In my fog, I clung to the fantasy that one day I could emerge victorious from the, all too often bloody, skirmish that was my life. I believed that all I needed to do was figure out how to focus the force of my will correctly, and somehow, the enemy would be overcome. The enemy was something formless hard to see, and it was out there. It certainly wasn’t within me, or so I desperately needed to believe. My sense of who I was relied on all of this being true.

14:04
By awakening to Jung and Campbell’s uncommon wisdom, I could now discern the faint shape of something. Perhaps some of this messiness was more about my perceptions than it was about others’ betrayals, even so I still wasn’t ready to take full responsibility for all of the garbage in my life. After all, I had very clear stories about the adults from my childhood, that I knew were unquestionably true. At this point, I believed those people were responsible and needed to be held accountable. More to the point they were to blame. Not me.

Seeing Your Life With New Lenses

15:00
Where in your own life do you have the opportunity to stop seeing details as facts, and to give some room within your mind, your heart, and your soul to considering what the greater meaning, the metaphor, might be in the stories that you have about yourself, your world and your place in it? When you connect to the epic themes of life, the universal experiences of all humankind, it gives you a connection, it gives you purpose, it gives you power, because you are no longer this solitary, isolated misfit who has no place in the great story of life.

15:58
This is the main reason it is so important to find stories that resonate with these epic themes that tell us what it is to be human. And for me, that came in the form of traditional folklore. When I started to see myself in these stories, I began to feel a sense of connection that I had not known since before I had words, to even describe it. It was something I longed for, but never even knew what it was. And when I found myself in the stories, and I saw that I could be the heroine of the story, I could be the villain of the story, I could be the magical figure in the story. I could be any in all parts of the story, I could see myself within all of those characters and places and events. And in finding myself there, I was able to call those pieces of myself back home into me.

17:07
None of them had to be perfect. None of them needed to be right or wrong. They just needed to be seen, embraced, appreciated, and loved. And it was in doing this, that I truly began to understand what the journey to returning to wholeness would look like for me. It’s been another almost 30 years, and I have found so many of my pieces of myself. Some I found in these folktale. Some I found in my own stories, when I truly learned their special and unique code, that I could dive deeply into these stories, and find myself again, and it has been in that finding of myself, that life has become more meaningful, fulfilling, enriching, enlivening, vital, and dynamic.

They Still Get To Be Responsible

18:13
And there’s one thing I want to make really clear, allowing yourself to be accountable for your experience of the conditions of your life is not at all to say that other people are not responsible for their thoughts, feelings and actions, that other people are not accountable for what they feel, do, and say. It’s a little like that scene from Dirty Dancing, when Patrick Swayze is teaching Jennifer Grey the dance they have to do for the Big Show, and she is terrible at this. And he calls her spaghetti arms, and she does not know how to hold her dance space. So he explains to her that the space right in front of his chest between his two arms, that’s his dance space. And then he shows her that same space in front of her chest between her arms, that’s her dance space, and he tells her that he stays in his dance space, she stays in hers. And that is the secret to them having a successful performance.

19:31
And that is what I am talking about. By reclaiming these parts of yourself through story by recognizing all the pieces of yourself whatever they may look or feel or sound or even smell like, you are taking responsibility for your dance space. And the other person gets to take responsibility for theirs. So, as you move forward, carry this thought with you, how are you able to really tend to your dance space? How are you able to allow others to be responsible for their dance space? And what part of your stories are you able to relax and open your imagination to, to see the possibility of greater meaning and depth, and wisdom.

20:47
I’m Zette Harbour and this is Love Lies Beneath. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so that you don’t miss a single episode of this adventure as we travel into our inner, wild landscapes. And remember to travel with kind curiosity, seeking the Story Wisdom, so that you can reunite, reclaim, and restore all the parts of your Soul that are waiting for you to come home to yourself. You can also connect with me at LoveLiesBeneath.com. There you can find show notes, resources, and you can even reach out and make a virtual coffee date. I look forward to hearing your story. Go raibh míle maith agat!

May 09 2021

Episode 8 Healing Lyme & Soul

In this episode, I share my journey of contracting Lyme disease, and coming belly to belly, and heart to heart with my Deep Inner Wisdom and Soul.

My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon.

Illness can cause stress, fear, and pain, and as a result, be seen as an enemy trying to harm me. Or, I can learn to hear the voice of my Soul speaking to me, calling back home to myself.

Transcript

Healing Lyme & Soul

1:43
I’m going to be talking about healing Lyme disease and Soul. I’m sure no one wants to become seriously ill. And when I found myself coming face to face with the possibility of having a lifelong, health-threatening, debilitating illness like Lyme disease, I found myself heart to heart, and belly to belly, with some really important places within myself.

2:28
I invite you to look within your own Soul. See what voices might be speaking to you, whether it’s through an illness or some other form of stress, fear or pain. And as you do, I also invite you to remember that Love Lies Beneath all of those things. These moments, these conditions, these people, these events that cause us stress, fear and pain, they are lights on the pathway. And their purpose is to give us a sense of direction. Those are the ways we are being called to move. They are lights on a pathway, leading us back home to ourselves. If we are able to tune into their voice, if we are able to see them as the ally that they truly are rather than an adversary, something to be feared, to be battled, to be killed.

3:42
I’m going to read a segment from my book, where I describe this journey.

Bulletin From A Bite

3:50
I have had my own experience with illness as a messenger. In 2013. on a trip to Maine, I was bitten by a wood tick. When this tick bit me infecting me with Lyme, it was telling me something. It was communicating that the walls I had built throughout my life to ward off toxic energies would no longer work. They probably had not ever worked in more than an illusory way. But it had been enough to get me by until then, the moment I realized that I had contracted Lyme disease, my experience of my life radically changed in that potent instant.

4:33
Before this, I had always been peculiarly aware that I did not want my life lessons to come in the form of a health issue, as I had observed in others. I had heard about and read stories of people experiencing incredible transformations after or while healing from a serious illness. I had also seen how the mantle of ill health could substitute for personal identity. I knew that I prefered to meet my life lessons in other forms. I had even promised the Universe that I would willingly show up for those lessons, if we could agree to ‘leave my health out of it.’

5:13
As I shifted from a person without a potentially life threatening illness to someone with one, I learned that who I was had not changed. Suddenly, I had a new job and a radically different priority. The path that I had asked not to travel lay before me, and it felt like so much of it was unknown, and suddenly terrifying. How would I walk through this experience? I was in shock. I shivered, I cried. I was walking through a personal and intense earthquake, grasping anything that would help me keep my balance.

The Doorway Opens

5:54
I had been vacationing in a lovely home on a beautiful small pond in Maine with my family. The peace and quiet were broken only by the primeval calls of loons. It was an unusual year in that instead of a typical meeting pair, five or six individuals had recently taken up residence. These striking black and white birds were swimming with and calling to one another day and night. Magic was everywhere on that first morning when my daughter and I were swimming and hanging out on the dock moored just off the shore.

6:33
“I think there’s something on your leg.” She pointed just above the back of my left knee. I reached down and could feel that it was a tick. It seemed like it was barely hanging on. And after all, we had only arrived the afternoon before. It did not seem likely that it had been on me long enough to have dug in since I had not been hiking or walking in tall grass. I had removed plenty of ticks off my dogs and so without even looking I swiftly pulled it out.

7:02
My daughter trained in tick identification by her naturalist mentor said, ‘it’s a dog tick.’ Fine, no problem. Dog ticks do not carry Lyme. I thought to myself. The spot looked angry and irritated. Each morning I checked the bite area. Although still swollen, it was not getting any worse. And I would have looked at when we returned to California. I was definitely regretting my casual approach to removing it, although I was still confident that dog ticks did not carry Lyme disease. At most, I reasoned, I would need to deal with a secondary infection.

7:36
Exactly seven days later, we were in Portland, Maine, enroute to Walden Pond. I awoke, did my daily meditation, and checked the bite. I saw something that caused all time to stop. The room began to spin around me. There was now a circle of red around the site of the tick bite, a fairly perfect ring, the kind I had heard about that was an indicator of Lyme disease. I did not quite know how to process this information. It did not seem possible that it was Lyme because it had clearly been a dog tick. Yet a very distinctive circular rash known as erythema migrans had appeared. This was the bull’s eye rash of Lyme disease.

7:44
It was slowly dawning that the tick must have burrowed in overnight, giving it plenty of time to transmit the disease. My cavalier removal of it would have increased the likelihood of transmission. Realizing that this disease, which I had seen become disabling for others, was now attempting a coup in my body sent me deeper into a state of shock. I felt my chest tighten. I froze and I felt sure the hotel room was tilting. At that moment, I could not decide whether to climb back under the covers and cry or get on the internet and research everything available about Lyme.

9:06
Then I heard very clearly a quiet voice inside. “The tick is not the enemy. The infection is not the enemy. This is not a battle to fight, not a war to be won by the decimation of the adversary. Be”.

9:26
Upon returning home, I went to my health care provider, a chiropractor who utilized Autonomic Response Testing and a kit that contained all of the possible viruses and bacteria associated with Lyme. Although I had known him for several years, this was the first time I would learn that he was something of a Lyme specialist. Our session revealed that indeed, I had contracted Lyme from that dog tick, not just the one borrelia bacteria, but 11 different bacteria and viruses.

9:58
The session also yielded information on how to treat my infections. A pretty simple protocol of specially designed herbal tinctures a few times a day. He explained how the various bacteria and viruses were behaving in my body. Some had no cell membrane and slipped quietly and unnoticed into places like my brain and red blood cells. Once inside, they wreaked havoc and cause destruction to my system. These micro organisms were so well designed for their work, my immune system wouldn’t even know they were there.

10:32
I was surprised to see a glimmer of admiration arise within me for these life forms ingenious strategies. They were very good at what they did.

Discovering Truth

10:47
All the stories I had heard about Lyme, the bacteria, the viruses, and their behavior are based on what we know. None of it is based on what we do not know. And what we do not know is a lot. Therefore, despite my fear, I chose to refrain from making any premature cognitive commitments to these stories. I would not accept what I read as a judgment of what would happen to me. Instead, I chose to listen to the story I heard inside, while integrating the known science. As I had on the day I discovered the rash. I heard once again very clearly inside. ‘The tick is not the enemy, The infection is not the enemy. This is not a battle to fight, not a war to won by the decimation of the adversary. Be.’

11:53
I also heard the message that these microbes ‘are ocean too.’ This was from a teaching I had been given by my meditation teacher, john Freeman, about how we are each like a wave on the ocean. We look like we are individuals and yet we are still just ocean. These microbes are manifestations of the same source that I am, that trees are, that cupcakes are. As such, I am connected to and in communication with them on the level of the Unified Field.

12:27
I thought about how smart and successful they are. I admired their design and skill. Then, in my mind’s eye, I saw the image of a lioness bringing down a zebra. Again, this was a teaching that came from deep within. At that moment, I understood that the lioness is not at war with the zebra. It was her nature to hunt and eat the zebra. Likewise, I did not need to be at war with these viruses and bacteria to restore health, harmony and balance within me. It is merely the nature of my form to hunt down and eat anything that dissipates with my vibrant health and wellness.

13:14
This vision opened up an awareness of a truth that surprised me. It showed me that I had never truly valued my form. I had never wholeheartedly committed to her, never actively preferring my being or my manifestation. I had never declared my deepest love for myself. To have permission to live out its true nature. I would need to admire my particular manifest form’s design and skill. I would need to acknowledge how smart and successful I am in this form. I would need to love myself. Finally, it was utterly clear that my path to healing would be through this saturation of love for myself.

13:52
I began to see that I must prefer myself to all other forms. Like George in the film A Room With A Vew, I must embody the eternal YES. Say YES, with every fiber of my being to this authentic and original manifestation that I have chosen to become. I must release the Kraken of my life, my wild, dynamic, extraordinary, asks for no permission and makes no apologies because I matter, life.

The Healing Paradox

14:44
To dissolve any barriers to this self-love, I needed first to understand that there are sSelf with a capital S and self with a lowercase s. Love of the lowercase s self is dissonant to healing without the seamless awareness of the capital S Self. Love of the capital S Self combines the sense of being equal in worth to all things. And at the same time, stunning and unique.

15:18
There’s a line in the movie Contact, where Jodie Foster’s character says, “how tiny and insignificant, how rare and precious we all are.” It is a paradox, yet true. Each of us as a wave is tiny and insignificant compared to the vastness of the ocean. Yet each is also unique and valuable. I would need to find a way to hold on to these opposing truths and find myself in both of them, as well as somewhere in between. It was clear that my healing path would center around a kind of embrace of myself that I had never experienced before.

16:08
The earthquake that had begun with the appearance of the Lyme bullseye, had shaken loose pieces of my foundation. They had needed to go. The journey through an illness, which I had so dreaded, had offered me a vista onto my life I had not known was possible. I had not become someone different. I had a new job. It was to learn what it meant to love myself, truly.

16:39
I was fortunate to fully recover my health over the next five weeks. This was possible because I dove into my self care and prioritize my wellbeing. For the first time in my life, I let go of all the things I usually believed to be more important than taking care of myself. I had stopped ‘shoulding’ all over myself, which was an essential ingredient to my healing. Living into the story of this illness, and engaging wholeheartedly with what it was telling me, allowed me to gain its wisdom. In doing so, I reclaimed a part of my Soul and healed more of my Heart.

17:34
It might be hard to imagine that my Soul had anything to do with me getting Lyme disease. And yet, this particular story did open a pathway to an unhealed wound within me. Up until then, I blindly lived in a story that said, I did not matter, certainly not as much as what others expected of me. The part of me that wanted to be reclaimed and healed, reached out to my conscious self, through my fear of becoming debilitated or even dying. If I had ignored this call from my Soul, my illness would have worsened. Soul always taps into the ‘what is’ of life. She will speak to me with whatever voice I have taught her I will listen to. If I only paid attention when a story was loud and frightening, then that was what she would use. This could look and feel like a Mack truck with lights glaring and horns blaring, bearing down on me at 90 miles an hour or it could be the quiet, gentle whisper of leaves swaying in a soft breeze. It was up to me to choose.

19:04
So, I want to leave you with a thought. The next time you come face to face, heart to heart, and belly to belly with something that is stressful, fearful, or painful, remember, for just a brief moment, that there may be more than what you see in front of you. And that perhaps, if these are not enemies, if instead they are the lights on the path, showing you which direction to go to find your way home, back to your self. If they are, then take one moment to hear them, to open your heart, to listen to your deep inner wisdom.

19:53
I’m Zette Harbour This is Love Lies Beneath. Please subscribe to this podcast so that you can be with me on every step of this adventure. You can also find me at LoveLiesBeneath.com. There you’ll find transcripts of all the episodes, resources for your journey, and you can even make a virtual coffee date with me. I want to hear your story. I want to support you in connecting with Kind of Curiosity to the Love that lies beneath all that you experience. Go raibh míle maith agat!

Apr 24 2021

Episode 7 Soul & Story

Our Soul is telling us stories all the time. Often our body is the messenger and how we listen makes all the difference.

My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon.

In 1992, Thomas Moore published the first edition of Care of the Soul. In 2016, he released a 25th Anniversary Edition. In this unique book, readers are presented with a revolutionary approach to thinking about daily life—everyday activities, events, problems and creative opportunities—and a therapeutic lifestyle is proposed that focuses on looking more deeply into emotional problems and learning how to sense sacredness in even ordinary things.

Transcript

Soul & Story

1:36
In this episode, we’ll be diving into the connection between soul and story more deeply. One of the first books I read, that transformed my relationship to the stories of my life was Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. In his book, I discovered that I did not need to make an enemy of those difficult stories, those painful events, those unloving people. I didn’t have to find a way to either convince them that they were wrong, or prove to myself that I was right, that they were someone to be shunned, or conquered.

2:23
And this was incredibly liberating for me, because up until that time, all of that pain, all those people really seemed like the enemy of my life. They seemed like the reason that I had not found happiness and had no idea how to find happiness. In Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore explores how our stories, our voices of different parts of our soul, and because they are voices of our soul, they are all kindly, loving, caring, and there are precious treasures for me to keep within me and to hold safe and to cherish.

A Radical Shift

3:09
This was radically different from the teachings from my early life, which were very much about right and wrong, good and bad, evil, and godly, and that there was always a war between these two opposites. Care of the Soul demonstrated through each story, how it was possible for us to experience our lives as more of a garden rather than a battlefield. What I experienced was a sense that I didn’t have to see my life as a battlefield, where I was going to constantly be either the vanquished or the winner. And if I won, and that meant that I was the righteous, that I was right, that I had value, that I mattered. If I lost, if I had failed to vanquish my enemies, which were anything that seemed to prevent me from feeling happiness, from feeling love. If I failed, that meant I didn’t matter, and I was wrong, and I wasn’t loved. And even more, I must not be lovable.

4:47
I’m going to read the next section of my book, Love Lies Beneath. It’s called, Soul & Story.

5:06
Soul & Story. “Stories are an excellent way to care for the soul.” Thomas Moore.

5:14
In his book, Care of the Soul, author, Thomas Moore takes the reader on a journey through ancient mythology and contemporary life stories. For Moore, solving problems, and making the mind clean and tidy is not the goal. “Care of the soul sees another reality all together. It appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not offer the illusion of a problem free life.”

5:44
Finding the Love that lies beneath my own stories, particularly the more troublesome ones, is my way of caring for soul. I dive into the depths not so I can never feel sadness or hurt ever again. My plunge into my underworld is so I can clear the path between that love that lies beneath and me. I do not expect never to feel let down or disappointed again. I understand that when troubles do appear, they are messengers calling me home.

Trauma & Illness

6:17
For a long time, the idea of welcoming home all of the stories of hurt and loss seemed overwhelming, unrealistic, and possibly dangerous. This made sense, since they really did feel like the undead clamoring at my door, always on the verge of breaking through. The truth is, it took a tremendous amount of effort to keep that door shut. In fact, it took more energy than the actual process of reclaiming the parts of my soul asking to be let in. Holding these outcasts at bay diverted vital physical, emotional, mental and spiritual power needed for my health and happiness.

7:00
Those zombies and dragons would use my body, and even illness, to get my attention if that were the only thing I would listen to. I do not mean to imply that I am to blame for any illness or disease I may have. Nor do I believe that others are to blame for their health conditions. Absolutely not. I am saying, that if I do not give my wounded, orphaned pieces my attention in a conscious way, they will resort to any means necessary.

7:33
I have seen this play out in stories of people with a life threatening illness. Often they have been on the brink of death or beyond, when they realized how essential loving all parts of themselves was. Anita Moorjani, best selling author of Dying To Be Me, is an excellent example of this. She was diagnosed with lymphoma and battled it for four years. She went into a coma, and her doctors told her husband that it was over for her. That is when she had a near death experience. Her experience in the realm beyond ordinary consciousness, awakened and transformed her completely. Anita describes deciding to return from death with complete certainty that her body would be healed through love. Not only that, she had a newly activated passion for helping others love themselves. As she says on her website, “one of the biggest lessons I learned was that if I had known how to love myself, I probably never would have gotten sick.”

8:56
In Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore talks about all the ways that soul finds a pathway to speaking to us. And one of those is through the body, particularly through illness. And this is not at all to have any sort of responsibility or blame on anyone who is experiencing an illness or a disease. It is merely that like any form of communication, if we can learn to hear, if we can learn to understand the language that our soul is using to speak to us, we are more likely to transform the outcome.

9:38
And by that I don’t mean the end of the illness, particularly, that is not up to any one of us to decide. It’s the actual communion between your conscious mind and your soul, where your conscious mind accepts the body as a messenger and with that is able to see, embrace, appreciate, and love her, and in doing so lets the soul know that she is being heard.

10:12
I want to leave you with this idea that in the coming days, check in with your body at least once a day, as many times throughout the day as you can, even if it means putting a note in your calendar on your phone, or setting a little alarm to go off. And say, how is my body feeling right now? What is she telling me? And listen without a need to solve or fix, only with the need to attend, to welcome, to be grateful for, and to love.

11:02
I’m Zette Harbour. Please subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss a single step on this adventure. And reach out. You can find me at LoveLiesBeneath.com. There you will find show notes for each episode. And you can also find other resources and stories.

11:24
Feel free to connect with me and set up a virtual coffee date. I am here to listen to the voice of your soul, to hear your stories, to see you, embrace you, appreciate you, and love you. Go raibh míle maith agat!